Persist In Her Fallacy

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When I tell serious authors I read and
write about fairytales, they warn me
not to waste time

Claiming that Hans Christian Andersen’s
tales are useless in spite of the fact that
his allegories appear everywhere…

The Emperor is without clothes denotes
snobbery, ‘noblesse oblige’ cried grand-
ma’s family, keeping up appearances

Grandma Alice worked hard to earn the
money with which these emperors lived
gloriously, working like Cinderella

To send them to the ball, mother presenting
as a lady who cannot scrub floors, dad’s
family was flabbergasted to see

The trouble grandma Alice took to make mother
seem privileged, I cried when I first read
Pearl Buck ‘The Good Earth’

A peasant mother despised working so hard
for a better future for her child – and Mother
so contemptuous of Grandma’s peasant work

Which she did to pay for mother’s luxuries, Hans
Christian Andersen wrote a story about this, a girl
who despised her mother

Throwing down the loaves of bread sent for her
mother’s meal, to keep her feet from being soiled
by touching dirt, she was sucked into the earth

For being without respect for her humble origins,
for being too proud, for not honouring her
mother’s hard work

Would my mother learn from this analogy, or
will she persist in her fallacy?


“The Good Earth” Pearl Buck
“The Emperor Has No Clothes” and “The Girl Who
Trod on the Loaf “ Hans ChristianAndersen (1859)

There was once a girl who trod on a loaf to avoid soiling
her shoes, then misfortunes happened to her in con-
sequence. She was a poor child, but proud and presuming.

She grew worse with years and she was pretty, so she was
excused, when she should have been sharply reproved.

“Your headstrong will requires severity to conquer it,”
her mother often said to her. “As a little child you used
to trample on my apron, but one day I fear you will
trample on my heart.”

And, alas! this fear was realized.

http://www.fairytalescollection.com/hans_christian_anderson/
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