SOURCE: "Hans Christian Andersen and the Discourse of the Dominated," in Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion: The Classical Genre for Children and the Process of Civilization, Heinemann, 1983, pp. 71-96.

[In the following essay, Zipes points to ambivalence in Andersen's tales, finding its roots in the conflict between Andersen's identification with the lower classes and his simultaneous efforts to legitimize Denmark's hierarchical social structure and particularly its powerful upper classes, which in essence controlled his literary success.]

If the Grimm Brothers were the first writers in the nineteenth century to distinguish themselves by remolding oral folk tales explicitly for a bourgeois socialization process, then Hans Christian Andersen completed their mission so to speak and created a canon of literary fairy tales for children between 1835 and 1875 in praise of essentialist ideology. By infusing his tales with general notions of the Protestant Ethic and essentialist ideas of natural biological order, Andersen was able to receive the bourgeois seal of good housekeeping. From the dominant class point of view his tales were deemed useful and worthy enough for rearing children of all classes, and they became a literary staple in western culture. Fortunately for Andersen he appeared on the scene when the original middle-class prejudice against imaginative fairy tales was receding. In fact, there was gradual recognition that fantasy could be employed for the utilitarian needs of the bourgeoisie, and Andersen proved to be a most humble servant in this cause.

But what was at the heart of Andersen's mode of service? In what capacity did his tales serve children and adults in Europe and America? What is the connection between Andersen's achievement as a fairy-tale writer, his servile demeanour, and our cultural appreciation of his tales? It seems to me that these questions have to be posed even more critically if we are to understand the underlying reasons behind Andersen's rise to fame and general acceptance in the nineteenth century. In fact, they are crucial if we want to grasp the continual reception, service, and use of the tales in the twenitieth century, particularly in regard to socialization through literature.

Despite the fact that Andersen wrote a great deal about himself and his tales and was followed by scholars who have investigated every nook and cranny of his life and work, there have been very few attempts to study his tales ideologically and to analyze their function in the acculturation process. This is all the more surprising when one considers that they were written with a plump didactic purpose and were overloaded with references to normative behavior and ideal political standards. Indeed, the discourse of his narratives has a distinct ideological bias peculiarly 'marred' by his ambivalent feelings toward his social origins and the dominant classes in Denmark that controlled his fortunes. It is this 'marred ambivalence' which is subsumed in his tales and lends them their dynamic tension. Desirous of indicating the way to salvation through emulation of the upper classes and of paying reverence to the Protestant Ethic, Andersen also showed that this path was filled with suffering, humiliation, and torture—and that it could even lead to crucifixion. It is because of his ambivalent attitude, particularly toward the dominance of essentialist ideology, that his tales have retained their basic appeal up through the present day. But before we re-evaluate this appeal as constituted by the socializing elements of the tales, we must first turn to reconsider Andersen in light of the class conflict and conditions of social assimilation in his day.

I

Son of a poor cobbler and a washerwoman, Andersen was embarrassed by his proletarian background and grew to insist on notions of natural nobility. Once he became a successful writer, he rarely mingled with the lower classes. If anything, the opposite was the case: he was known to kowtow to the upper classes throughout all of Europe—quite an achievement when one considers his fame! However, his success then and now cannot be attributed to his opportunism and conformism. That is, he cannot simply be dismissed as a class renegade who catered to the aesthetic and ideological interests of the dominant classes. His case is much more complex, for in many respects his tales were innovative narratives which explored the limits of assimilation in a closed social order to which he aspired. Despite all the recognition and acceptance by the nobility and bourgeoisie in the western world, Andersen never felt himself to be a fully fledged member of any group. He was the outsider, the loner, who constantly travelled in his mature years, and his wanderings were symptomatic (as the wanderers and birds in his tales) of a man who hated to be dominated though he loved the dominant class.

As Elias Bredsdorff, the leading contemporary biographer of Andersen, maintains:

Speaking in modern terms Andersen was a man born in the 'Lumpenproletariat' but completely devoid of class 'consciousness'. In his novels and tales he often expresses an unambiguous sympathy for 'the underdog,' especially for people who have been deprived of their chance of success because of their humble origins, and he pours scorn on haughty people who pride themselves on their noble birth or their wealth and who despise others for belonging to, or having their origin in, the lower classes. But in his private life Andersen accepted the system of absolutism and its inherent class structure, regarded royalty with awe and admiration and found a special pleasure in being accepted by and associating with kings, dukes and princes, and the nobility at home and abroad.¹

Though Andersen's sympathy did lay with the downtrodden and disenfranchised in his tales, it was not as unambiguous as Bredsdorff would have us believe, for Andersen's fawning servility to the upper classes also manifested itself in his fiction. In fact, as I have maintained, the ambivalent feelings about both his origins and the nobility constitute the appeal of the tales. Andersen prided himself on his 'innate' gifts as poet (Digter), and he devoutly believed that certain biologically determined people were chosen by divine providence to rise above others. This belief was his rationalization for aspiring toward recognition and acceptance by the upper classes. And here an important distinction must be made. More than anything else Andersen sought the blessing and recognition of Jonas Collin and the other members of this respectable, wealthy, patriarchal family as well as other people from the educated bureaucratic class in Denmark like Henriette Wulff. In other words, Andersen endeavored to appeal to the Danish bourgeois elite, cultivated in the arts, adept at commerce and administration, and quick to replace the feudal caste of aristocrats as the leaders of Denmark.

The relationship to Jonas Collin was crucial in his development, for Collin took him in hand, when he came to Copenhagen, and practically adopted him as a son. At first he tried to make a respectable bourgeois citizen out of the ambitious 'poet' but gradually relented and supported Andersen's artistic undertakings. In due course Andersen's primary audience came to be the Collin family and people with similar attitudes. All his artistic efforts throughout his life were aimed at pleasing them. For instance, on Jonas Collin's birthday in 1845 he wrote the following:

You know that my greatest vanity, or call it rather joy, consists in making you realize that I am worthy of you. All the kind of appreciation I get makes me think of you. I am truly popular, truly appreciated abroad, I am famous—all right, you're smiling. But the cream of the nations fly towards me, I find myself accepted in all families, the greatest compliments are paid to me by princes and by the most gifted of men. You should see the way people in so-called High Society gather round me. Oh, no one at home thinks of this among the many who entirely ignore me and might be happy to enjoy even a drop of the homage paid to me. My writings must have greater value than the Danes will allow for. Heiberg has been translated too, but no one speaks of his work, and it would have been strange if the Danes were the only ones to be able to make judgments in this world. You must know, you my beloved father must understand that you did not misjudge me when you accepted me as your son, when you helped and protected me.²

Just as important as his relationship to the father Collin was his relationship to his 'adopted' brother Edvard, who served as Andersen's super-ego and most severe critic. Not only did Edvard edit Andersen's manuscripts and scold him for writing too fast and too much to gain fame, but he set standards of propriety for the writer through his cool reserve, social composure, and business-like efficiency. In his person Edvard Collin, a Danish legal administrator like his father, represented everything Andersen desired to become, and Andersen developed a strong homo-erotic attachment to Edvard which remained visibly powerful during his life. In 1838 Andersen wrote a revealing letter which indicates just how deep his feelings for Edvard were:

I'm longing for you, indeed, at this moment I'm longing for you as if you were a lovely Calabrian girl with dark blue eyes and a glance of passionate flames. I've never had a brother, but if I had I could not have loved him the way I love you, and yet—you do not reciprocate my feelings! This affects me painfully or maybe this is in fact what binds me even more firmly to you. My soul is proud, the soul of a prince cannot be prouder. I have clung to you, I have—bastare! which is a good Italian verb to be translated in Copenhagen as 'shut up!' … Oh, I wish to God that you were poor and I rich, distinguished, a nobleman. In that case I should initiate you into the mysteries, and you would appreciate me more than you do now. Oh! If there is an eternal life, as indeed there must be, then we shall truly understand and appreciate one another. Then I shall no longer be the poor person in need of kind interest and friends, then we shall be equal.³

The fact is that Andersen never felt himself equal to any of the Collins and that he measured his worth by the standards they set. Their letters to him prescribe humility, moderation, asceticism, decorum, economy of mind and soul, devotion to God, loyalty to Denmark. On the one hand, they provided Andersen with a home, and on the other, their criticism and sobriety made him feel insecure. They were too classical and refined, too 'grammatically' correct, and he knew he could never achieve full recognition as Digter in their minds. Yet that realization did not stop him from trying to prove his moral worth and aesthetic talents to them in his tales and novels. This is not to suggest that all the fairy tales are totally informed by Andersen's relationship to the Collins. However, to understand their vital aspect—the ideological formation in relationship to the linguistic and semantic discourse—it is important to grasp how Andersen approached and worked through notions of social domination.

Here Noëlle Bisseret's study, Education, Class Language and Ideology, is most useful for my purposes since she endeavors to understand the historical origins of essentialist

ideology and concepts of natural aptitudes which figure prominently in Andersen's tales. According to her definition,

essentialist ideology, which originates along with the establishment of those structures constituting class societies, is a denial of the historical relations of an economic, political, juridical and ideological order which preside over the establishment of labile power relationships. Essentialist ideology bases all social hierarchy on the transcendental principle of a natural biological order (which took over from a divine principle at the end of the eighteenth century). A difference in essence among human beings supposedly predetermines the diversity of a psychic and mental phenomena ('intelligence,' 'language,' etc.) and thus the place of individual in a social order considered as immutable.⁴

By analyzing how the concepts of aptitude and disposition were used to designate a contingent reality in the late feudal period, Bisseret is able to show a transformation in meaning to legitimize the emerging power of the bourgeoisie in the nineteenth century: aptitude becomes an essential hereditary feature and is employed to justify social inequalities. In other words, the principle of equality developed by the bourgeoisie was gradually employed as a socializing agent to demonstrate that there are certain select people in a free market system, people with innate talents who are destined to succeed and rule because they 'possess or own' the essential qualities of intelligence, diligence, and responsibility.

We must remember that the nineteenth century was the period in which the interest in biology, eugenics, and race became exceedingly strong.⁵ Not only did Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer elaborate their theories at this time, but Arthur de Gobineau wrote his Essai sur l'inegalité des races humaines (1852) and Francis Galton wrote Hereditary Genius (1869) to give a seemingly scientific veneer to the middle-class social selection process. Throughout the western world a more solidified bourgeois public sphere was establishing itself and replacing feudal systems, as was clearly the case in Denmark.⁶ Along with the new institutions designed for rationalization and maximation of profit, a panoptic principle of control, discipline, and punishment was introduced into the institutions of socialization geared to enforce the interests and to guarantee the domination of the propertied classes. This is fully demonstrated in Michel Foucault's valuable study Discipline and Punish,⁷ which supports Bisseret's thesis of how the ideological concept of attitudes became the 'scientific' warrant of a social organization which it justified.

The ideology of natural inequalities conceived and promoted by a social class at a time when it took economic, and later on political, power gradually turned into a scientific truth, borrowing from craniometry, then from anthropometry, biology, genetics, psychology, and sociology (the scientific practice of which it sometimes oriented); the elements enabling it to substantiate its assertions. And by this very means, it was able to impose itself upon all the social groups which believed in the values presiding over the birth of aptitude as an ideology: namely Progress and Science. It now appears that well beyond the controversies, which oppose the different established groups, this general ideology directs the whole conception of selection and educational guidance: the educational system aims at selecting and training an 'elite,' which by its competence, merit, and aptitude is destined for high functions, the responsibility of which entails certain social and economic advantages.⁸

If we look at the case of Andersen in light of Bisseret's thesis at this point, two factors are crucial for his personal conception of an essentialist ideology. First, Denmark was a tiny country with a tightly knit bureaucratic feudal structure which was rapidly undergoing a transformation into a bourgeois dominated society. There were less than 200,000 people in the country, and 120,000 in Copenhagen. Among the educated bourgeoisie and nobility everyone knew everyone else who was of importance, and, though the country depended on the bourgeois bureaucratic administrators and commercial investors, the king and his advisors made most of the significant decisions up until the early 1840s when constitutive assemblies representing the combined interests of industry, commerce, and agriculture began assuming more control. Essentially, as Bredsdorff has aptly stated, 'in Danish society of the early nineteenth century it was almost impossible to break through class barriers. Almost the only exceptions were a few individuals with unusual artistic gifts: Bertel Thorvaldsen, Fru Heiberg and Hans Christian Andersen. And even they had occasionally to be put in their place and reminded of their low origin.'⁹ Here it is difficult to talk about a real breakthrough. Throughout his life Andersen was obliged to act as a dominated subject within the dominant social circles despite his fame and recognition as a writer.

Even to reach this point—and this is the second crucial factor—he had to be strictly supervised, for admission to the upper echelons had to be earned and constantly proved. And, Andersen appeared to be a 'security risk' at first. Thus, when he came to Copenhagen in 1819 from the lower-class and provincial milieu of Odense, he had to be corrected by his betters so that he could cultivate proper speech, behavior, and decorum. Then for polishing he was also sent to elite private schools in Slagelse and Helsingör at a late age from 1822 to 1827 to receive a thorough formal and classical education. The aim of this education was to curb and control Andersen, especially his flamboyant imagination, not to help him achieve a relative amount of autonomy.

Jonas Collin's purpose in rescuing Andersen and sending him to a grammar school was not to make a great writer out of him but to enable him to become a useful member of the community in a social class higher than the one into which he was born. The grammar-school system was devised to teach boys to learn property, to mould them into the desired finished products, to make them grow up to be like their fathers.¹⁰

As Bredsdorff remarks, the system was not so thorough that Andersen was completely broken. But it left its indelible marks. What Andersen was to entitle The Fairy Tale of My Life—his autobiography, a remarkable mythopoeic projection of his life¹¹—was in actuality a process of self-denial which was cultivated as individualism. Andersen was ashamed of his family background and did his utmost to avoid talking or writing about it. When he did, he invariably distorted the truth. For him, home was the Collin family, but home, as Andersen knew quite well, was unattainable because of social differences.

It was through his writings and literary achievement that Andersen was able to veil his self-denial and present it as a form of individualism. At the beginning of the nineteenth century in Denmark there was a literary swing from the universality of classicism to the romantic cult of genius and individuality, and Andersen benefited from this greatly. As a voracious reader, Andersen consumed all the German romantic writers of fairy tales along with Shakespeare, Scott, Irving, and other writers who exemplified his ideal of individualism. Most important for his formation in Denmark, the romantic movement was

accompanied by what is known as the Aladdin motif, after the idea which Oehlenschläger expressed in his play Aladdin. This deals with the theory that certain people are chosen by nature, or God, or the gods, to achieve greatness, and that nothing can succeed in stopping them, however weak and ill-suited they may otherwise seem…. The twin themes of former national greatness and of the possibility of being chosen to be great, despite all appearances, assumed a special significance for Denmark after 1814. Romantic-patriotic drama dealing with the heroic past appealed to a population looking for an escape from the sordid present, and served as a source of inspiration for many years. At the same time the Aladdin conception also took on new proportions: it was not only of use as a literary theme, but it could be applied to individuals—Oehlenschläger felt that he himself exemplified it, as did Hans Christian Andersen—and it was also possible to apply it to a country.¹²

Andersen as Aladdin. Andersen's life as a fairy tale. There is something schizophrenic in pretending that one is a fairy-tale character in reality, and Andersen was indeed troubled by nervous disorders and psychic disturbances throughout his life. To justify his schizophrenic existence, he adopted the Danish physicist Hans Christian Orsted's ideas from The Spirit of Nature and combined them with his animistic belief in Christianity.¹³ Orsted believed that the laws of nature are the thoughts of God, and, as the spirit of nature becomes projected, reality assumes the form of a miracle. Moreover, Andersen felt that, if life is miraculous, then God protects 'His elect' and gives them the help they need. Such superstition—his mother was extraordinarily superstitious—only concealed Andersen's overwhelming desire to escape the poverty of his existence and his indefatigable efforts to gain fame as a writer. Certainly, if providence controlled the workings of the world, genius was a divine and natural gift and would be rewarded regardless of birth. Power was located in the hands of God, and only before Him did one have to bow. However, Andersen did in fact submit more to a temporal social system and had to rationalize this submission adequately enough so that he could live with himself. In doing so, he inserted himself into a socio-historical nexus of the dominated denying his origins and needs to receive applause, money, comfort, and space to write about social contradictions that he had difficulty resolving for himself. Such a situation meant a life of self-doubt and anxiety for Andersen.

Again Bisseret is useful in helping us understand the socio-psychological impact on such ego formation and perspectives:

Dominant in imagination (who am I?), dominated in reality (what am I?), the ego lacks cohesion, hence the contradiction and incoherence of the practices. Dominated-class children think in terms of aptitudes, tastes and interests because at each step in their education their success has progressively convinced them that they are not 'less than nothing' intellectually; but at the same time they profoundly doubt themselves. This doubt is certainly not unrelated to the split, discontinuous aspects of their orientations, as measured by the standards of a parsimonious and fleeting time. Their day-to-day projects which lead them into dead ends or which build up gaps in knowledge which are inhibitory for their educational future, reinforce their doubts as to their capacities.¹⁴

In the particular case of Andersen, the self-doubts were productive insofar as he constantly felt the need to prove himself, to show that his aptitude and disposition were noble and that he belonged to the elect. This is apparent in the referential system built into most of his tales which are discourses of the dominated. In analyzing such discourse, Bisseret makes the point that

the relationship to his social being simultaneously lived and conceived by each agent is based on unconscious knowledge. What is designated as the 'subject' (the 'I') in the social discourse is the social being of the dominant. Thus in defining his identity the dominated cannot polarize the comparison between the self/the others on his 'me' in the way the dominant does … There cannot be a cohesion except on the side of power. Perhaps the dominated ignore that less than the dominant, as is clear through their accounts. Indeed, the more the practices of the speaker are the practices of power, the more the situation in which he places himself in the conceptual field is the mythical place where power disappears to the benefit of a purely abstract creativity. On the other hand, the more the speaker is subjected to power, the more he situates himself to the very place where power is concretely exercised."

Though Bisseret's ideas about the dominated and dominant in regard to essentialist ideology are concerned with linguistic forms in everyday speech, they also apply to modes of narration used by writers of fiction. For instance, Andersen mixed popular language or folk linguistic forms with formal classical speech in creating his tales, and this stylistic synthesis not only endowed the stories with an unusual tone but also reflected Andersen's efforts to unify an identity which dominant discourse kept dissociating. Andersen also endeavored to ennoble and synthesize folk motifs with the literary motifs of romantic fairy tales, particularly those of Hoffmann, Tieck, Chamisso, Eichendorff, and Fouqué. His stylization of lower-class folk motifs was similar to his personal attempt to rise in society: they were aimed at meeting the standards of 'high art' set by the middle classes. In sum, Andersen's linguistic forms and stylized motifs reveal the structure of relationships as they were being formed and solidified around emerging bourgeois domination in the nineteenth century.

With a few exceptions, most of the 156 fairy tales written by Andersen contain no 'I,' that is, 'I,' is sublimated through the third person, and the narrative discourse becomes dominated by constant reference to the location of power. The identification of the third-person narrator with the underdog or dominated in the tales is consequently misleading. On one level, this occurs, but the narrator's voice always seeks approval and identification with a higher force. Here, too, the figures representing dominance or nobility are not always at the seat of power. Submission to power beyond the aristocracy constituted and constitutes the real appeal of Andersen's tales for middle-class audiences: Andersen placed power in divine providence, which invariably acted in the name of bourgeois essentialist ideology. No other writer of literary fairy tales in the early nineteenth century introduced so many Christian notions of God, the Protestant Ethic, and bourgeois enterprise in his narratives as Andersen did. All his tales make explicit or implicit reference to a miraculous Christian power which rules firmly but justly over His subjects. Such patriarchal power would appear to represent a feudal organization but the dominant value system represented by providential action and the plots of the tales is thoroughly bourgeois and justifies essentialist notions of aptitude and disposition. Just as aristocratic power was being transformed in Denmark, so Andersen reflected upon the meaning of such transformation in his tales.

There are also clear strains of social Darwinism in Andersen's tales mixed with the Aladdin motif. In fact, survival of the fittest is the message of the very first tale he wrote for the publication of his anthology—"The Tinderbox." However, the fittest is not always the strongest but the chosen protagonist who proves himself or herself worthy of serving a dominant value system. This does not mean that Andersen constantly preached one message in all his tales. As a whole, written from 1835 to 1875, they represent the creative process of a dominated ego endeavoring to establish a unified self while confronted with a dominant discourse which dissociated this identity. The fictional efforts are variations on a theme of how to achieve approbation, assimilation, and integration in a social system which does not allow for real acceptance or recognition if one comes from the lower classes. In many respects Andersen is like a Humpty-Dumpty figure who had a great fall when he realized as he grew up that entrance into the educated elite of Denmark did not mean acceptance and totality. Nor could all the king's men and horses put him back together when he was humiliated and perceived the inequalities. So his fairy tales are variegated and sublimated efforts to achieve wholeness, to gain vengeance, and to depict the reality of class struggle. The dominated voice, however, remains constant in its reference to real power.

Obviously there are other themes than power and domination in the tales and other valid approaches to them, but I believe that the widespread, continuous reception of Andersen's fairy tales in western culture can best be explained by understanding how the discourse of the dominated functions in the narratives. Ideologically speaking Andersen furthered bourgeois notions of the self-made man or the Horatio Alger myth, which was becoming so popular in America and elsewhere, while reinforcing a belief in the existing power structure that meant domination and exploitation of the lower classes. This is why we must look more closely at the tales to analyze how they embody the dreams of social rise and individual happiness which further a powerful, all-encompassing bourgeois selection process.

II

Bredsdorff notes that, among the 156 tales written by Andersen, there are 30 which have proven to be the most popular throughout the world.'⁶ My analysis will concentrate first on these tales in an effort to comprehend the factors which might constitute their popularity in reception. Since they form the kernel of Andersen's achievement, they can be considered the ultimate examples of how the dominated discourse can rationalize power in fairy tales written for children and adults as well. Aside from examining this aspect of these tales, I shall also analyze those features in other significant tales that reveal the tensions of a life which was far from the fairy tale Andersen wanted his readers to believe it was. Ironically, the fairy tales he wrote are more 'realistic' than his own autobiographies, when understood as discourses defined by dominance relationships in which the narrator defines what he would like to be according to definitions of a socially imposed identity.

Since there is no better starting point than the beginning, let us consider Andersen's very first tale "The Tinderbox" as an example of how his dominated discourse functions. As I have already mentioned, the basic philosophy of "The Tinderbox" corresponds to the principles of social Darwinism, but this is not sufficient enough to understand the elaboration of power relations and the underlying message of the tale. We must explore further.

As the tale unfolds, it is quite clear that the third-person narrative voice and providence are on the young soldier's side, for without any ostensible reason he is chosen by the witch to fetch a fortune. Using his talents, he not only gains a treasure but immense power, even if he must kill the witch to do so. Here the murder of the witch is not viewed as immoral since witches are evil per se. The major concern of Andersen is to present a young soldier who knows how to pull himself up by the bootstraps when fortune shines upon him to become a 'refined gentleman.'¹⁷ The word refined has nothing to do with culture but more with money and power. The soldier learns this when he runs out of coins, is forgotten by fair-weather friends, and sinks in social status. Then he discovers the magic of the tinderbox and the power of the three dogs which means endless provision. Here Andersen subconsciously concocted a socio-political formula which was the keystone of bourgeois progress and success in the nineteenth century: use of talents for the acquisition of money, establish a system of continual recapitalization (tinderbox and three dogs) to guarantee income and power, employ money and power to achieve social and political hegemony. The soldier is justified in his use of power and money because he is essentially better than anyone else—chosen to rule. The king and queen are dethroned, and the soldier rises through the application of his innate talents and fortune to assume control of society.

Though it appears that the soldier is the hero of the story, there is a hidden referent of power in this dominated narrative discourse. Power does not reside in the soldier but in the 'magical' organization of social relations that allows him to pursue and realize his dreams. Of course, these social relations were not as magical as they appear since they were formed through actual class struggle to allow for the emergence of a middle class which set its own rules of the game and established those qualities necessary for leadership: cleverness, perseverence, cold calculation, respect for money and private property. Psychologically Andersen's hatred for his own class (his mother) and the Danish nobility (king and queen) are played out bluntly when the soldier kills the witch and has the king and queen eliminated by the dogs. The wedding celebration at the end is basically a celebration of the solidification of power by the bourgeois class in the nineteenth century: the unification of a middle-class soldier with a royal princess. In the end the humorous narrative voice appears to gain deep pleasure and satisfaction in having related this tale, as though it has been ordained from above.

In all the other tales published in 1835 there is a process of selection and proving one's worth according to the hidden referent of bourgeois power. In "Little Claus and Big Claus" the small farmer must first learn the lesson of humility before providence takes his side and guides him against the vengeful big farmer. Again, using his wits without remorse, an ordinary person virtually obliterates a rich arrogant landowner and amasses a small fortune. "The Princess and the Pea" is a simple story about the essence of true nobility. A real prince can only marry a genuine princess with the right sensitivity. This sensitivity is spelled out in different ways in the other tales of 1835: "Little Ida's Flowers," "Thumbelina," and "The Travelling Companion" portray 'small' or oppressed people who cultivate their special talents and struggle to realize their goals despite the forces of adversity. Ida retains and fulfills her dreams of flowers despite the crass professor's vicious attacks. Thumbelina survives many adventures to marry the king of the angels and become a queen. Johannes, the poor orphan, promises to be good so that God will protect him, and indeed his charitable deeds amount to a marriage with a princess. The Taugenichts who trusts in God will always be rewarded. All the gifted but disadvantaged characters, who are God-fearing, come into their own in Andersen's tales, but they never take possession of power which resides in the shifting social relations leading to bourgeois hegemony.

In all of these early tales Andersen focuses on lower-class or disenfranchised protagonists, who work their way up in society.¹⁸ Their rise is predicated on their proper behavior which must correspond to a higher power that elects and tests the hero. Though respect is shown for feudal patriarchy, the correct normative behavior reflects the values of the bourgeoisie. If the hero comes from the lower classes, he or she must be humbled if not humiliated at one point to test obedience. Thereafter, the natural aptitude of a successful individual will be unveiled through diligence, perseverence, and adherence to an ethical system which legitimizes bourgeois domination. Let me be more specific by focusing on what I consider the major popular tales written after 1835: "The Little Mermaid" (1837), "Steadfast Tin Soldier" (1838), "The Swineherd" (1841), "The Nightingale" (1843), "The Ugly Duckling"(1843) "The Red Shoes " (1845), and "The Shadow" (1847).

There are two important factors to bear in mind when considering the reception of these tales in the nineteenth century and the present in regard to the narrative discourse of the dominated. First, as a member of the dominated class, Andersen could only experience dissociation despite entrance into upper-class circles. Obviously this was because he measured his success as a person and artist by standards which were not of his own social group's making. That ultimate power which judged his efforts and the destiny of his heroes depended on the organization of hierarchical relations at a time of socio-political transformation which was to leave Denmark and most of Europe under the control of the bourgeoisie. This shift in power led Andersen to identify with the emerging middle-class elite, but he did not depict the poor and disenfranchised in a negative way. On the contrary, Andersen assumed a humble, philanthropic stance—the fortunate and gifted are obliged morally and ethically to help the less fortunate. The dominated voice of all his narratives does not condemn his former social class, rather Andersen loses contact with it by denying the rebellious urges of his class within himself and making compromises that affirmed the rightful domination of the middle-class ethic.

A second factor to consider is the fundamental ambiguity of the dominated discourse in Andersen's tales: this discourse cannot represent the interests of the dominated class; it can only rationalize the power of the dominant class so that this power becomes legitimate and acceptable to those who are powerless. As I have noted before, Andersen depersonalizes his tales by using the third-person stance which appears to universalize his voice. However, this self-denial is a recourse of the dominated, who always carry references and appeal to those forces which control their lives. In Andersen's case he mystifies power and makes it appear divine. It is striking, as I have already stressed, when one compares Andersen to other fairy-tale writers of his time, how he constantly appeals to God and the Protestant Ethic to justify and sanction the actions and results of his tales. Ironically, to have a soul in Andersen's tales one must sell one's soul either to the aristocracy or to the bourgeoisie. In either case it was the middle-class moral and social code which guaranteed the success of his protagonists, guaranteed his own social success, and ultimately has guaranteed the successful reception of the tales to the present.

Speaking about lost souls, then, let us turn to "The Little Mermaid" to grasp how the dominated seemingly gains 'happiness and fulfillment' while losing its voice and real power. This tale harks back to the folk stories of the water urchin who desires a soul so she can marry a human being whom she loves. Andersen was certainly familiar with Goethe's Melusine and Fouqué's Undine, stories which ennobled the aspirations of pagan sprites, but his tale about the self-sacrificing mermaid is distinctly different from the narratives of Goethe and Fouqué, who were always part of the dominant class and punished upper-class men for forgetting their Christian manners. Andersen's perspective focuses more on the torture and suffering which a member of the dominated class must undergo to establish her true nobility and virtues. Characteristically, Andersen only allows the mermaid to rise out of the water and move in the air of royal circles after her tongue is removed and her tail is transformed into legs described as 'sword-like' when she walks or dances. Voiceless and tortured, deprived physically and psychologically, the mermaid serves a prince who never fully appreciates her worth. Twice she saves his life. The second time is most significant: instead of killing him to regain her identity and rejoin her sisters and grandmother, the mermaid forfeits her own life and becomes an ethereal figure, blessed by God. If she does good deeds for the next 300 years, she will be endowed with an immortal soul. As she is told, her divine mission will consist of flying through homes of human beings as an invisible spirit. If she finds a good child who makes his parents happy and deserves their love, her sentence will be shortened. A naughty and mean child can lengthen the 300 years she must serve in God's name.

However, the question is whether the mermaid is really acting in God's name. Her falling in love with royalty and all her future actions involve self-denial and a process of rationalizing self-denial. The mermaid's ego becomes dissociated because she is attracted to a class of people who will never accept her on her own terms. To join her 'superiors' she must practically cut her own throat, and, though she realizes that she can never express truthfully who she is and what her needs are, she is unwilling to return to her own species or dominated class. Thus she must somehow justify her existence to herself through abstinence and self-abnegation—values preached by the bourgeoisie and certainly not practiced by the nobility and upper classes. Paradoxically Andersen seems to be preaching that true virtue and self-realization can be obtained through self-denial. This message, however, is not so paradoxical since it comes from the voice of the dominated. In fact, it is based on Andersen's astute perception and his own experience as a lower-class clumsy youth who sought to cultivate himself: by becoming voiceless, walking with legs like knives, and denying one's needs, one (as a non-entity) gains divine recognition.

Andersen never tired of preaching self-abandonment and self-deprivation in the name of bourgeois laws. The reward was never power over one's life but security in adherence to power. For instance, in "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," the soldier falls in love with a ballerina and remarks: 'She would be a perfect wife for me … but I am afraid she is above me. She has a castle, and I have only a box that I must share with twenty-four soldiers; that wouldn't do for her. Still, I would like to make her acquaintance.'¹⁹ He must endure all sorts of hardships in pursuit of his love and is finally rewarded with fulfillment—but only after he and the ballerina are burned and melted in a stove. Again, happiness is predicated on a form of self-effacement.

This does not mean that Andersen was always self-denigrating in his tales. He often attacked greed and false pride. But what is interesting here is that vice is generally associated with the pretentious aristocracy and hardly ever with bourgeois characters. Generally speaking, Andersen punished overreachers, that is, the urge within himself to be rebellious. Decorum and balance became articles of faith in his philosophical scheme of things. In " The Swineherd" he delights in depicting the poor manners of a princess who has lost her sense of propriety. Andersen had already parodied the artificiality and pretentiousness of the nobility in "The Tinderbox and " "Emperor's Clothes." Similar to the 'taming of the shrew' motif in the folk tale King Thrushbeard, Andersen now has the dominant figure of the fickle, proud princess humiliated by the dominated figure of the prince disguised as swineherd. However, there is no happy end here, for the humor assumes a deadly seriousness when the prince rejects the princess after accomplishing his aim: ' "I have come to despise you", said the prince, "You did not want an honest prince. You did not appreciate the rose or the nightingale, but you could kiss a swineherd for the sake of a toy. Farewell!" '²⁰

The oppositions are clear: honesty vs. falseness, genuine beauty (rose/nightingale) vs. manufactured beauty (toys), nobility of the soul vs. soulless nobility. Indirectly Andersen argues that the nobility must adapt to the value system of the emerging bourgeoisie or be locked out of the kingdom of happiness. Without appreciating the beauty and power of genuine leaders—the prince is essentially middle-class—the monarchy will collapse.

This theme is at the heart of "The Nightingale," which can also be considered a remarkable treatise about art, genius, and the role of the artist. The plot involves a series of transformations in power relations and service. First the Chinese Emperor, a benevolent patriarch, has the nightingale brought to his castle from the forest. When the chief courtier finds the nightingale, he exclaims: "I had not imagined it would look like that. It looks so common! I think it has lost its color from shyness and out of embarrassment at seeing so many noble people at one time.'²¹ Because the common-looking bird (an obvious reference to Andersen) possesses an inimitable artistic genius, he is engaged to serve the Emperor. The first phase of the dominant-dominated relationship based on bonded servitude is changed into neglect when the Emperor is given a jeweled mechanical bird that never tires of singing. So the nightingale escapes and returns to the forest, and eventually the mechanical bird breaks down. Five years later the Emperor falls sick and appears to be dying. Out of his own choice the nightingale returns to him and chases death from his window. Here the relationship of servitude is resumed with the exception that the nightingale has assumed a different market value: he agrees to be the emperor's songbird forever as long as he can come and go as he pleases. Feudalism has been replaced by a free market system; yet, the bird/artist is willing to serve loyally and keep the autocrat in power. 'And my song shall make you happy and make you thoughtful. I shall sing not only of the good and of the evil that happen around you, and yet are hidden from you. For a little songbird flies far. I visit the poor fisherman's cottages and the peasant's hut, far away from your palace and your court. I love your heart more than your crown, and I feel that the crown has a fragrance of something holy about it. I will come! I will sing for you!'²²

As we know, Andersen depended on the patronage of the King of Denmark and other upper-class donors, but he never felt esteemed enough, and he disliked the strings which were attached to the money given to him. Instead of breaking with such patronage, however, the dominated voice of this discourse seeks to set new limits which continue servitude in marketable conditions more tolerable for the servant. Andersen reaffirms the essentialist ideology of this period and reveals how gifted 'common' individuals are the pillars of power—naturally in service to the state. Unfortunately, he never bothered to ask why 'genius' cannot stand on its own and perhaps unite with like-minded people.

In "The Ugly Duckling" genius also assumes a most awe-inspiring shape, but it cannot fly on its own. This tale has generally been interpreted as a parable of Andersen's own success story because the naturally gifted underdog survives a period of 'ugliness' to reveal its innate beauty. Yet, more attention should be placed on the servility of genius. Though Andersen continually located real power in social conditions which allowed for the emergence of bourgeois hegemony, he often argued—true to conditions in Denmark—that power was to be dispensed in servitude to appreciate rulers, and naturally these benevolent rulers were supposed to recognize the interests of the bourgeoisie. As we have seen in "The Nightingale," the artist returns to serve royalty after he is neglected by the emperor. In "The Ugly Duckling," the baby swan is literally chased by coarse lower-class animals from the henyard. His innate beauty cannot be recognized by such crude specimens, and only after he survives numerous ordeals, does he realize his essential greatness. But his self-realization is ambivalent, for right before he perceives his true nature, he wants to kill himself: "I shall fly over to them, those royal birds! And they can hack me to death because I, who am so ugly, dare to approach them! What difference does it make! It is better to be killed by them than to be bitten by the other ducks, and pecked by the hens, and kicked by the girl who tends the henyard; or to suffer through the winter.'²³

Andersen expresses a clear disdain for the common people's lot and explicitly states that to be humiliated by the upper class is worth more than the trials and tribulations one must suffer among the lower classes. And, again, Andersen espouses bourgeois essentialist philosophy when he saves the swan and declares as narrator: 'It does not matter that one has been born in the henyard as long as one has lain in a swan's egg.'²⁴ The fine line between eugenics and racism fades in this story where the once-upon-a-time dominated swan reveals himself to be a tame but noble member of a superior race. The swan does not return 'home' but lands in a beautiful garden where he is admired by children, adults, and nature. It appears as though the swan has finally come into his own, but, as usual, there is a hidden reference of power. The swan measures himself by the values and aesthetics set by the 'royal' swans and by the proper well-behaved children and people in the beautiful garden. The swans and the beautiful garden are placed in opposition to the ducks and the henyard. In appealing to the 'noble' sentiments of a refined audience and his readers, Andersen reflected a distinct class bias if not classical racist tendencies.

What happens, however, when one opposes the structures of the dominant class? Here Andersen can be merciless, just as merciless as the people who reprimanded and scolded him for overreaching himself. In "The Red Shoes," Karen, a poor little orphan, mistakenly believes that she is adopted by a generous old woman because she wears red shoes, a symbol of vanity and sin. This red stigma is made clear as she is about to be baptized in church: 'When the bishop laid his hands on her head and spoke of the solemn promise she was about to make—of her convenant with God to be a good Christian—her mind was not on his words. The ritual music was played on the organ; the old cantor sang, and the sweet voices of the children could be heard, but Karen was thinking of her red shoes.'²⁵ Although she tries to abandon the red shoes, she cannot resist their red lure. So she must be taken to task and is visited by a stern angel who pronounces sentence upon her: ' "You shall dance," he said, "dance in your red shoes until you become red and thin. Dance till the skin on your face turns yellow and clings to your bones as if you were a skeleton. Dance you shall from door to door, and when you pass a house where proud and vain children live, there you shall knock on the door so they will see you and fear your fate." '²⁶ The only way Karen can overcome the angel's curse is by requesting the municipal executioner to cut off her feet. Thereafter, she works diligently for the minister of the church. Upon her death, Karen's devout soul 'flew on a sunbeam up to God.'²⁷ This ghastly tale—reminiscent of the gory German pedagogical best-seller of this time, Heinrich Hoffmann's Struwwelpeter (1845)—is a realistic description of the punishment which awaited anyone who dared oppose the powers that be.

Though Andersen acknowledged the right of the Danish ruling class to exercise its power, he knew how painful it was to be at their mercy. The most telling tale about the excrutiating psychological effects of servility, the extreme frustration he felt from his own obsequious behavior, was "The Shadow." As many critics have noted, this haunting narrative is highly autobiographical; it stems from the humiliation that Andersen suffered when Edvard Collin adamantly rejected his proposal to use the 'familiar you' (du) in their discourse—and there was more than one rejection. By retaining the 'formal you' (De), Collin was undoubtedly asserting his class superiority, and this distance was meant to remind Andersen of his humble origins. Though they had come to regard each other as brothers during their youth, Collin lorded his position over Andersen throughout their lives and appeared to administrate Andersen's life—something which the writer actually desired but feared. In "The Shadow" Andersen clearly sought to avenge himself through his tale about a philosopher's shadow who separates himself from his owner and becomes immensely rich and successful. When the shadow returns to visit the scholar, his former owner wants to know how he achieved such success. To which the shadow replies that he will reveal 'everything! And I'll tell you about it, but … it has nothing whatsoever to do with pride, but out of respect to my accomplishments, not to speak of my social position, I wish you wouldn't address me familiarly.'

'"Forgive me!" exclaimed the philosopher. "It is an old habit, and they are the hardest to get rid of. But you are quite right, and I'll try to remember.'"²⁸

Not only does the shadow/Andersen put the philosopher/Collin in his place, but he explains that it was Poetry which made a human being out of him and that he quickly came to understand his 'innermost nature, that part of me which can claim kinship to poetry.'²⁹ Human-like and powerful, the shadow can control other people because he can see their evil sides. His own sinister talents allow him to improve his fortunes, while the philosopher, who can only write about the beautiful and the good, becomes poor and neglected. Eventually, the philosopher is obliged to travel with his former shadow—the shadow now as master and the master as shadow. When the shadow deceives a princess to win her hand in marriage, the philosopher threatens to reveal the truth about him. The crafty shadow, however, convinces the princess that the old man himself is a deranged shadow, and she decides to have him killed to end his misery.

The reversal of fortunes and of power relations is not a process of liberation but one of revenge. Nor can one argue that the shadow possesses power, for power cannot be possessed in and of itself but is constituted by the organization of social classes and property. One can gain access to power and draw upon it, and this is what the shadow does. Aside from being Andersen's wish-fulfillment, the fantastic projection in this story is connected to the Hegelian notion of master/slave (Herr/Knecht). The shadow/slave, who is closer to material conditions, is able to take advantage of what he sees and experiences—the underpinnings of social life—to overthrow his master, whereas the master, who has only been able to experience reality through the mediation of his shadow, is too idealistic and cannot defend himself. In Andersen's tale it should be noted that the shadow does not act in the interests of the dominated class but rather within the framework of institutionalized power relationships. Therefore, he still remains servile and caters to the dominant class despite the reversal of his circumstances. In this regard Andersen's heroes, who rise in class, do not undergo a qualitative change in social existence but point more to manifold ways one can accede to power.

As we have seen, the major theme and its variations in Andersen's most popular tales pertain to the rise of a protagonist under conditions of servitude. Only if the chosen hero complies with a code based on the Protestant Ethic and reveres divine providence does he advance in society or reach salvation. Though this is not explicitly spelled out, the references to real power reveal that it resides in the social organization of relations affirming bourgeois hegemony of a patriarchal nature. Even the benevolent feudal kings cannot maintain power without obeying sacrosanct bourgeois moral laws. Obviously this applies to the members of the lower classes and circumscribes their rise in fortunes. Limits are placed on their position in acceptable society. In most of the other 126 tales, which are not as widely circulated as the best known Andersen narratives, the dominated voice remains basically the same: it humbly recognizes the bourgeois rules of the game, submits itself to them as loyal subject and has the fictional protagonists do the same.

III

What saves Andersen's tales from simply becoming sentimental homilies (which many of them are) was his extraordinary understanding of how class struggle affected the lives of people in his times, and some tales even contain a forthright criticism of abusive domination—though his critique was always balanced by admiration for the upper classes and a fear of poverty. For instance, there are some exceptional tales of the remaining 126 which suggest a more rebellious position. Such rebelliousness, perhaps, accounts for the fact that they are not among the 30 most popular. Indeed, the dominated discourse is not homogenous or univocal, though it constantly refers to bourgeois power and never seeks to defy it. In 1853, shortly after the revolutionary period of 1848-1850 in Europe, Andersen reflected upon the thwarted rebellions in a number of tales, and they are worth discussing because they show more clearly how Andersen wavered when he subjected himself to bourgeois and aristocratic domination.

In "Everything in its Right Place" (1853) the arrogant aristocratic owner of a manor takes pleasure in pushing a goose-girl off a bridge. The peddler, who watches this and saves the girl, curses the master by exclaiming 'everything in its right place.'³⁰ Sure enough, the aristocrat drinks and gambles away the manor in the next six years. The new owner is none other than the peddler, and, of course, he takes the goose girl for his bride and the Bible as his guide. The family prospers for the next hundred years with its motto 'everything in its right place.' At this point the narrator introduces us to a parson's son tutoring the humble daughter of the now wealthy enobled house. This idealistic tutor discusses the differences between the nobility and bourgeoisie and surprises the modest baronness by stating:

"I know it is the fashion of the day—and many a poet dances to that tune—to say that everything aristocratic is stupid and bad. They claim that only among the poor—and the lower you descend the better—does pure gold glitter. But that is not my opinion; I think it is wrong, absolutely false reasoning. Among the highest classes one can often observe the most elevated traits…. But where nobility has gone to a man's head and he behaves like an Arabian horse that rears and kicks, just because his blood is pure and he has a degree, there nobility has degenerated. When noblemen sniff the air in a room because a plain citizen has been there and say, "It smells of the street," why then Thespis should exhibit them to the just ridicule of satire.'³¹

This degradation is, indeed, what occurs. A cavalier tries to mock the tutor at a music soiree, and the tutor plays a melody on a simple willow flute which suddenly creates a storm with the wind howling 'everything in its right place!' In the house and throughout the countryside the wind tosses people about, and social class positions are reversed until the flute cracks and everyone returns to their former place. After this scare, Andersen still warns that 'eventually everything is put in its right place. Eternity is long, a lot longer than this story.'³² Such a 'revolutionary' tone was uncharacteristic of Andersen, but given the mood of the times, he was prompted time and again in the early 1850s to voice his critique of the upper classes and question not only aristocratic but also bourgeois hegemony.

In "The Pixy and the Grocer" (1853) a little imp lives in a grocer's store and receives a free bowl of porridge and butter each Christmas. The grocer also rents out the garret to a poor student who would rather buy a book of poetry and eat bread for supper instead of cheese. The pixy visits the student in the garret to punish him for calling the grocer a boor with no feeling for poetry. Once in the garret, however, the pixy discovers the beauty and magic of poetry and almost decides to move in with the student. Almost, for he remembers that the student does not have much food, nor can he give him porridge with butter. So he continues to visit the garret from time to time. Then one night a fire on the street threatens to spread to the grocer's house. The grocer and his wife grab their gold and bonds and run out of the house. The student remains calm while the pixy tries to save the most valuable thing in the house—the book of poetry. 'Now he finally understood his heart's desire, where his loyalty belonged! But when the fire in the house across the street had been put out, then he thought about it again. "I will share myself between them," he said, "for I cannot leave the grocer altogether. I must stay there for the sake of the porridge." '³³ 'That was quite human,' the dominated narrator concludes, 'after all, we, too, go to the grocer for the porridge's sake.'³⁴

This tale is much more ambivalent in its attitude toward domination than "Everything in Its Right Place," which is open-ended and allows for the possibility of future revolutions. Here, Andersen writes more about himself and his own contradictions at the time of an impending upheaval (i.e., fire = revolution). Faced with a choice, the pixy/Andersen leans toward poetry or the lower classes and idealism. But, when the fire subsides, he makes his usual compromise, for he knows where his bread is buttered and power resides. The narrative discourse is ironic, somewhat self-critical but ultimately rationalizing. Since everyone falls in line with the forces that dominate and provide food, why not the pixy? Who is he to be courageous or different? Nothing more is said about the student, nor is there any mention of those who do not make compromises. Andersen makes it appear that servility is most human and understandable. Rarely does he suggest that it is just as human to rebel against inequality and injustice out of need as it is to bow to arbitrary domination.

The tales of 1853 demonstrate how Andersen was not unaware of possibilities for radical change and questioned the conditions of bourgeois/aristocratic hegemony. In one of his most remarkable tales "The Gardner and His Master," written toward the very end of his life in 1871, he sums up his views on servitude, domination, and aptitude in his brilliantly succinct, ambivalent manner. The plot is simple and familiar. A haughty aristocrat has an excellent plain gardener who tends his estate outside of Copenhagen. The master, however, never trusts the advice of the gardener nor appreciates what he produces. He and his wife believe that the fruits and flowers grown by other gardeners are better, and, when they constantly discover, to their chagrin, that their very own gardener's work is considered the best by the royal families, they hope he won't think too much of himself. Then, the storyteller Andersen comments, 'he didn't; but the fame was a spur, he wanted to be one of the best gardeners in the country. Every year he tried to improve some of the vegetables and fruits, and often he was successful. It was not always appreciated. He would be told that the pears and apples were good but not as good as the ones last year. The melons were excellent but not quite up to the standard of the first ones he had grown.'³⁵

The gardener must constantly prove himself, and one of his great achievements is his use of an area to plant 'all the typical common plants of Denmark, gathered from forests and fields'³⁶ which flourish because of his nursing care and devotion. So, in the end, the owners of the castle must be proud of the gardener because the whole world beat the drums for his success. 'But they weren't really proud of it. They felt that they were the owners and that they could dismiss Larsen if they wanted to. They didn't, for they were decent people, and there are lots of their kind, which is fortunate for the Larsens.'³⁷

In other words, Andersen himself had been fortunate, or, at least this was the way he ironically viewed his career at the end of his life. Yet, there is something pathetically sad about this story. The gardener Larsen is obviously the storyteller Andersen, and the garden with all its produce is the collection of fairy tales which he kept cultivating and improving throughout his life. The owners of the garden are Andersen's patrons and may be associated with the Collin family and other upper-class readers in Denmark. We must remember that it was generally known that the Collin family could never come to recognize Andersen as a Digter but thought of him as a fine popular writer. Andersen, whose vanity was immense and unquenchable, was extremely sensitive to criticism, and he petulantly and consistently complained that he felt unappreciated in Denmark while other European countries recognized his genius. Such treatment at home despite the fact he considered himself a most loyal servant, whether real or projected, became symbolized in this tale. The reference to the common plants, which the gardener cultivates, pertains to the folk motifs he employed and enriched so they would bloom aesthetically on their own soil. Andersen boasts that he, the garden has made Denmark famous, for pictures are taken of this garden and circulated throughout the world. Yet, it is within the confines of servitude and patronage that the gardener works, and the dominated voice of the narrator, even though ironic, rationalizes the humiliating ways in which his masters treat Larsen: they are 'decent' people. But, one must wonder—and the tension of the discourse compels us to do so—that, if the gardener is superb and brilliant, why doesn't he rebel and quit his job? Why does the gardener suffer such humiliation and domination?

Andersen pondered these questions often and presented them in many of his tales, but he rarely suggested alternatives or rebellion. Rather he placed safety before idealism and chose moral compromise over moral outrage, individual comfort and achievement over collective struggle and united goals. He aimed for identification with the power establishment that humiliates subjects rather than opposition to autocracy to put an end to exploitation through power. The defects in Andersen's ideological perspective are not enumerated here to insist that he should have learned to accept squalor and the disadvantages of poverty and struggle. They are important because they are the telling marks in the historical reception of his tales. Both the happy and sad endings of his narratives infer that there is an absolute or a divine, harmonious power, and that unity of the ego is possible under such power. Such a projection, however, was actually that of a frustrated and torn artist who was obliged to compensate for an existence which lacked harmonious proportions and a center of autonomy. Andersen's life was one based on servility, and his tales were endeavors to justify a false consciousness: literary exercises in the legitimation of a social order to which he subscribed.

Whether the discourse of such a dominated writer be a monologue with himself or dialogue with an audience who partakes of his ideology, he still can never feel at peace with himself. It is thus the restlessness and the dissatisfaction of the dominated artist which imbues his work ultimately with the qualitative substance of what he seeks to relate. Ironically, the power of Andersen's fairy tales for him and for his readers has very little to do with the power he respected. It emanates from the missing gaps, the lapses, which are felt when the compromises are made under compulsion, for Andersen always painted happiness as adjusting to domination no matter how chosen one was. Clearly, then, Andersen's genius, despite his servility, rested in his inability to prevent himself from loathing all that he admired.

Notes

¹Hans Christian Andersen. The Story of his Life Work (London: Phaidon, 1975), p. 152.

²Ibid., p. 179. Many more statements like this can be found in Andersen's letters and journals. See Hans Christian Andersen, Das Märchen meines Lebens. Briefe. Tagebucher, ed. by Erling Nielsen (Munich: Winkler, 1961). Unfortunately, the letters and journals have not been translated into English.

³Ibid., pp. 132-3.

⁴ London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979, pp. 1-2.

⁵ See Jeffrey M. Blum, Pseudoscience and Mental Ability (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1978) and Stephan L. Chorover, From Genesis to Genocide: The Meaning of Human Nature and the Power of Behavior Control (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1979).

⁶ For the general development in Europe, see Jürgen Habermas, Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft. (Neuwied: Luchterhand, 1962) and Charles Morazé, The Triumph of the Middle Classes. A Political and Social History of Europe in the Nineteenth Century (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1966). For Denmark, see W. Glyn Jones, Denmark (New York: Praeger, 1970), pp. 17-129.

⁷ New York: Pantheon, 1968.

⁸Education, Class Language and Ideology, p. 26.

⁹Hans Christian Andersen, p. 154.

¹⁰Ibid., p. 69.

¹¹ Cf. The Fairy Tale of My Life, trans. by W. Glyn Jones (New York: British Book Centre, 1955.) Andersen wrote three major autobiographies during his life, and each one is filled with distortions and amplifications of fact.

¹²Denmark, pp. 66-7.

¹³ Cf. Paul V. Rubow, 'Idea and form in Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales,' in A Book on the Danish Writer Hans Christian Andersen, ed. by Svend Dahl and H.G. Topsoe-Jensen (Copenhagen: Det Berlingske Bogtrykkeri, 1955), pp. 97-136.

¹⁴Education, Class Language and Ideology, pp. 63-4.

¹⁵Ibid., p. 65.

¹⁶Hans Christian Andersen, p. 308. They are as follows: The Tinder Box, Little Claus and Big Claus, The Princess and the Pea, Little Ida's Flowers, Thumbelina, The Travelling Companion (1835); The Little Mermaid, The Emperor's New Clothes (1837); The Steadfast Tin Soldier, The Wild Swans (1838); The Garden of Eden, The Flying Trunk, The Storks (1839); Willie Winkie, The Swineherd, The Buckwheat (1841); The Nightingale, The Top and the Ball, The Ugly Duckling, (1843); The Fir Tree, The Snow Queen (1844); The Darning Needle, The Elf Hill, The Red Shoes, The Shepherdess and the Chimney-Sweep, The Little Match Girl (1845); The Shadow (1847); The Old House, The Happy Family, The Shirt Collar (1848). Interestingly, the most popular tales are the earlier tales when Andersen tended to be less critical of social conditions and wrote more expressly for children.

¹⁷ Hans Christian Andersen, The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories, trans. by Erik Christian Haugaard (New York: Doubleday, 1974), p. 3.

¹⁸ This is also true of the novels written during this time: The Improvisatore (1835), O.T. (1836), and Only a Fiddler (1837).

¹⁹The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories, p. 113.

²⁰Ibid., p. 197.

²¹Ibid., p. 205.

²²Ibid., p. 211.

²³Ibid., pp. 223-4

²⁴Ibid., p. 224.

²⁵Ibid., p. 290.

²⁶Ibid., p. 292.

²⁷Ibid., p. 294.

²⁸Ibid., p. 339.

²⁹Ibid.

³⁰Ibid., p. 417.

³¹Ibid., pp. 420-1.

³²Ibid., p. 423.

³³Ibid., p. 427.

³⁴Ibid.

³⁵Ibid., p. 1018.

³⁶Ibid., p. 1020.

³⁷Ibid., p. 1021.