Introduction
Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Emperor’s New Clothes is filled with deep philosophical meaning. The main plot of the fairy tale is that two scammers arrive in the capital of the emperor, who lavishly spends money on clothes to the detriment of state affairs. Posing as weavers, they offer to provide him with magnificent clothes, invisible to the stupid or incompetent. Everyone sees that the looms are empty but pretends he does not consider himself a fool. Finally, the weavers report that the emperor’s costume is finished. They mimically dress him up, and he goes in a procession around the city. The townspeople awkwardly agree with this pretense, not wanting to seem inept or stupid, until the child yells out that there is nothing on the emperor. Then people realize that they have all been deceived, but the emperor continues the procession as if nothing had happened.
Analysis of the Fairy Tale The Emperor’s New Clothes
Based on the theory of fairy tales, this text corresponds to three basic principles: action in the past, the presence of morality, and the occurrence of “three” (Bottigheimer, 2018). Firstly, the action takes place in the past: “Many years ago, there was an Emperor who was so very fond of new clothes that he spent all his money on them” (Andersen, 1968, p.1). In a fairy tale, there is a phenomenon of “three”, that is, when either an object or an action is repeated three times. In this case, the scammers came three times to check how the work was progressing. First, the old sage came, then one of the emperor’s advisers, and finally, the emperor himself came to see what this garment looked like. The third sign of a fairy tale is its morality. It lies in the fact that vanity and greed turn people into puppets of their stupidity. There are a lot of the so-called naked kings around us, but most often, people are afraid to say it out loud for various reasons – out of fear or profit, so as not to spoil relations with loved ones or superiors because of banal laziness. The moral of the fairy tale The Emperor’s New Clothes shows the unsightly appearance of adaptions of all levels.
The only sign of inconsistency is the presence of supernatural objects and creatures. In this fairy tale, all people and things are real. Even though weavers pass off their work as invisible, it is a simple deception: “But the Emperor has nothing at all on!” said a little child”(Andersen, 1968, p.4). Thus, The Emperor’s New Clothes correspond to three signs of the theory of fairy tales, namely, the “emergence of 3”, events that take place in the past, and there is a moral in the fairy tale. However, there are no supernatural beings or things in the fairy tale’s plot.
Conclusion
The fairy tale The Emperor’s New Clothes is based on three basic principles of fairy tale theory. This tale is interesting for its topicality. It shows the vices common in any society. The author condemns fraud and people who profit by deception. Using irony, the storyteller exposes stupidity and fools because human stupidity plays into scammers’ hands. What does the fairy tale teach the New dress of the king? Andersen brands sycophancy and hypocrisy. Another fairy tale ridicules the weakness of character, adaptability, and greed, leading to not succumbing to someone else’s influence and not trying to be like the others.
Works Cited
Andersen, Hans Christian. The Emperor’s New Clothes, 1968.
Bottigheimer, Ruth B. “Fairy Tales and Folk Tales.” International Companion Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature. Routledge, 2018, vol. 1, pp. 261-274.