The Shadow (fairy tale)

The Shadow (Danish: Skyggen ) is a fairy tale by the Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen. The tale was first published in 1847.

Content

Once a learned man went from the northern regions of Europe on a trip to the south. One night he sat on his terrace, while the fire cast its shadow on the opposite balcony behind him. As he sat there, the man watched in amusement as his shadow mimicked his every move as he would really have to sit on the other balcony. When he was finally tired and went to sleep, he stood in front of the shadows, as he also did this in the house on the opposite side of the street.

The next morning, however, the man found to his surprise that he had really lost his shadow overnight. When he, however, a new shadow from his toes up, he thought nothing of it and returned to Northern Europe back to write again.

Several years passed, until one night a man knocked on his door. To his surprise, it was his shadow he had lost years ago in Africa. This shadow was now with almost perfect human look in his front door. Amazed by his sudden reappearance of the learned man invited him to his house. Both sat down at the fireplace, where the shadow told the man as he was himself become a man.

The learned man was a quiet and gentle man. His main interests lay in the goodness, beauty and truth. These were the subjects about which he wrote often, but that seemed to interest anyone else. The Shadow told his men that this did not understand the world, but that he himself had seen the real world, with their wickedness and bad people in it.

The shadow grew larger and more vibrant over the years, while the writer was getting thinner and paler. Finally, the man was so ill that his former shadow suggested to him a trip to a spa at his expense, but under the condition that the former shadow itself is likely to occur as Lord, as the writer had to pretend he was the shadow. As absurd as this proposal is also sounded at the end of the learned man took it. Together they went on the road and the shadows played the men. In the spa town of Shadows met a beautiful princess. After both had talked and danced one night together, the princess fell in love with the shade.

Just before the wedding decency, the shadow of his former masters offered a high position in the palace at, under the condition that it now finally his own shadow was. The writer refused immediately and threatened the princess to say everything, but the shadow had him arrested. His dismay pretending he met with the Princess and told her:

In the original it says:

In German:

As the shadow and the princess were married later that night, the learned man was already dead

Interpretation

The shadow is an exemplary story of Andersen's fairy tales rather gloomy. In the story the writer is drawn as a moral person who deals with the good and the truth in the world. But the people around him did not seem so much interested in his thoughts and feelings on these subjects to have. His shadow even claims that the writer does not see the world as it really is.

The shadow claims to the world and everything in it to have seen, but he does not have its own soul. He is greedy for its own shadow and wonders later his old masters to switch roles on their journey. When the learned man finally realizes how deep his shadow has already fallen, it is already too late.

The end is particularly bleak for a fairy tale, because Andersen suggesting that it is not always the good, the triumph and that evil actually has a great control over the good and righteous.

Film

• The shadow or Stín fairy tale film directed by Raza Ludvik, Czech Republic 1998