The Little Match Girl
Recently I watched "Hogfather", which is a Discworld movie (I never knew such things existed.) I've only read a couple Discworld books, this one not included, but I was able to mostly enjoy the movie. I think it might be slightly inaccessible to Pratchett fans, though.
This post is not about that movie.
One minor scene involved a discussion of "The Little Match Girl", by Hans Christian Andersen. I had completely forgotten about this fairy-tale, and in fact hadn't thought about it in probably thirty years; nevertheless, the mere mention of the name brought back vivid recollections of reading a book with Rankin-Bass puppet-style photos illustrating the story. Since the story seems to be rarely mentioned in the popular media, those of you who are unfamiliar with it might want to read it before I express my opinion. It's short.
Are you ready, now?
That story is fucked up.
I mean, really. I've been mulling it over, trying to figure out why it annoys me while other tales with depressing subject matter don't annoy me and in fact are frequently in my "favorites" column. After all, "Pan's Labyrinth" is practically the same story: there's a little girl who suffers a lot and it all ends badly, with the girl's only reward being an end to her suffering. To a lesser extent, other films and books I like have a similar pattern: "Edward Scissorhands" goes downhill for the main character rapidly near the end, and there's a sense that the narrator is making up the happy ending; either she doesn't really know what happened to Edward after that dark night, or she's lying to avoid telling her granddaughter "yeah, those bastard neighbors killed him."
"Pan's Labyrinth" is a really close match, though, because of the whole fantasy element. Both girls are escaping their suffering with visions of beautiful or fantastic things, and both end with fantastic post-mortem events that the viewer might choose to interpret as simply a final hallucination, instead of an ascension into the afterlife. So why do I think "Pan's Labyrinth" is better?
It's the message.
"The Little Match Girl" is suffering, not just on New Year's Eve, but in her life in general. Her suffering is described concretely, but the cause is never really fully explored. We know her father will beat her for not selling matches or using them herself, but there's not much comment on this fact beyond that simple statement. We know she's poor, we know she's having trouble making money tonight selling matches, but there's no social commentary about her condition. She's cold, and we know there *must* be people around, but we never hear how the people around her react to her. Her suffering is described as if it is being administered by impersonal forces or perhaps even an uncaring god. Then, her suffering is ended and she ascends into heaven carried by angels. Great, but couldn't you guys have ended her suffering while she was still alive?
The match-girl is also passive. Things happen to her. The only actions she takes are trying (unsuccessfully) to sell matches and lighting them, first for warmth, but later for the visions they trigger. She has no hope of shifting the huge impersonal forces that aim to destroy her.
In contrast, Ofelia in "Pan's Labyrinth" is active. Her love of fairy-tales and her innocent belief are things she uses not just to escape her suffering, but to try to save her mother and her baby brother. And she's contrasted with her step-father, who hates fairy-tales and is hostile to her. Unlike "The Little Match Girl", "Pan's Labyrinth" tells us who to blame for Ofelia's suffering: the captain, and people like him, who are also to blame for many other horrible things. The story isn't a passive promise of good things in the afterlife, it's an indictment of the horrible things in the world.
Consider another movie with a downer ending: "Brazil". Sure, the main character "wins" by retreating into fantasy, so it's a depressing ending -- but the story as a whole is an indictment of the society that would incarcerate innocent people and punish those who would try to fix things -- air conditioners, or social injustice -- without state approval. We're supposed to watch movies like this and think "gee, I don't want to be part of an evil bureaucracy or a fascist regime," and that makes us better people. "The Little Match Girl" tells us to be better people by being passive and not questioning why we suffer.
It's not just that you have to have the same religious outlook as Hans Christian Andersen. If I temporarily imagine myself a Christian, I feel the message of "The Little Match Girl" is slightly blasphemous. It's based on the old question of "If God is good, why is their suffering in the world?" But in my mind, the answer to that question has to take into account where most of the suffering in the world comes from. Hint: it's not God, and it's not the Devil. By refusing to address this question and examining it from both sides, that of the victim and that of the persecutor, the story is basically saying "God is the persecutor." But really, isn't the point of Christianity that the suffering in the world is caused by the sins of human beings -- people killing each other, stealing from each other, living according to greed, lust, and wrath?
The "Hogfather" scene in question, by the way, is the only time I've seen an author come to the same conclusion as I have. It's a fucked-up story. The scene is sort of a throw-away, not part of the plot, but you might consider this a minor spoiler ...
Death, when he hears about the little match girl, finds the whole thing ridiculously unjust, and intervenes. In his opinion, the smile on her face as she freezes to death, holding out a promise to us all that no suffering is forever, is just not enough, because anyone at any time could have seen the child freezing to death and done the right thing and simply brought her in from the cold and given her something to eat. Killing her doesn't make us better people, saving her does.
This post is not about that movie.
One minor scene involved a discussion of "The Little Match Girl", by Hans Christian Andersen. I had completely forgotten about this fairy-tale, and in fact hadn't thought about it in probably thirty years; nevertheless, the mere mention of the name brought back vivid recollections of reading a book with Rankin-Bass puppet-style photos illustrating the story. Since the story seems to be rarely mentioned in the popular media, those of you who are unfamiliar with it might want to read it before I express my opinion. It's short.
Are you ready, now?
That story is fucked up.
I mean, really. I've been mulling it over, trying to figure out why it annoys me while other tales with depressing subject matter don't annoy me and in fact are frequently in my "favorites" column. After all, "Pan's Labyrinth" is practically the same story: there's a little girl who suffers a lot and it all ends badly, with the girl's only reward being an end to her suffering. To a lesser extent, other films and books I like have a similar pattern: "Edward Scissorhands" goes downhill for the main character rapidly near the end, and there's a sense that the narrator is making up the happy ending; either she doesn't really know what happened to Edward after that dark night, or she's lying to avoid telling her granddaughter "yeah, those bastard neighbors killed him."
"Pan's Labyrinth" is a really close match, though, because of the whole fantasy element. Both girls are escaping their suffering with visions of beautiful or fantastic things, and both end with fantastic post-mortem events that the viewer might choose to interpret as simply a final hallucination, instead of an ascension into the afterlife. So why do I think "Pan's Labyrinth" is better?
It's the message.
"The Little Match Girl" is suffering, not just on New Year's Eve, but in her life in general. Her suffering is described concretely, but the cause is never really fully explored. We know her father will beat her for not selling matches or using them herself, but there's not much comment on this fact beyond that simple statement. We know she's poor, we know she's having trouble making money tonight selling matches, but there's no social commentary about her condition. She's cold, and we know there *must* be people around, but we never hear how the people around her react to her. Her suffering is described as if it is being administered by impersonal forces or perhaps even an uncaring god. Then, her suffering is ended and she ascends into heaven carried by angels. Great, but couldn't you guys have ended her suffering while she was still alive?
The match-girl is also passive. Things happen to her. The only actions she takes are trying (unsuccessfully) to sell matches and lighting them, first for warmth, but later for the visions they trigger. She has no hope of shifting the huge impersonal forces that aim to destroy her.
In contrast, Ofelia in "Pan's Labyrinth" is active. Her love of fairy-tales and her innocent belief are things she uses not just to escape her suffering, but to try to save her mother and her baby brother. And she's contrasted with her step-father, who hates fairy-tales and is hostile to her. Unlike "The Little Match Girl", "Pan's Labyrinth" tells us who to blame for Ofelia's suffering: the captain, and people like him, who are also to blame for many other horrible things. The story isn't a passive promise of good things in the afterlife, it's an indictment of the horrible things in the world.
Consider another movie with a downer ending: "Brazil". Sure, the main character "wins" by retreating into fantasy, so it's a depressing ending -- but the story as a whole is an indictment of the society that would incarcerate innocent people and punish those who would try to fix things -- air conditioners, or social injustice -- without state approval. We're supposed to watch movies like this and think "gee, I don't want to be part of an evil bureaucracy or a fascist regime," and that makes us better people. "The Little Match Girl" tells us to be better people by being passive and not questioning why we suffer.
It's not just that you have to have the same religious outlook as Hans Christian Andersen. If I temporarily imagine myself a Christian, I feel the message of "The Little Match Girl" is slightly blasphemous. It's based on the old question of "If God is good, why is their suffering in the world?" But in my mind, the answer to that question has to take into account where most of the suffering in the world comes from. Hint: it's not God, and it's not the Devil. By refusing to address this question and examining it from both sides, that of the victim and that of the persecutor, the story is basically saying "God is the persecutor." But really, isn't the point of Christianity that the suffering in the world is caused by the sins of human beings -- people killing each other, stealing from each other, living according to greed, lust, and wrath?
The "Hogfather" scene in question, by the way, is the only time I've seen an author come to the same conclusion as I have. It's a fucked-up story. The scene is sort of a throw-away, not part of the plot, but you might consider this a minor spoiler ...
Death, when he hears about the little match girl, finds the whole thing ridiculously unjust, and intervenes. In his opinion, the smile on her face as she freezes to death, holding out a promise to us all that no suffering is forever, is just not enough, because anyone at any time could have seen the child freezing to death and done the right thing and simply brought her in from the cold and given her something to eat. Killing her doesn't make us better people, saving her does.