Red Shoes the Story Begins Innocently Enough

Red Shoes

The story begins innocently enough with a young girl in a Scandinavian town who is poor, but she is also "pretty and dainty" (Andersen, 1845). The young girl attracts the attention of the village cobbler's wife who realizes that the girl does not have any pretty shoes to wear. The wife makes the girl some red shoes which she wears for the first time at her mother's funeral. A rich widow sees her and, upon finding that she has no other family, adopts her on the spot. The girl though the shoes were the cause of her good fortune, but the old woman hated them and had them burned. The story then turns to a new pair of shoes she must have for going out, and among many selections she selects a new pair of shiny, red leather shoes. The girl goes to church and has her first communion in them, but she does not think about the ceremony, just the red shoes. Every time the girl has a chance to think of someone else, she wonders what they think of her shoes. At one point, as she is entering the church an old man with a red beard shines them for her and tells her they would make good dancing shoes. As she leaves after church he makes the same comment and she tries a few steps and learns that she cannot stop. The butler has to rip the shoes from her feet. She was not allowed to wear the shoes again, but when she was to attend a dance she could not resist. She put on the red shoes, went to the dance, and could not stop. Now the girl danced up hill and down dale, and at one time she passed the old man with the red beard again in a wood. She also could not take the shoes off. She went by the church and saw an angel with a sword who condemned her to an eternity of dancing with the shoes to warn other children of vanity. Eventually she got the executioner to cut off her feet, and after she learned to think of other before herself she saw the angel again. This time he had an olive branch, and he took away her punishment.

Structural Analysis

Andersen wrote many tales and he utilized many different forms of structure. A fabliau is a story that is ribald and comic in the telling. Another type is a Shankmarchen which uses both magic and the ridiculousness of a fabliau, but it is more in the vein of a fabliau. This tale has none of the ribald or comic elements seen in these tales, so it is structured as what is termed a Propp-R variant. This structure is purely magic and is based on the protagonist going through a string of magical adventures which resolve themselves in a moral. This structure is based on the writings of Russian structuralist scholar Vladimir Propp (Mellor, 2006). He was famous for determining the structure of many of the Russian folks tales, and many of Hans Christian Andersen's works fit this type of structure.

Formalistic Analysis

Many of Andersen's tales, like the fables of Aesop, contain a moral that can be given to young children as a pablum to make it more palatable and understandable for them. The vice described here is the vanity that the young girl feels when she is wearing the red shoes. She forgets her Christian duty, an her mind is only filled with the shoes that she is wearing and not the activity (primarily church) that she is involved in. She wants everyone to look at her, and see that she is both wearing pretty red shoes and doing something that she knows they will not like. The story is also Faustian in that it shows the devil encouraging her to dance rather than worship. She sells her soul so that she can dance in the pretty red shoes.

Historical Context

This was the type of story that was being told to children in many of the European countries of this time period. Children and Youth in History says that "Andersen's use of Christian morality in his tale offers insight into European culture during the 19th century. Christianity was a powerful cultural influence." People feared the wrath of their Christian God so they made sure that the tales young people heard were filled with admonitions not to sin or they would reap terrible consequences.

Socio-Political