Into the Mind of Hans Christian Andersen “Hans Christian Andersen was a product of two towns, two social environments, two worlds and two ages.” Said Johan de Mylius. Andersen was born on April 2, 1805 in Odense, Denmark. The only child to a poor shoe maker and a washerwoman, Andersen experienced the lower quality of life. As a young child he would roam the local town. He would often visit the home for the elderly in Odense where the old women would tell him aged stories and legends they were told when they were children themselves. These stories are believed to have attributed to his creative imagination and gift for writing children stories. In 1812 Hans’ father took him to the local theatre for the first time, and he was infatuated with …show more content…
He makes the readers feel how Andersen felt while writing the work. Andersen’s stories are all alike in this way. His stories have the same characteristics throughout. For example like the excerpt from The Garden of Eden, in The Wild Swans Andersen makes the reader feel the words they read, this particular scene is where Elisa claims of being innocent of a crime she was accused of and the village people see truth to her words:
““Now I dare speak!” she cried. “I am innocent!” The people knowing that a miracle had taken place, kneeled down before her as they would a saint. But Elisa, worn out by fear, worry and pain, fainted lifelessly into the arms of one of her brothers.” (Pages 89-90)
As seen in the excerpt Andersen’s characters seem to live emotionally heightened lives, which expresses his dramatic style. Just as Andersen’s flamboyant style his smart use of literary devices was the “glue” to all of his works. He tends to use quite a bit of narrative description and imagery, while being extremely detailed in everything that his happening throughout the story. For example this excerpt from The Little Mermaid shows exactly just how well Andersen was able to use literary devices to be detailed and thorough with his
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Every writer and reader alike knows that without using literary devices the story would be bland and wouldn’t “flow”. Hans Christian Andersen is a prime example of the good stories that can come from knowing how to properly use literary devices. Out of the many successful works written by Andersen, there is a fairy tale that was more successful than the rest. The Little Mermaid. This story is about a young woman who gets into a tough situation, there have been many adaptations of each which is why this story have continued to be a household story through the
In one, a specimen-creating brute robs a pelican child’s life and her guardian trying to bring her back to life. In the other, a prince learns the value of his frog-turned-princess and sets out on a quest to find her. Joy Williams’s Baba Iaga and the Pelican Child and Alexander Afanasev’s The Frog Princess are both critical facets of the fairy tale genre. While initially it may seem that Williams preserved no elements from Afanasev’s tale, upon a closer glance, it is evident that the two tales’ similarities outnumber their differences. By incorporating a generous portion of the original story into his, Williams’s version brings forth an innovative arrangement of classic and new. As a result, William’s tale introduces features to the tale that mirror everyday life lessons while simultaneously maintaining qualities that are reflective of the definitional aspects of the fairy tale genre.
“ The horizon was the color of milk. Cold and fresh. Poured out among the bodies” (Zusak 175). The device is used in the evidence of the quote by using descriptives words that create a mental image. The text gives the reader that opportunity to use their senses when reading the story. “Somehow, between the sadness and loss, Max Vandenburg, who was now a teenager with hard hands, blackened eyes, and a sore tooth, was also a little disappointed” (Zusak 188). This quote demonstrates how the author uses descriptive words to create a mental image which gives the text more of an appeal to the reader's sense such as vision. “She could see his face now, in the tired light. His mouth was open and his skin was the color of eggshells. Whisker coated his jaw and chin, and his ears were hard and flat. He had a small but misshapen nose” (Zusak 201). The quotes allows the reader to visualize what the characters facial features looked like through the use of descriptive words. Imagery helps bring the story to life and to make the text more exciting. The reader's senses can be used to determine the observations that the author is making about its characters. The literary device changes the text by letting the reader interact with the text by using their observation skills. The author is using imagery by creating images that engages the reader to know exactly what's going on in the story which allows them to
woman she once knew. Both women only see the figure they imagine to be as the setting shows us this, in the end making them believe there is freedom through perseverance but ends in only despair.
“Geisel found his niche churning out tales of the weird and the whimsical, populating them with squawking fish and top-hatted cats.” Very few child...
In The Princess and the Goblin, the author uses many literary devices to bring his writing to life and to illustrate specific moments in the story.
Erik Erikson was born on June 15, 1902 in Frankfurt, Germany. According to his obituary that appeared in The New York Times, his parents were separated before he was born due to the fact that he was the result of an affair. He never met his birth father. His mother was young when she had him and raised him all by herself. She eventually married physician Dr. Theodor Homberger. For many years Erikson had no idea that Dr. Homberger was not his actual father. When the truth did come out, Erikson was left with confusion about who he really was as an individual. This is what led to his interest in how one’s identity is formed. This interest continued to grow throughout his school experience. He would often get teased at his temple school for not being like the others in terms of ancestry, and because he was tall, blonde, and blue-eyed. He was also rejected in grammar school due to his Jewish background. Those negative experiences motivated him even more to figure out how exactly one forms their identity and continued to influence his work the rest of his life (Cherry, 2014).
Tatar, Maria. Off with Their Heads!: Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1992. Print.
“Poe’s Theory of Poetry.” The Big Read. Handout One. N.d.. 16. Web. 19 April 2014.
Erik Erikson developed a theory that every person has to go through in their life, but each person has to go through each step and cannot jump steps. Many people believed in Erikson’s theory and how there has to be a various stages of steps a person has to go through. The real question is, who is Erik Erikson? In 1902, near Frankfort, Germany, Erick Erikson was born to Danish parents. During Erikson’s early years of life he found an interested in art and began to study in Europe. After a year, Erickson decided to return home to Germany, where he got accepted into art school and went towards with his passion. Many years passed and with Erikson’s degree, he started to teach art to children from different countries for abundant amount of years.
In both Hans Christian Andersons “The Little Mermaid,” and Disney’s version of the story, the main character— a young and beautiful mermaid— waits anxiously for her fifteenth birthday to venture from her father’s underwater castle to the world above the water. As the story carries on the mermaids priorities change; her modest and selfless nature is revealed towards the end in Andersen’s version. However, Disney’s version encompasses a rather shallow ending and plot throughout. The theme found in comparing the two versions reveal that Andersen’s substance trumps Disney’s entertainment factor in fairy tales.
..., Maria. “An Introduction to Fairy Tales.” Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. Ed. Laurence Behrens, Leonard J. Rosen. Toronto: Longman, 2013. 230-235. Print.
Most works of literature derive the basis of their meaning from a moment of time of the respective author that directly relates to situations that influence him as a person. Because Hans Christian Andersen encountered first-hand the struggles of an impoverished lifestyle in infancy, he expresses the problems associated with life in his short fairytale The Stead Fast Tin Soldier. In order to elicit to a posterity that would not understand otherwise the perseverance and struggles that accompany success, he uses the fairytale as a mechanism for persuasion. When composing a piece of literature for the purpose of elucidating an emotion, making analysis, or, as in the case of The Steadfast Tin Soldier, to persuade, an author uses many tools of his arsenal, known in its generic collective as rhetoric. In order to achieve what he desires in this piece of work, a story that encourages personal individuality, drive, and the pursuit of self-actualization, Andersen uses many measures of rhetoric such as juxtaposition, symbolism, irony, motifs, and emotional manipulation.
Fairy Tale Text & Motif. Prod. Distribution Access. Distribution Access, 2001.Discovery Education. Web. 1 December 2001. .
Bottigheimer Ruth B. Fairytales Folk Narrative Research and History “Social History” JSTOR 14, 3 (1989). 343-357, Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
Fairy tales have been an essential part of history since the dawn of time. Many people remember reading them as a child, or hearing them told by a parent. They have been written as books and created as movies and tv shows for humanity to enjoy. What do we know about where fairy tales originate? In this essay, we will dig deep into the history of fairy tales, and see what we can discover. Fairy Tales written many years ago are still famous today. They create a world of imagination for children and gives them a brief break from day to day realities.