The world of fairy tales by H. H. Andersen is an amazing immersion in the magical land of childhood, where good and evil take place. fairy tale characters. For children, they become an example of how to behave correctly in a given life situation.
The main characters of the fairy tale plot are Kai, Gerda and the Snow Queen. From the first lines, the author gives an idea of children who treat their grandmother with great respect, with interest and care for the plant world. Kai and Gerda are obedient boys and girls who take great care of the flowers and don't forget to water them. Inseparable children find themselves far from each other due to the trick of the evil Snow Queen, who is the mistress of the eternal cold. Throughout the tale, Gerda tries to find a way to the villain's castle and save her friend.
In the work, the author lays down several ideas that readers should understand and analyze after reading the book. This is the relationship of children with each other. Their tender feelings, devotion, hard work and respect for elders are the main thing that should be present in the life of every person from a young age. The extraordinary devotion that the girl in the fairy tale shows, trying despite fear and obstacles, is set as an example by the author of the fairy tale.
Andersen uses his own symbol of love, hope - a rose. This flower seems to protect not only the relationship of the heroes, but also saves Kai's life.
The author clearly distinguishes between negative and positive characters. The Queen is a prudent, aggressive, indifferent woman who rejoices when people suffer, she commands the cold. The robber pursues her goals using deceit and cunning. Kai and Gerda are positive characters. They are defenseless, hardworking and kind. An exception is the bewitched image of a boy.
Through true love, the most vile feelings can be transformed into human ones. The author wanted to convey this idea through an act committed by Gerda. Only due to real mercy, love, innocence, cordiality and friendly relations, the evil force recedes, sincere tears make Kai return to his previous state. Even the pieces of ice formed into the phrase "eternity" under the influence of fidelity and sincere tears of the girl.
Thus, the hero escapes from the ice captivity, evil is punished, and a happy ending sounds in the fairy tale. So, according to the author, any story should end where the struggle between good and evil, selfishness and goodness, love and hatred takes place.
Option 2
One of Hans Christian Andersen's most famous fairy tales is The Snow Queen.
Kai and Gerda loved each other like brothers and sisters, but one day Kai got a splinter in his eye, carrying evil and hatred. Then, during a walk, the Snow Queen kidnapped the boy, and Gerda went to save him.
"The Snow Queen" is a story about a strong and reliable friendship that sees no barriers.
The prototype of the Snow Queen is the Ice Maiden, a character in the folk culture of many northern countries, including Denmark. There is a legend that before his death, Hans Andersen's father said: "Here comes the Ice Maiden and she came to me." Then the boy began to call his father, but his mother stopped him, saying that his father had died and the Ice Maiden had already taken him. Therefore, The Snow Queen is not a simple fairy tale for a writer, it is very personal and intimate.
Undoubtedly, the image of Gerda is opposed to the image of the Snow Queen. Gerda symbolizes kindness, mercy, tenderness, selflessness. There is some maternal energy in it, something warm and dear. The Snow Queen is death, cold, a symbol of rationalism. Her image is repulsive.
The mirror that turns good into evil shows the nature of the origin of evil. Kai was a kind and romantic boy, but as soon as a splinter hit his eye, he stopped enjoying the beauty of roses and began to study the beautiful geometric shapes of snowflakes. Thus, he approached art with a rational approach.
Kai's abduction by the Snow Queen symbolizes that one cannot study beauty only in a mathematical way. You need to feel, experience. Without this, beauty cannot be understood.
Roses play a special role in this fairy tale. Kai and Gerda had their own garden where roses grew. It is a symbol of their friendship, but usually a rose symbolizes love. When Gerda was with the sorceress, it was the red rose that broke the spell and restored the memory of Kai.
Red is an attention-grabbing color. Against its background, everything seems more noticeable and bright. The red rose is the thread that binds Kai and Gerda.
The fairy tale "The Snow Queen" is not so simple in its sense. She hides under the vivid images of Gerda, Kai, the Snow Queen a huge philosophical meaning, understandable only with careful analysis.
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This is a famous beautiful fairy tale. Screen adaptation and cartoons brought the story to us. But if you read it to children in the original, a wonderful story will open, charming with its colorful, magical narration.
The main idea of this tale is voiced at the very beginning. When the child is not yet very attentive to the plot, he has not yet tuned in to listening. Perhaps, after reading the whole tale, it will be possible to return and read the introduction again. A simple, easy, explanation is given to the child about why people do bad things, judge wrongly, or see events in a bad light. “For some people, the fragments hit right in the heart, and this was the worst: the heart turned into a piece of ice. There were large ones between these fragments, such that they could be inserted into window frames, but it was not worth looking at your good friends through these windows. Finally, there were also such fragments that went on glasses, only the trouble was if people put them on in order to look at things and judge them more correctly!
In contrast to the bad vision of Kai's things, Gerda meets heroes who do good deeds despite their bad reputation (the girl is a robber), or who have power, but do not use it to harm (Prince and Princess).
A separate line is Gerda's love for Kai, passing through the years. When Gerda asks Finka for the strength of 12 heroes, the sorceress says that she cannot help her:
“- But can you help Gerda somehow destroy this power?
- Stronger than it is, I can not make it. Don't you see how great her power is? Don't you see that both people and animals serve her? After all, she walked around half the world barefoot! It's not for us to borrow her strength! The strength is in her sweet, innocent childish heart. If she herself cannot penetrate into the halls of the Snow Queen and extract the fragments from Kai's heart, then we will not help her even more!”
And it is love that helps to heal a heart that has turned into a shard of ice.
During the passage of obstacles, the children grew up. The boy and the girl were returning home. And they met on the way their grown-up acquaintances. The path of life is not always easy, it is necessary to solve difficulties on the way to your goal. If we stumble over every problem, we can stop somewhere in the middle of the road and not even notice it.
Key points for discussing the tale:
- How thoughts affect the attitude to what is happening and to people.
- What true love can do.
The plan of the fairy tale "The Snow Queen" to help the student.
- magic mirror
- Troll rejoices in a broken mirror
- Kai and Gerda met the onset of winter
- Kai saw a woman from the snow
- Kai has lost his temper
- The Snow Queen takes Kai away on a sleigh
- Spring came. Gerda wants to find Kai
- Gerda in the Magic Garden
- Flowers tell tales
- Raven helps Gerda
- Raven and Gerda enter the palace
- Kind prince and princess help Gerda
- Gerda is captured by a little robber
- The Robber Says Goodbye to Gerda and Gives Her Gifts
- Visiting a Laplander and a Finn
- Kai's game in the Snow Queen's palace
- Kai's heart becomes hot again
When studying the fairy tale G. -Kh. Andersen's "The Snow Queen" and P. P. Bazhov's tale "The Malachite Box" we rarely pay attention to their deep internal relationship. The relationship between The Snow Queen and the Malachite Box, their themes, ideas, plots and images is explained by the fact that these works are based on folk mythological ideas that are typologically similar among all peoples of the world. These works attract with the brightness of images, entertaining plot and artistry of form. They raise moral and aesthetic issues. The search for beauty in nature and art, work and happiness, love and fidelity - this is not a complete range of topics covered by writers. We will try to demonstrate and explain the relationship of these works in a comparative analysis based on oral folk art.
The tales mentioned were included in the first edition of The Malachite Box, which appeared in 1939. The book included fourteen tales and was published as a folklore collection. Bazhov was sure that his tales should be considered folklore, and not authorial, literary. As a child, he heard them from a wonderful folk storyteller, artisan late XIX century V. Khme-linin, or grandfather Slyshko, and forty years later restored the texts from memory. From the first publication, the tales were printed as folklore records with the note "From Khmelinin's tales." Some collectors and researchers of Ural folklore included Bazhov's works in their collections. But over time, it became obvious that the tales of the "Malachite Box" cannot be considered folklore. Bazhov himself wrote about this: “For forty years, of course, memory could not preserve all the details. Only the plot, the general style of the narrator and some of the most memorable expressions have survived. The Malachite Box is a collection of literary tales, but the very history of its creation and publication shows how strong the folklore element is in it.
Andersen's fairy tales also rely on oral folk art. The storyteller began his creative activity at a time when an extraordinary interest in folklore arose throughout Europe, collections and studies of folk tales began to appear. Andersen himself from childhood knew oral art, religious and mythological ideas of the Danish people. Tales were told to him by his mother, grandmother, old women from a neighboring almshouse. The writer drew plots and images of many of his works from folk poetry. The "Snow Queen" is based on the mythological ideas of the Danes.
Obviously, these works, so closely related to folk tradition, it is necessary to study, based on mythological stories and fairy tales, ritual and non-ritual folklore.
Let us first of all consider the main fantastic images of Andersen's fairy tale and Bazhov's fairy tales. The Snow Queen and the Mistress of the copper mountain, two maidens - ice and stone. Stone and ice in the folklore tradition of all peoples are symbols of lifelessness, soullessness, that which is alien and hostile. human nature, warmth, life. "Stone heart" and "ice heart" are synonymous concepts. Both Andersen and Bazhov emphasize the unexpectedness, the fantastic nature of the fact that their heroines are alive, despite their dead nature: The Snow Queen "was so lovely, so gentle, all of a dazzling white ice and yet alive! The mistress of the copper mountain calls herself stone: “What will become stone!”, The hero and the reader are amazed that she has a living female hand: “The pebbles are cold, but the hand, listen, is hot, as it is alive. » The clothes of the heroines match their dead nature. The Snow Queen is wrapped "in the finest white tulle, woven, it seemed, from millions of snow stars"; when she wraps Kai in her fur coat, he "seems to have sunk into a snowdrift". The Mistress of the Copper Mountain is wearing clothes made of stone: “And the clothes, and it’s true, are such that you won’t find another in the world. From a silk, you hear, malachite dress. This kind happens. A stone, but on the eye, like silk, at least stroke it with your hand. By such unusual clothes, Malachitnitsa is recognized by the heroes: “. for her beauty and for her malachite dress, Danilushko immediately recognized her. The heroines are surrounded by symbols of death, lifeless spaces. "Cold, Deserted, Dead" in the Snow Queen's Garden: Northern Lights, eternal ice and snow. "Fun has never looked in here!" It is just as dead in the halls of Malachite, there is no life here, her whole world is made of stone: stone trees, “which are marble, which are from a serpentine stone. Below the grass, also stone.
It is significant that the possessions of the Snow Queen and the Mistress of the Copper Year are inaccessible to sunlight. The sun as a source of life, heat and light was deified by all peoples of the world. The Danes unusually noisily and cheerfully celebrated the day of the summer solstice - yonsok, on the night of June 23-24, bonfires blazed in all Danish villages, around which young people danced, and violinists played all night without a break. This is the holiday of lovers, on Ivanov's day, young couples agreed on a wedding. In Scandinavia, on this festive night, a humanoid effigy was burned in the flames of a fire. Researchers believe that this is a pagan symbol of winter and death, a relic of the pagan ceremony of the victory of light over darkness. The night on Ivan Kupala among the Slavs was accompanied by similar rituals glorifying the sun, summer and love. The sun is a symbol of life, it does not penetrate the country of death: in the stone gardens of Malachitnitsa "the sun is not visible", the ice halls of the Snow Queen are illuminated not by the sun, but by the northern lights. Katerina (the heroine of the tale "The Mountain Master") and Gerda are afraid, the deadness of this kingdom is alien. “I don’t need your dead stone! Give me a living Daiilushka!” - Katerina says to the Mistress of the copper mountain.
When Kai enters the kingdom of the Snow Queen, the living who remained at home consider him dead, drowned: “Finally, they decided that he died, drowned in the river that flowed outside the city. About Danil the Master, who went to the Mistress of the Copper Mountain, fellow villagers also spoke as if he were dead: “a man has been bent for a long time”, “he is no longer alive”, “a man died a long time ago”. So, the possession of two fabulous maidens is the kingdom of death, the hero who went to this country is the dead. It seems that the folklore basis of the works of Andersen and Bazhov is ancient pagan myths about the other world and the afterlife of the soul.
Consider the most ancient mythological ideas about the afterlife, the land of the dead. The pagans believed that after death all souls go to another kingdom. Ideas about him are varied. The deceased can continue life in the grave, mound, that is, directly at the burial site. He may also go to a far country; to get into it, he has to go a long and difficult way. He must walk a long distance, so the deceased is equipped on a "path-road": they put on new clothes and shoes. Russian funeral laments are widely known, in which the deceased is asked:
Where are you going - going
To live forever?
Where are you equipped
Where did you fit in
What path are you on already?
In the "Elder Edda" - the famous collection of texts of mythological songs of the Scandinavian peoples - death is called "a long trip", "a deadly trip". One of the heroes of the Edda speaks of a woman who decided to die with her beloved:
Let them not interfere with a long trip, she will never return from there.
The ancient funeral rites of the Scandinavians reflected the idea of a long journey to the world of the dead; to speed up and facilitate this path, the dead were buried in wagons. The heroine of the Edda, Brynhild, was burned in a wagon. “She was in a wagon hung with precious fabrics. It is said that Brynhild rode in this wagon to Hel. ". Hel - in Scandinavian mythology - the kingdom of the dead. The Slavs also buried their dead ancestors in sledges; with the owner they killed the horse, which, according to the ancients, was supposed to take him to another world.
The idea of another world is also associated with the image of the river - it must be crossed, it is the border between the world of the living and the dead. This idea exists in ancient mythology: you can get into the underworld of Hades only by crossing the gloomy river Styx in the boat of Charon, the carrier of the dead. In the Slavic funeral rite, the memory of the river of the dead kingdom and the carrier who needs to be paid to transport the deceased to the afterlife (for this, coins are thrown into the coffin or grave), the coffin itself is two boats, which is also associated with the idea of the afterlife river .
Another world - a land of oblivion. The deceased forgets his home and relatives. Initially, the kingdom of oblivion was conceived by the pagans as a country located downstream of the river.
In Norse mythology, all rivers flow to Hel. The Slavs had a similar idea, the memory of it was preserved in the Russian language: the expression “to go for water” was perceived as “to go to another world, to the dead, along the river” and in a number of villages until recently it was considered forbidden, instead of it they said “go by the water." In conspiracies from longing for home and relatives, the memory of oblivion, which brings leaving along the river, has been preserved:
How are you, Mother Vodichka,
Run away - no regrets
No berezhkov, no pebbles,
So I don't regret it either.
The performer of the plot emphasizes that, while pronouncing the text, “one must wash three times with water from the river. You have to stay with the flow, otherwise nothing will work. That is, in order to forget the house and relatives, you need to wash yourself in the waters of the river of oblivion. The image of the river of oblivion is characteristic of mythological representations different peoples. But in many mythological stories, oblivion and renunciation of one world with the transition to another is not connected with the river. So, in Russian bylichkas, the plot is popular: the hero renounces the Christian faith and relatives, after which the representative of the other world considers him “his”, that is, dead, and helps him. In fairy tales, on the contrary, the hero forgets about his wife - a representative of another world, when he enters the world of the living. Here the kiss of a living person plays an important role - it makes you forget a woman from the afterlife. Vasilisa the Wise (the heroine of Russian and Ukrainian fairy tales) asks the prince: “Do not kiss your sister, otherwise you will forget me”, “do not kiss only with your godmother, otherwise you will forget me”, “there you will find a lot of sisters and brothers, Yes, even though they will ask the stench to kiss them, don’t kiss them, otherwise you will forget me at once. That is, the kiss of the living in folklore is interpreted as an introduction to the world of the living. Likewise, the kiss of the dead should bring one to the world of the dead. All these ideas about the afterlife are reflected in The Snow Queen and the tales of the Malachite Box.
In Andersen's fairy tale, the kiss of the Snow Queen plays an important role: “„. the queen kissed Kai a few more times - and he forgot little Gerda, his grandmother and all his relatives. “here the snow queen kissed Kai again, and then he completely forgot little Gerda, and grandmother, and everyone left at home”, “The snow queen kissed Kai again, and then he forgot little Gerda, grandmother, and everyone who was him expensive." Different translations of The Snow Queen complement each other, help to most deeply understand Andersen's thought, coming from folklore. Everything dear and dear, left at home, in the world of the living, is forgotten by the soul of the deceased in the land of death. Upon returning to the world of people, everything that was in the possession of the Snow Queen is forgotten: “. the cold desert splendor of the halls of the Snow Queen was forgotten by them, like a heavy dream. Here the mythological motif receives a new understanding - in love and happiness all troubles and hardships are forgotten. No hard memories overshadow the "warm, fertile summer" of Kai and Gerda.
The motive of oblivion is also reflected in Bazhov's tale "The Mining Master". Malachite is testing Danila: “Choose, how to be? If you go with her, you will forget everything mine, if you stay here, you must forget her and the people. Here, as in Andersen's fairy tale, human love wins. “I can’t,” he answers, “forget people, but I remember her (Katerina) every minute.” Danila himself makes a choice and returns to people, to the living world.
The Snow Queen reflects the idea of a distant land as a habitat for the dead. To get into it, Kai has to fly through the sky for many days and nights: “. they flew over forests and lakes, over seas and solid land. and above them shone a great clear moon. Kai looked at him all the long, long winter night - during the day he slept at the feet of the Snow Queen. Gerda goes to the realm of the Snow Queen, obviously, for more than one year, since, upon returning, she learns about many changes in the world of the living: the prince and princess went to distant lands, the forest raven died, etc. And Kai and Gerda themselves, “passing through a low door. noticed that during this time they managed to become adults). Gerda's path to the realm of death is long and difficult. Significantly, it begins with a journey down the river. “Maybe the river is taking me to Kai?” Gerda thinks. The river can carry Gerd to the disappeared Kai in the world of the dead - this motif, obviously, was inspired by Scandinavian mythology. The river itself in the fairy tale is fantastic, mythological, closely connected with ancient animistic ideas about the living soul of the entire living world of nature, but Andersen has this artistic image conveys the poetry of the soul of Gerda. The living, compassionate river is a figment of her imagination. “It seemed to the girl that the waves were somehow strangely nodding to her”, “The river seemed not to want to take her jewel from the girl, because she could not return Kai to her.” Gerda continues on foot. She runs away barefoot from a woman who knew how to conjure, without shoes she remains in front of the very palaces of the Snow Queen. "Oh, how her poor tired legs hurt!" It seems that the motif of Gerda's repeated change of shoes (the loss of red shoes, and then warm boots) is associated with the idea reflected in fairy tales - to get to another world, you need to go such a long way that several pairs of shoes will wear out. "Three pairs of iron boots trampled" - a constant motif of Russian fairy tales about a disappeared wife or a disappeared groom. In Russian folklore, a horse delivers a hero to the realm of the dead; for northern peoples, the image of a deer is typical. The reindeer brings Gerda to the Snow Queen.
The tales of the "Malachite Box" reflected the idea of mountains, mounds as the habitat of the dead. The underworld is inside the mountain. Katerina goes to the Serpent Hill at night in the hope of seeing Danilushka, they laugh at her: “The bride of the dead has completely lost her mind. At night, he goes to the Serpentine, waiting for the dead. Before the grieving Katerina, a mountain opens up, in it she sees her fiancé: “. someone is walking downstairs, he looks like Danilushka and pulls his hands up, as if to say what he wants. Katya did not see the light, so she rushed to him. Well, she immediately fell to the ground where she stood. But the motif of a long journey connecting the human world with the land of the dead is preserved here in a number of details. So, the Mistress of the Copper Mountain teaches Danilushka before his return to the living world, so that he tells people that "he went to a distant master for training." In the tale "Malachite Box" Malachite visits her daughter Tanya, who lives among people. The mountain hostess in the real world appears in the guise of a wanderer, about her path she says: “They don’t carry legs, but it’s not close to go.”
Thus, the Malachite Box combines different ideas about the realm of the dead: it is located in a real mountain and at the same time in the far side.
“A person transfers his interests and ideals to another world,” points out V. Ya. Propp. Perfection, which does not exist in reality, according to the ancient man, is in another world. In Russian fairy tales, the thirtieth kingdom is the kingdom of gold, it is there that Elena the Beautiful is located - the ideal of female beauty, the dazzling firebird and other curiosities. Note that the stone flower of Bazhov's tales - the ideal of beauty in nature and art, the embodiment of perfection, unearthly skill - is located at the Mistress of the Copper Mountain, in another world. About the stone flower, the oldest master says: “In that flower, beauty is shown,” and about the mountain masters, that is, the dead, working in grief, serving Malachitnitsa: “They saw the stone flower, understood the beauty.” In the halls of the Snow Queen is also what, according to her ideas, is perfection - a mirror of the mind. “In the middle of the largest snowy hall, endless and empty, a frozen lake glittered. The Snow Queen sat in the middle of the lake, when she was at home, she called it the mirror of the mind, the most perfect mirror in the world. Malachite is the patroness of creativity, everything is fine in her halls. The Snow Queen is the embodiment of a heartless mind, the main value in her kingdom is an icy and absolutely correct mind. This difference also determines the difference in the occupations of the young men taken away by them: Danila, like other mountain masters, is engaged in stone-cutting, Kai is engaged in “an icy mind game”.
The plot outline of The Snow Queen is deeply related to the plot of the tale The Mountain Master. A representative of another world, a powerful natural mistress - an image characteristic of the mythological ideas of all peoples - draws a young man into her chambers. loving girl, the bride, does not believe in his death, she manages to penetrate into the country of death; living human love turns out to be stronger than the great power of the ruler of the "foreign" world. The bride and groom return to the people. This plot consists of two leading motifs: the kidnapping (departure) of a young man and the return of the groom's bride to the world of the living.
Let us dwell in more detail on this plot, its folklore and ritual origins. In pagan antiquity, people believed that one could return from the underworld; the mythological motif of temporary departure to the country of death retained the idea of the temporary death and resurrection of a person, his rebirth in a new capacity in the rite of initiation (initiation). In the period of the tribal system, initiation rites existed among all peoples. They were tests of boys and girls who had reached puberty, their transition to a new age group. The initiate, according to the ancients, died in order to be reborn in a new capacity. The initiation rites were surrounded by mystery and took place in a secluded place, usually in a deaf place. the forest where the initiates were taken. Those who remained at home believed that the departed had died (in general, in ancient times, all those who left the ancestral territory were considered dead). The initiates had to keep secret from everyone what happened to them during their "temporary death". Memories of the initiation ceremony were preserved by a fairy tale. In it, departure to the afterlife, to the thirtieth kingdom, is thought of as temporary; fairy-tale heroes return from it. Those who have joined the world of the dead are considered adults, full-fledged members of the clan; this is connected with the fabulous motives of the marriage of the hero and the marriage of the heroine who visited the kingdom of death. The hero is endowed with signs of another world - "wonderful" gifts, "wonderful" knowledge, skill, mastery. This motif is reflected in Russian mythological stories, where, after contact with representatives fantasy world(hell, goblin, water) the hero begins to tell fortunes, predict the future; in general, a person’s skill is understood as his involvement in another world: a miller and a blacksmith are people who constantly communicate with the devil, a goblin helps a successful hunter, etc. The “Malachite Box” and “The Snow Queen” reflect memories of initiation marvelous workmanship).
The wonderful skill of Danila is comprehended in the tale as a result of contact with the Mistress of the copper mountain, not without reason “at work, everyone called Danila a mountain master. No one could do anything against him." Mountain masters are dead, living in grief, “no one sees them. whatever the hostess needs, they will do.” Danila's high skill brings Malachitnitsa out of the halls.
Upon returning from the mountain, Danila marries Katerina, acquires a new social status of a husband, the owner of the house.
In The Snow Queen it is also noted that, having been in the dead kingdom, the heroes have matured: “But, passing through the low door, they noticed that they had managed to become adults during this time.” In Andersen, the motive of growing up takes on a moral meaning: children get older when their life path severe trials arise; overcoming them, Gerda grows up - a long and difficult search fell to her lot, she conquers cold and death in order to save her loved one, to find love and happiness. But even having matured, Gerda and Kai retain the childish purity of their hearts: “. so they sat side by side, both already adults, but children in heart and soul.
The motive - the living returns the deceased to the world of people - is often found in fairy tales, mythological stories, ritual folklore. The most popular version of the late, patriarchal period: the groom (husband) goes to another kingdom for the deceased bride (wife). In the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, a young wife dies from a snakebite, and the singer Orpheus descends after her into the gloomy kingdom of Hades, captivates with music the carrier Haroia, the unknowing Erinyes and the god Hades himself. The Lord of the realm of the dead returns the singer's wife. But, having not fulfilled the conditions of Hades, Orpheus looks back to see his beloved, and Eurydice disappears forever. Russian fairy tales reflected the motif of the search for a lost wife or groom. In Russian mythological stories, the motive is popular: a representative of the world of the living returns to the real world a girl who was carried away by an antagonist (the devil, a goblin, a bannik and other spirits) and marries her. Obviously, this motif is also associated with the rite of passage. This idea can be illustrated by the example of a wedding ceremony. In Russian folklore, the wedding, with its songs and rituals, has preserved the most complete memory of initiation.
The wedding reflected the idea that the hero (groom) must go a long way to get a bride. On the morning of the wedding day, a ceremonial gathering of the wedding train takes place in the groom's house. Good horses are waiting at the porch,
"They hear, they hear the path, the path is not close."
The groom asks his parents for blessings on a long journey:
"Bless, dear father,
On the way, on the road,
To the far side,
According to my fate, by right,
According to my narrowed,
According to the narrowed, according to the mummers.
The path of the bridegroom after the bride is described in detail in the songs. He travels through cities, swamps, rivers, forests on a long road.
“As from a meadow, a meadow,
From the green meadow
The path led the way,
The path was wide,
Its width is not wide,
There is no end to the valley."
The groom goes for the bride to another, alien world. This is connected with the frequent repetition of the epithet, “alien” in wedding songs. At first, the bride laments that she will have to get to a different side, to a foreign stranger, a foreign person. ", a different world in which the girl will live. Wedding rites until late preserved the memories of the marriage of the bride with some fantastic spirit before she herself becomes the wife of a man. Then the groom goes to a strange world for the bride and returns with her to the living.
Wedding songs depict the bride, who, in a mysterious solitude, surrounded by female friends, is waiting for the groom.
“There is a Christmas tree on the mountain,
There is a lighthouse under the mountain.
There is a table in the little room,
The girls are sitting at the table
The Reds sit at the table. »
Obviously, this describes the place of the rite of initiation. No one manages to take the bride home:
“My dear father came here,
He invited me to come home with him.
I don't go, I don't go, I don't obey to go.
The night is dark, dark, unmonthly.
The forests are dark, there are no guards,
The rivers are fast, there are no transportations.
Only the bride responds to the call of the groom:
“The constricted mummer came here,
Sir Vanyushka came here,
Ivanovich came here too,
He called me home with him.
I go, I go and I obey to go.
The night is dark, dark and moonlight,
The forests are dark, there are guards,
The rivers are fast, there are transportations.
That is, it is the groom who takes the bride back to "his" world, which lies beyond the dark forests and fast rivers. In Bazhov's tale and Andersen's tale, the hero and the heroine change functions: the heroine returns from another world the groom who lives with a fantastic maiden - the mistress of the land of death.
The Mistress of the Copper Mountain and the Snow Queen are pagan deities. Their relationship with the Christian religion is indicative. When the malachite pillars mined by Stepan (the tale "The Mistress of the Copper Mountain") are taken "to the most important church in Sam-Petersburg", then for all the miners of wealth the mountains are hidden, the mine is declining. “They said that it was the Mistress who fired at the poles that they were put in the church. And it doesn't matter to her at all." Malachite is hostile to the Christian religion, does not recognize it. The daughter of the Mistress of the Mountain and Stepan lives in the human world, with Stepan's widow Nastasya; coming for her, Malachitnitsa “calls Tanya all the time as a child and daughter, but she never mentioned her baptized name.” No wonder Bazhov himself compares his heroine with the pagan Mari gods. The hostility of pagan spirits to Christianity is reflected in the mythological stories of all peoples who have adopted Christianity. A popular motif of Russian bylichkas is that an unclean spirit is afraid of the cross, prayer, the mention of God, only a sincerely believing person can defeat him.
In Andersen's fairy tale, Gerda is blocked by the troops of the Snow Queen. “Gerda began to read “Our Father”; it was so cold that the girl's breath immediately turned into a thick fog. This fog was getting thicker and thicker, but now small bright angels began to stand out from it. when Gerda finished her prayer, a whole legion formed around her.
So, Malachitnitsa and the Snow Queen are pagan deities, mistresses of a pagan other world. But writers are rethinking folklore images, subordinating their characterization to their own ideas. The images of the mistresses of the dead kingdom serve to express the author's concepts of Andersen and Bazhov.
In Andersen's understanding, the country of death, subject to the Snow Queen, is the world of the dead, pure mind, absolute ideas, absolute perfection. As stated above, the Snow Queen's lake is the lake of the mind, she. considers it the most beautiful in the world - it is absolutely correct. Kai, having joined the icy world, boasts that he "knows all the operations of arithmetic, and even with fractions, knows how many square miles and inhabitants are in each country." He wants to know eternity, he dreams of getting closer to the embodiment of pure reason and reasonable beauty. But "what does it mean to know?" - Faustian question, solved by Andersen. The world cannot be comprehended without love, self-sacrifice, awareness of the deep spiritual connection of all living things. And Gerda, who did not know arithmetic and fractions, introduced the highest. true knowledge of the heart into the cold halls of death, absolute reason - and the word "eternity" itself was formed from ice floes, eternity itself was revealed to Gerda and Kai. According to philosophical concept Andersen, the world is comprehended by the heart. Only love, combined with genuine, childish Christian faith, reveals to man the meaning and beauty of being. This idea is also expressed by the lines of the old psalm, which sounded three times in the fairy tale:
Roses are blooming. Beauty, beauty.
We will soon see the Christ child.
In the philosophical concept of Bazhov, the world of the Mistress of the Copper Mountain is the world of perfect art, the highest craftsmanship, an ideal unattainable by man, that absolute, the constant striving for which gives rise to creative torments and creates true art. Why "unfortunate is the person who sees the stone flower"? This contemplation will give birth in the master to longing for the ideal, eternal creative dissatisfaction, because there can be no absolute perfection in life, but it is precisely the desire for it that drives art.
The country of death, in Bazhov's understanding, is a world of pure art, created in dead solitude, in a stone, lifeless mountain, a world of oblivion; the world of art, not warmed by human love. Eternal service to a higher, pure, but lifeless ideal, according to Bazhov, is painful for a person. Danila the master cannot forget people and his beloved, he is torn apart by opposite aspirations, this causes suffering: he strives for an unearthly absolute, and a living and warm human heart beats in him.
A human loving heart is able to animate a dead mind, lifeless art, to overcome spiritual and physical death.
The fairy tale of H. H. Andersen is dedicated to the very famous in the 18th century Jenny Lind, an opera actress. She had a phenomenal range. Berlin, Paris, London and Vienna applauded her. Her voice was admired, and the performances were sold out.
Andersen was subdued to the depths of her soul by her beautiful voice. Lind and the writer met in Copenhagen. Literally at first sight, he fell in love with the singer. Whether the feeling was mutual is unknown. But she greatly appreciated his writing talent.
Andersen could not speak beautifully about his love, so he decided to write about it and confess his feelings. After sending a letter confessing to Lind, he did not wait for a response. That's how it came into being famous fairy tale telling about touching love, which Gerda and Kai experienced for each other.
The prototypes of heroes in a fairy tale
Two years later, Lind and Andersen met. The actress invited Andersen to become her brother. He agreed (because it's better than being nobody), thinking that Gerda and Kai were also like brother and sister.
Perhaps in search of a real feeling, Andersen spent a lot of time traveling, trying to escape from the realm of the Snow Queen, which for him was Copenhagen. Everything in life is not like in a fairy tale. The image of Kai and Gerda, invented by Andersen and personifying him and Lind, was just as pure. In life, Kai was never able to fall in love with Gerda and escape from the kingdom of the Snow Queen.
Brief analysis of the tale
G. H. Andersen is the first Danish writer whose works entered the world literature. The most famous are the fairy tales "The Little Mermaid" and "The Snow Queen". They are familiar to almost all of us. The fairy tale "The Snow Queen" tells about good and evil, love and oblivion. It also tells about devotion and betrayal.
The image of the Snow Queen in the fairy tale was taken for a reason. Andersen's father told him before he died that the Ice Maiden had come for him. In his fairy tale, the writer personified the Snow Queen precisely with the Ice Maiden, who took his dying father with her.
The tale at first glance is simple and does not contain a deep meaning. Going deeper into the process of analysis, you understand that the plot raises some of the most important aspects of life - these are love, devotion, determination, kindness, the fight against evil, religious motives.
The story of Kai and Gerda
This is a touching story of friendship and love of two fairy tales by Andersen. Gerda and Kai had known each other since childhood and spent a lot of time together. In the fairy tale, it is Gerda who has to prove the strength of friendship, who went on a long and difficult journey after the boy, who became a prisoner of the Snow Queen herself. Having charmed Kai with a piece of ice, she turned him into a callous, spoiled and arrogant boy. At the same time, Kai was not aware of his changes. Having managed to go through many difficulties, Gerda managed to find Kai and melt his icy heart. Kindness and faith in the salvation of a friend gave the girl strength and confidence. The fairy tale teaches to be devoted to one's feelings, not to leave a loved one in trouble, to be kind and, despite the difficulties, strive to achieve the goal.
Characteristics of Kai and Gerda
Andersen's fairy tale describes to us a kind, attentive and sympathetic Kai. But after a challenge to the Snow Queen herself, he turns into a rude and angry boy, capable of offending anyone, even Gerda and his grandmother, whose fairy tales he loved to listen to. One of Kai's tricks ended up being captured by the Snow Queen.
In the palace of the evil queen, he became a boy with an icy heart. Kai kept trying to put the word "eternity" out of ice cubes, but he couldn't. Then she promised him to give skates and the whole world. Kai's desire to comprehend eternity indicates his lack of understanding that this cannot be done without true feelings, without love, with only a cold mind and an icy heart.
Deprived of all human feelings, Kai in fear wanted to read a prayer, but could not. All he could think of was the multiplication table. Frozen figures of regular geometric shape - this is the only thing that delighted him. Once beloved roses, Kai tramples, and examines snowflakes with interest through a magnifying glass.
The image of Gerda is a contrast to the character of the Snow Queen. To find Kai and rescue him from the ice castle, the girl goes on a long and difficult journey. In the name of her love, a brave little girl ventures into the unknown. The obstacles encountered on this path did not make Gerda angry and did not force him to turn back towards the house, to leave his friend as a prisoner of the Snow Queen. Friendly, kind and sweet, she remained throughout the tale. Courage, perseverance and patience help her not to lose heart, but humbly overcome all failures. Thanks to this character, she managed to find Kai. And love for him was able to melt his icy heart and cope with the spell of the evil queen.
The description of Gerda and Kai can be a prototype in life real people and similar stories. Just take a closer look around.
Characteristics of the Snow Queen
Snow Queen, Snowstorm Witch, Ice Maiden - a classic character in the folklore of Scandinavia. Lifeless and cold space, snow and eternal ice - this is the Kingdom of the Snow Queen. A tall, beautiful ruler on a throne located on the lake, which is called the "Mirror of the Mind", she is the embodiment of a cold mind and beauty, devoid of feelings.
Growing up fairy tale characters
After visiting the realm of the Snow Queen, the heroes become adults. Moral meaning acquires the motive of growing up. Children grow older when they face severe life trials, overcoming which Gerda managed to save her loved one, resisting the difficult searches and intrigues that the Snow Queen arranged for them. Kai and Gerda, despite growing up, retain their childish spiritual purity. They seem to have been born again with the goal of a new adult existence.
Christian motives in a fairy tale
Andersen's fairy tale is saturated with Christian motives. In Russian publications, this is rarely seen. In the episode, when Gerda tries to enter the Queens, the guards do not let her in. She was able to get into it thanks to the fact that she began to read the prayer “Our Father”. After that, the guards, turning into angels, paved the way for the girl.
At the time when Gerda and Kai return to native home, grandmother reads the gospel. After the meeting, the children all together begin to dance around the rose bush and sing a Christmas carol, which ended the instructive tale.
And this mysterious journey from the world of good to the country of evil began with a fragment that fell into Kai's eye. The mirror broke due to the fact that the trolls (that is, demons) reflected in it everything in the world in a distorted form. Andersen explains this by the fact that the demons in the lying mirror wanted to reflect the Creator. God, not allowing this, made it so that the mirror escaped from the hands of the demons and broke.
The image of Hell is reflected in the word "eternity", which the Snow Queen instructed Kai to compose. Icy, not created by the Creator, eternity is an image of hell.
In the episode where the deer asks the sorceress to help Gerda and give her the power of twelve heroes, she replies that she cannot make the girl stronger than she is. Her strength is a small loving heart. And God helps her anyway.
The opposition of cold and heat
From the prologue of the fairy tale, Andersen begins to write that for some people, fragments of ice fall into the heart, which freezes, becomes cold and insensible. And at the end of the tale, he describes how Gerda's hot tears fall on Kai's chest and a piece of ice melts in his heart.
Cold in a fairy tale is the personification of evil, everything bad on earth, and heat is love.
Therefore, in the eyes of the Snow Queen, Andersen sees the absence of warmth, the presence of cold and insensibility.