Reflections on The Ugly Duckling

Last night, I rummaged through my dad’s “book mountain” to find a book, and I stumbled upon a collection of Andersen’s fairy tales. The stories I read as a child are still interesting to read now. I revisited Cinderella, The Ugly Duckling, and Thumbelina, and I found something that I think is a problem, or rather, a misunderstanding from my childhood. Let’s take a look at a book review written by an elementary school student (which represents my original thoughts):

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During the summer vacation, I read an interesting book - “Andersen’s Fairy Tale Selection”. The story that attracted me the most was “The Ugly Duckling”. This duck was excluded, ridiculed, and beaten everywhere, but it still held onto a beautiful dream. Because of this dream, it didn’t give up in the face of difficulties, and instead, it persevered and eventually became a beautiful and noble white swan. It felt happy and warm… After reading this article, I realized that appearance is not important, what matters most is whether one’s heart is beautiful and pure. The Ugly Duckling became a white swan, and everything came from the eternal dream in its heart. Everyone can become a swan that spreads its wings and flies, as long as you have a firm belief, a beautiful dream, and persist in your efforts, you will succeed, you will become a beautiful white swan, but the road ahead is very long…

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Hehe, maybe this is how we remember this beautiful fairy tale. But the original text is written like this

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“只要你曾经在一只天鹅蛋里待过，就算你是生在养鸭场也没有什么关系”It matters nothing if one is born in a duck－yard, if one has only lain in a swan’s egg.

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Oh my, it seems I was wrong (and many people were wrong too), the Ugly Duckling never actually “transformed” into a white swan, it was a white swan from the beginning! It did go through hardships, but if it wasn’t a swan, it wouldn’t have gotten a happy life. It seems Andersen isn’t that romantic after all, and “The Ugly Duckling” needs to be put in quotes. His original intention was to say that a swan born in a duck farm is considered “ugly” by the ducks because it’s different. Broadening this idea, the author is saying that people use their own philosophy to measure others, and in a narrow circle, geniuses are often seen as outcasts and ignored. Andersen must have been excluded at the time, which is why he wrote this (I’m just guessing) Through this incident, I discovered that our understanding of something we think we know often has deviations. We tend to ignore some important words and misinterpret the whole story. Additionally, I agree with Andersen’s point. If this article can be summarized in one simple sentence, I think it would be - what is gold will always shine!: )