The Ugly Duckling

The Ugly Duckling (Danish: Den grimme Ælling ) is a literary fairy tale by Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen. It was first released on November 11, 1843 and 1844 part of the collection of fairy tales Nye Eventyr ( Danish, " New Fairy Tales ").

Content

A mother duck hatched six healthy ducklings. The seventh egg but was bigger, that's why it took longer to a gray chicks ausschlüpfte. The six chicks quickly learned. The seventh seemed clumsy, awkward and unusually ugly. The animals mocked it because it was stupid and ugly, and none of them wanted to play with him. It decided to run away and hit two geese that did not have an answer as to why it was so ugly, and was warned by the geese in front of the hunter. No animal, which it had met, ever heard of a gray ducklings. From an old peasant woman the duckling was kept for a goose and locked in a cage to get goose eggs. However, it could not lay eggs in it. When the farmer's wife one night had inadvertently left open the cage door, the little duckling to be slaughtered out of fear decided to flee. When morning dawned, it found a place to hide in the reeds at the edge of a beautiful lake and stayed there for a while. It was watching the beautiful, proud swans and over again, wishing for once to be so beautiful. When winter came over the land, the duckling had to leave his hideout in search of food. His strength slipped until it finally fell into the snow. But it was lucky, a farmer saw it and took it home. The family took care of the winter to the duckling. In the spring the farmer brought it back to the sea - and there it recognized himself in the mirror image of the water again barely: It had become an adult, beautiful swan and flew away with the other swans. He really was the most beautiful of all!

Interpretation

Bruno Bettelheim thinks it 'll help a child not to offer a solution by turning into another animal, that's not it.