The Little Match Girl Essay Questions

What is the significance of each vision the girl imagines?

With the first four matches she strikes, the little girl experiences different hallucinatory visions that collectively represent the girl's desires. Her visions are of a stove, a roast goose, a resplendent Christmas tree, and her grandmother. Respectively, these visions symbolize her desire for warmth, food, prosperity, and loving support—all of which she lacks. The final bunch of matches she strikes conjures enough brightness that she can hold on to her vision of her grandmother long enough to ascend to heaven with her, leaving the cruelties of the mortal world behind on Earth.

How does Andersen contrast wealth and poverty in the story?

Andersen contrasts wealth and poverty throughout the story using visual, kinesthetic, and auditory imagery. While the little girl is associated with feelings of hunger and coldness, and images of darkness, the wealthier people in the story are associated with feelings of warmth and images of safety, exemplified by the light coming from their windows. The scent of roast goose also pervades the atmosphere, reminding the little girl that it is New Year's Eve. The matches help the little girl to imagine having—or at least coming close to attaining—the warmth, food, prosperity, and love that impoverishment denies her.

How does Andersen use the shooting star the little girl sees as a literary device?

Toward the end of the story, the little girl sees a star fall from the sky and says to herself that "someone must be dying," as her grandmother used to say that shooting stars corresponded with a human soul ascending to the afterlife. Andersen uses this shooting star as a multi-faceted literary device. Beyond the symbolic value the girl's grandmother ascribes to shooting stars, the girl's comment presents an instance of both foreshadowing and dramatic irony. While she understands that someone must be dying, the little girl does not understand the irony of her words, as it is clear to the reader that she herself is dying. The shooting star therefore simultaneously foreshadows her own death.