Plot Summary of The Little Match Girl

The Little Match Girl

by: Hans Christian Andersen                       

        This story talks about a poor young girl that sold matches on the street. It was a cold New Year’s eve. On the streets, the little match girl walked in the cold with no extra clothes and she had no shoes to protect her feet from the cold air. She had slippers when she left home but sadly the slippers are too big for her. She sold matches every day to earn money to buy food. She was about to cross the street when a horse carriage ran straight towards her. She ran away as fast as she could to save herself from the horse carriage. While running she lost both her slippers. She was about to get the slippers but a boy came to grab them and the boy ran away with them so the little girl just decided to walk on the street on her bare feet. Her feet had turned blue because of how cold it was. She sat in a corner near the street to wait for customers to buy her matches for her. She waited for a long time but no one came to buy her matches but with determination, she never lost hope and continued to wait for customers to buy her matches. It was snowing heavily now and she shivered from the cold and hunger. Snowflakes fell on her hair and wiped it off her shoulders. She also smelled a roasted goose being cooked in a nearby house. The little match girl was freezing cold until she decided to light up one match and it became warm but when the flame went out she took another match and lit it up against the wall until something happened. She could see what was going on inside the house. She could see a table filled with delicious food. Then she saw the goose jumped from the dish and it ran straight towards the girl, but the match went out and everything she saw vanished. She lit up another match and saw a Christmas tree and tried to stretch out her arms to touch them but the match went away and everything vanished again. Then she lit it up once again, but she saw a light from the sky. Her grandmother once told her that when a star falls out from the sky someone will die to send their souls to heaven. She lit up another match and this time she can see her grandmother standing. She was happy to see her grandmother and she started crying and begged her grandmother to come with her. Then she had an idea. She lit up all the matches she had and her grandmother went to her then took the little girl and flew up to the sky. The next day people gathered around to see the dead body of the little match girl. She was frozen to death. She was leaning against the wall with a smiling face.