The Fir Tree by Hans Christian Andersen, 1845
The magic trick:
A disturbingly dire philosophical journey for a sweet, tiny fir tree
It’s Christmas week. Let’s do some holiday reading.
What a treat for you today. A sweet Hans Christian Andersen classic anthropomorphizing a little fir tree. Sounds delightful, right?
Well, it is.
Especially the part when the sweet fir tree realizes that nothing he dreamt of about the world or even the nature of existence is true, and that in fact all your hopes for a more meaningful and exciting future will only lead you to meaningless death.
Merry Christmas!
And that’s quite a trick on Andersen’s part.
The selection:
A short time before Christmas, the discontented fir-tree was the first to fall. As the axe cut through the stem, and divided the pith, the tree fell with a groan to the earth, conscious of pain and faintness, and forgetting all its anticipations of happiness, in sorrow at leaving its home in the forest. It knew that it should never again see its dear old companions, the trees, nor the little bushes and many-colored flowers that had grown by its side; perhaps not even the birds. Neither was the journey at all pleasant. The tree first recovered itself while being unpacked in the courtyard of a house, with several other trees; and it heard a man say, “We only want one, and this is the prettiest.”
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