Match Girl

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shiver

When one thinks of Charles Dickens the Tale of two Cities, there are also thoughts of other stories based on those times. Hans Christian Anderson also wrote something about the times. In fact it doesn’t matter the time setting, what was written can be fit into today’s times.

The story goes like this, it is about a girl forced to sell matches on the streets. This time around she did not sell enough and was afraid to go home because she will face a beating. Instead she cowered under a building Shivering and lighting a match to keep warm. Each time she lit a match she saw some type of vision. A vision of hopes and dreams; as a shooting star appears in the night sky, she sees the vision of her grandmother, the only person who ever treated her well appear, took her by the hand and said come with me. In the morning the girl’s lifeless body was found, she froze to death with many un-lit matches that she could have used to save herself if she lit a fire, but didn’t cause she perhaps she was too afraid to face the wrath of a beating for using the matches instead of selling them.

A sad fairy tale, but most fairy tales are rooted in tragedy……

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5 Comments »

  1. Wow, thank you for sharing that story True George.

    This story can not only represent the reality of things that really have happened and are happening and will continue to happen at this rate unfortunately, but it can also be symbolic of humanity as a whole or as groups (societies, cultures, human-made systems, et cetera) showing how many of us live and how many of our systems and cultures are designed and how people are dying and suffering because of it physically/mentally/socially/emotionally/symbolically/et cetera and we have ways to save ourselves and others and to improve things but as a whole we often do not for various reasons (such as some of the reasons in this story).

    Besides that it can also be seen on a more personal level, I can see connections with this story with my own life and dreams (the kind you have when sleep) and hopes, and how I could see myself as the match girl who is dying symbolically/physically/mentally/socially/emotionally/et cetera and will not light a fire to save myself for various reasons as I hope and dream (the kind you have when sleep) of a better life/world/system/reality/et cetera.

    Humanity as a whole and others could die and continue to suffer unnecessarily if we do not light that fire, but will we or will we continue to just hope and dream until we die as flawed/imbalanced/destructive/unfair/et cetera systems/beliefs/cultures/laws/norms/et cetera make us suffer and leads us and others to our deaths?

    -John Jr

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