The Fir-Tree

Often times, fairy tales and Christmas stories end happily and focus on the rewards to be reaped from longing and determination. However, although a lesson is to be garnered and understood from Hans Christian Andersen’s The Fir-Tree, the tale does not follow the usual formula of closing on happiness and a lesson derived from something gained. In fact, the overall message of the story comes from the main character’s anxiousness and inability to live in the moment, as well as the following sorrow that is inherited from his losses. Andersen’s The Fir-Tree, originally published in 1844, is a Christmas tale that warns of the dangers of blind desires and encourages the reader to “live in the moment.” In order to accomplish and provide for the effectiveness
In the tale, the Fir-Tree is characterized as someone who constantly longs for something better, something grander, as he states, “oh, how I long, how I suffer! I do not know myself what is the matter with me!” (Andersen 1). The Fir-Tree’s main trait is his steadfast blind desire. He represents someone who cannot be happy “in the moment” as he constantly awaits, and expects, more glory and greatness that may be to follow. This exact characterization can be directly compared to the story’s author, Hans Christian Andersen. According to Andersen’s biographer, Jackie Wullschlager, the Fir-Tree is much like his creator because he is “a fantasist, vain, fearful, restless, afflicted with the trembling sensitivity of the neurotic, manically swinging from hope to misery” (Wullschlager 272). Therefore, the Fir-Tree not only serves as a symbol for any person who may be overwhelmed with blind desires, but as for the author himself. This promotes the main theme and lesson gained from the story as it provides justification for the takeaway that Andersen intended for his readers to have. Andersen’s message in The Fir-Tree is one that he wished to pass on because he felt the same limitless longing, insufferable anxiousness, and continuous pining that the Fir-Tree did during his lifetime. These feelings and senses that Andersen
Throughout the story, Andersen employs many different types of imagery in order to effectively convey the nature of the Fir-Tree. Such as when he states, “and the Wind kissed the Tree, and the Dew wept tears over him; but the Fir understood it not” (Andersen 1). Here, Andersen uses vivid language to describe the actions and motivations of the wind and the dew in order for the reader to gain a sense of what the tree was missing out on during his persistent longing and blind desire. There are many times throughout the tale of The Fir-Tree in which Andersen creates an animated description to assist in his purpose and main theme for the story. Andersen uses these scenes to further the message to “live in the moment,” as the Fir-Tree cannot recognize all of the benefits and pleasures he has in his life. Towards the end of the story, Andersen implements this tactic of creating vivid scenes again, but now as a method to show that the Fir-Tree has passed his “glory days” and can no longer hold on to the past nor continue to pine for greater things in the future. This is most notably seen in the scene where the tree recounts his Christmas experience to the mice in the attic, where the narrator states, “next night two more Mice came, and on Sunday two Rats, even; but they said the stories were not interesting, which vexed the