The ugly Duckling

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First illustration by Vilhelm Pedersen
Mute swans that are not yet fully grown have dull gray-brown plumage.

The ugly duckling ( Danish : Den grimme Ælling , also known under the title The ugly young duckling ) is an art fairy tale by the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen . It was first published on November 11, 1843, and in 1844 it was part of the Nye Eventyr fairy tale collection ( Danish , "New Fairy Tales").

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A mother duck hatches six ducks. However, the seventh egg is larger, so it takes longer for the gray young duckling to hatch. The straggler looks clumsy and clumsy and is therefore mocked and harassed by the animals. It decides to run away. The duckling is locked up for a while by a peasant woman, and shortly afterwards the duckling manages to escape. It hides in the reeds and watches the proud swans from there. When winter comes over the country, the duckling has to leave its hiding place to look for food. One night it freezes in a lake. But it's lucky when a farmer sees it, sets it free and takes it away. But the duckling flees again and hardly recognizes its reflection in the water: it has become an adult, proud swan, which is immediately joined by other swans.

Psychological interpretation

The ugly duckling represents the archetype of the outsider. Andersen himself was an outsider throughout his life and was often described derogatory for his looks. Hebbel wrote: “The poet Andersen. A long, sloppy, lemur-like, bent figure with an exceptionally ugly face ”. Thus, the fairy tale also serves as a means of self-acceptance and criticism of the ruthless environment, which is not only applicable to the time.

The massive eggshell already symbolizes the emotionally closed, petrified child at the beginning of life. It doesn't want to break up, so it's a late developer like Andersen himself.

The ugly duckling's depression - and with it Andersen's - couldn't be better described than “And the winter got cold, so cold. The duckling had to swim around in the water to prevent it from completely freezing over; but every night the hole it swam in got smaller and smaller. It froze, so that it cracked in the ice cover; so that the hole wouldn't close. In the end it got dull, lay very still and so frozen in the ice ”. The ugly duckling has sunk into a “reactive depression”, a reaction to living conditions that have become unbearable. The message: find a helper out of depression; in this case it was the farmer who freed the duck from the ice.

In 1869 Andersen wrote in a letter to Georg Brandes that this fairy tale was a "playout" of his own life.

criticism

After its publication, the fairy tale was widely praised by Danish critics. Some personal acquaintances like Jenny Lind and Bernhard Severin Ingemann were enthusiastic.

In Germany, however, it was criticized as being too “made” and too allegorical.

reception

Various artistic works are based on the story, such as

  • the 9 minute animated short film The Ugly Duckling by Jack Cutting from 1939, which was produced at Disney Studios.
  • the fairy tale opera The Ugly Duckling by Vivienne Olive 2004 with the libretto by Doris Dörrie .
  • the musical Lucky Duck , which premiered on July 16, 2004 in the theater "The Old Globe" in San Diego . The book and lyrics were written by Bill Russell with the assistance of playwright Jeffrey Hatcher and composer Henry Krieger. Previously, this story was shown with slightly different content in 2000 under the name Everything's Ducky as a three-hour show in the TheatreWorks in Palo Alto .
  • the play The Ugly Young Duckling by Katharina Brankatschk, which premiered on September 11, 2019 in Halle.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mathias Jung: The ugly duckling. The release from the inferiority complex. 2nd edition 2011. emu-Verlag GmbH, Lahnstein, p. 55.
  2. ^ Mathias Jung: The ugly duckling. The release from the inferiority complex. 2nd edition 2011. emu-Verlag GmbH, Lahnstein, p. 65, p. 141.
  3. ^ Mathias Jung: The ugly duckling. The release from the inferiority complex. 2nd edition 2011. emu-Verlag GmbH, Lahnstein, pp. 78-79.
  4. ^ Mathias Jung: The ugly duckling. The release from the inferiority complex. 2nd edition 2011. emu-Verlag GmbH, Lahnstein, p. 36.
  5. ^ Mathias Jung: The ugly duckling. The release from the inferiority complex. 2nd edition 2011. emu-Verlag GmbH, Lahnstein, p. 111, p. 118.
  6. ^ A b Perlet, Gisela: Hans Christian Andersen, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2005, p. 110
  7. ^ Perlet, Gisela: Hans Christian Andersen, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2005, p. 111
  8. ↑ Nordic Film Days Lübeck: Program. luebeck.de, 1999, accessed on December 27, 2016 .
  9. ↑ https://furore-verlag.de/shop/produkt/672/ The ugly duckling. Furore publishing house
  10. ↑ Henry Krieger. Theatrical Rights Worldwide online, accessed December 26, 2016 .
  11. ↑ [1] , accessed on September 24, 2019.

Web links

Commons : The Ugly Duckling  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files