De røde Skoe
“The Red shoes” is one of the most disturbing tales in the literary canon of childhood, and it has been read in multiple ways, but always with attention to the horrors of the chopped-off feet that dance on their own. Today, Karen’s dance in Andersen’s tale is read less as an act of insolent arrogance than as an expression of creativity. The tale has become for many feminist writers and critics an allegory of the violence threatening those who prefer creative fulfillment to compliance with conventional social roles. Anne Sexton’s poem “The Red Shoes” expresses anxiety about how dancers in red shoes turn suicidal because they defy social norms and signal insubordination: “What they did would do them in” (Sexton, 316). The writer in Margaret Atwood’s novel Lady Oracle captures the impossibility of combining artistic accomplishment with personal fulfillment and relies on Andersen’s tale to capture the dilemma facing women:
The real red shoes, the feet punished for dancing. You could dance, or you could have the love of a good man. But you were afraid to dance, because you had this unnatural fear that if you danced they’d cut your feet off so you wouldn’t be able to dance. . . . Finally you overcame your fear and danced, and they cut your feet off. The good man went away too, because you wanted to dance.
(Atwood 1976, 335)
The tale of the red shoes is known to European oral storytelling cultures, where it also goes by the names “The Devil’s Dancing Shoes” and “The Red-Hot Shoes of the Devil.” Clarissa Pinkola Estés includes what she calls a “Magyar-Germanic” version in Women Who Run with the Wolves (Estés, 216–19). There, the red shoes dance through the forest out of sight, and the girl remains a cripple, who “never, ever again wished for red shoes.”
There was once a little girl who was delicate and pretty but so poor that she had to go barefoot1 all summer long. In the winter, she had to wear big wooden clogs that chafed against her ankles until they turned red. It was just dreadful.
Old Mother Shoemaker lived right in the middle of the village. She took some old strips of red cloth and did her best to turn them into a little pair of shoes.2 They may have been crudely made, but she meant well, and the girl was to have them. The little girl’s name was Karen.3
On the day that her mother was buried, Karen was given the red shoes and wore them for the very first time. It’s true that they were not the proper shoes for mourning, but they were all she had, and so she put them on her bare feet, walking behind the plain coffin made of straw.4
Just then a grand old carriage passed by, and inside it sat a grand old woman. She looked at the little girl and took pity on her. And she said to the pastor: “How about giving the little girl to me? I will treat her kindly.”
W. HEATH ROBINSON
Karen, dressed in tattered clothing, contemplates the shoes made for her by Old Mother Shoemaker, who admires her handiwork. The mirror hangs on the wall as a sign of vanity.
Karen thought that all this had happened because she had been wearing the red shoes, but the old woman declared that the shoes were hideous, and she had them burned. Karen was then dressed in proper new clothing. She had to learn to read and sew, and people said that she was pretty. But the mirror told her:5 “You are more than pretty—you’re beautiful!”
One day the queen came traveling through the country with her little daughter, who was a princess. People were swarming around the castle, and Karen was there too. The little princess was dressed in fine white clothing and stood at the window for all to admire. She wasn’t wearing a train, and she didn’t have a golden crown on her head, but she was wearing splendid red shoes made of fine leather. Of course they were much nicer than the ones Old Mother Shoemaker had made for little Karen. There’s nothing in the world like a pair of red shoes!6
When Karen was old enough to be confirmed, she was given new clothes, and she was to have new shoes as well. A prosperous shoemaker in town measured her little feet. The shop was right in his house, and the parlor had big glass cases, with stylish shoes and shiny boots on display. Everything in them looked attractive, but since the old woman could not see well, the display gave her no pleasure. Among the many shoes was a pair of red ones that looked just like the shoes worn by the princess. They were beautiful!7 The shoemaker told Karen that he had made them for the daughter of a count, but that the fit had not been right.
“They must be made of patent leather,” the old woman said. “See how they shine!”
“Yes, they are shiny!” Karen said. And since the shoes fit, the old woman bought them, but she had no idea they were red. If she had known, she would never have let Karen wear them to be confirmed, but that is exactly what Karen did.
Everyone looked at Karen’s feet when she walked down the aisle in the church toward the doorway for the choir. Even the old paintings on the crypts—the portraits of pastors and their wives wearing stiff collars and long black gowns—seemed to have their eyes fixed on her red shoes. That was all Karen could think about, even when the pastor placed his hand on her head and spoke of the holy baptism, the covenant with God, and the fact that she should now be a good Christian. The organ played solemnly, the children sang sweetly, and the old choir leader sang too, but, still, Karen could think only about her red shoes.
By the afternoon, the old woman had heard from everyone in the parish about the red shoes. She told Karen that wearing red shoes to church was dreadful and not the least bit proper. From that day on, whenever Karen went to church, she was to wear black shoes, even if they were worn out.
The following Sunday Karen was supposed to go to communion. She looked at her black shoes, and she looked at the red ones.8 And then she looked at the red ones again and put them on.
It was a beautiful, sunny day. Karen and the old woman took the path through the cornfields,where it was rather dusty.
At the church door they met an old soldier,9 who was leaning on a crutch. He had a long, odd-looking beard that was more red than white—in fact it was red. He made a deep bow, and then he asked the old woman if he could polish her shoes. Karen stretched out her little foot as well. “Just look at those beautiful dancing shoes,”10 the soldier said. “May they stay on tight when you dance,”11 and he tapped the soles of the shoes.
The old woman gave the soldier a penny and then went into the church with Karen.
Everyone in the church stared at Karen’s red shoes, and all the portraits stared at them too. And when Karen knelt down at the altar and put the chalice to her lips, all she could think of were her red shoes, which seemed to be floating in the chalice.12 She forgot to sing the hymn, and she also forgot to recite the Lord’s Prayer.
Everyone was leaving the church, and the old woman climbed into the carriage. As Karen was lifting her foot to follow her in, the old soldier standing nearby said: “Take a look at those beautiful dancing shoes!” Karen could not help herself—she just had to take a few dance steps. But once she started, her feet could not stop. It was as if the shoes had taken control. She danced around the corner of the church—she could not stop herself. The coachman had to chase after her, grab hold of her, and lift her into the carriage. But even in there her feet kept on dancing. and she gave the Kind old woman a few terrible kicks. Finally they managed to get the shoes off, and her legs began to calm down.
Once they were home, the shoes were put into a cupboard, but Karen could not help going over to look at them.
Not much later, the old woman was taken ill, and it was said that she would not live long. She needed someone to take care of her and nurse her, and who better to do it than Karen? But in town there was to be a grand ball, and Karen had been invited. She looked at the old woman, who didn’t, after all, have much longer to live. Then she looked at the red shoes,13 for there was no harm in that. She put them on, for there was no harm in that either. Then she left for the ball and began dancing.
When Karen turned to the right, the shoes turned left. When she wanted to dance up the ballroom floor, the shoes danced down the floor. They danced down the stairs, into the street, and out through the town gate. Dance she did, and dance she must, right out into the dark forest.
Something was shining brightly above the trees, and Karen thought it must be the moon,14 because it resembled a face, but it turned out to be the old soldier with the red beard. He nodded and said: “Take a look at those beautiful dancing shoes!’
Karen was horrified and tried to take the shoes off, but they wouldn’t come off. She tore off her stockings, but the shoes had grown onto her feet. And dance she did, for dance she must, over hill and dale, rain or shine, night and day. Nighttime was the most terrible time of all.
Karen danced into the open churchyard, but the dead did not join in her dance.15 They had better things to do than dance. She wanted to sit down on a pauper’s grave, where bitter tansy weed grows,16 but there was no rest or peace for her there. When she danced toward the open church door, she realized that it was guarded by an angel in long white robes, with wings that reached from his shoulders down to the ground. His expression was stern and solemn, and in his hand he held a broad, gleaming sword.17
“Dance you shall!” he said to her. “Dance in your red shoes until you turn pale and cold, and your skin shrivels up like a mummy. Dance you shall from door to door, and wherever you find children who are proud and vain, you will knock on the door so that they will hear you and fear you!18 Dance you shall! Dance!”
“Have mercy!” Karen shouted. But she did not hear the angel’s reply, for the shoes were already carrying her through the gate, along highways and byways, and she had to keep on dancing.19
One morning, she danced past a door she knew well. Inside you could hear a hymn, and then a coffin covered with flowers was carried out. Karen knew that the old woman must have died. Now she was all alone in the world and cursed by the angel of God.
Dance she did and dance she must, dance through the dark night. Her shoes took her through thickets with briars that scratched her until she bled. She danced across the heath until she reached a lonely little house. She knew that this was the home of the executioner, and she tapped on the window with her finger and said: “Come outside! Come outside! I can’t come in because I’m dancing!”
The executioner said: “You don’t know who I am, do you? I chop off the heads of evil people, and I can feel that my ax is getting impatient.”
“Don’t chop my head off!” Karen cried. “If you do, I won’t be able to repent. But go ahead and chop the red shoes off my feet.”
Karen confessed her sins, and the executioner chopped off the feet in those red shoes. And the shoes danced across the fields and into the deep forest, with the feet still in them.
The executioner made wooden feet and crutches for her. He taught her a hymn that was sung by sinners. Then she kissed the hand that had wielded the ax, and off she went across the heath.
“I have suffered long enough because of those red shoes,” she said. “It’s time to go to church and let everyone see me.”20 She hobbled over as fast as she could to the church door, and, when she got there, the red shoes were dancing in front of her. Horrified, she turned back.
All week long she was miserable and wept many bitter tears. When Sunday came, she said: “I have suffered and struggled long enough. I have a feeling that I am just as good as many of the people sitting in church and holding their heads high.” She set out confidently, but when she reached the gate she saw the red shoes dancing in front of her.21 She turned away horrified and, this time, repented her sins with all her heart.
Karen went over to the parsonage and asked if she might be taken into service there. She promised to work hard and to do everything asked of her. Wages were of no interest to her. All she needed was a roof over her head and the chance to stay with good people. The parson’s wife took pity on her and hired her. Karen was thoughtful and hardworking. In the evening, she would sit quietly and listen to the parson as he read from the Bible. The children were all fond of her, but whenever they talked about dressing up in frills and finery and looking as beautiful as a queen,22 she would shake her head.
The next Sunday they all went to church and asked if she wanted to join them. Tears came to her eyes as she looked with sorrow over at her crutches. The others went to hear the word of God while she retreated to her lonely little room, just big enough to hold a bed and a chair. She sat down with her hymnal and was reading it devoutly when the wind carried the sounds of the organ from the church to her. She raised her tear-stained face upward and said: “Help me, O Lord!”
The sun began to shine brightly, and an angel in white robes—the one that she had seen at night in the church doorway—appeared before her. Where he had once held a sword with a sharp blade he now had a beautiful green branch covered with roses. He touched the ceiling with the branch, and it rose high up into the air. A golden star was shining on the spot he had touched. Then he touched the walls, and they moved outward and away. Karen looked at the organ and heard it playing. She saw the portraits of the pastors and their wives. The congregation was seated in carved pews and singing from hymnals.
The church itself had come to the poor girl in her tiny crowded room, or perhaps she had gone to the church. She was sitting in a pew with others from the parsonage. When they finished the hymn, they looked up, nodded in her direction, and said: “It was right for you to come, Karen.”
“I’m here by the grace of God,” she replied.
The organ swelled, and the children in the choir lifted their voices in soft and beautiful sounds. Bright, warm sunshine flooded through the window into the church pew where Karen was seated. Her heart was so filled with sunshine, and with peace and joy, that it burst. Her soul flew on the rays of the sun up to God, and no one there asked her about the red shoes.23
1. she had to go barefoot. The condition of being without shoes signals abject poverty, abandonment, and exposure in Andersen’s works. Gerda in “The Snow Queen” and the little match girl share Karen’s fate: being deprived of protection from the cold. Note that Karen will receive two pairs of red shoes, with the first leading to her social elevation through the maternal old woman, and the second to her social degradation. Shoes have always sent strong social signals, indicating position in a hierarchy—even today we use the term “well-heeled” to mark a person of high standing. Our popular entertainments are filled with references to shoe brands. Shoes enable not just physical mobility but also social mobility.
2. did her best to turn them into a little pair of shoes. This first pair of shoes remedies the disjunction between Karen’s appearance (“delicate and pretty”) and the poverty to which she is subjected. Karen’s beauty contrasts sharply with the big ugly wooden clogs that chafe her ankles. The red shoes, linked by their color to the clogs that turn Karen’s ankles red, seem to create a new social identity for Karen. But they do not entirely efface the old identity.
3. The little girl’s name was Karen. Andersen’s mother had a daughter named Karen-Marie, born out of wedlock in 1799 and raised by her maternal grandmother. Andersen scrupulously avoided any mention of her in his autobiographical writings. Karen worked as a washerwoman in Copenhagen, where she lived with her husband. In 1842 Karen contacted Andersen, and he gave her a small sum of money when she paid him a visit.
W. HEATH ROBINSON
Karen has dressed up for her appearance at church.
4. the plain coffin made of straw. Coffins made of straw were widely used in Europe to bury the poor. Today the use of straw coffins has been revived as an ecologically correct form of burial.
5. the mirror told her. As in “The Snow Queen,” a mirror figures prominently as a device promoting self-division and vanity. The voice in the mirror affirms beauty, as in the Grimms’ “Snow White”; but, in Andersen’s story, the reflection in the mirror has a malignant effect, turning a “delicate and pretty” child into a selfabsorbed, vain creature.
6. There’s nothing in the world like a pair of red shoes! The narrator shares Karen’s delight in red shoes with an exclamation that seems to articulate a universal truth. The pleasure derived from the shoes stems from their beauty, which seems untart nished by sin so long as the shoes are put on display in public spaces rather than at sacred sites like the church. Note that the mark of royalty has been transferred from the princess’s head (the crown) to her feet (the red shoes), and that the red shoes become an emblem of nobility when they are worn by the princess. As one commentator on the story points out: “This image of the princess fixes the red shoes to a fantasy of social transcendence that would lead Karen from low to high, from rags to riches, from a little pauper in bloodstained clogs to a princess in red moroccan slippers” (Mackie, 239).
7. They were beautiful! The beauty of the shoes is once again emphasized; and the fact that they are exhibited twice—first as the shoes worn by the princess in greeting her subjects, then as objets d’art in the shoemaker’s display cases—affirms their status as aesthetic objects, rare and beautiful. Both the old woman and Karen call attention to the shininess of the shoes (“See how they shine!” and “Yes, they are shiny”), thereby emphasizing the luminous quality characteristic of Andersen’s cult objects. The shoes turn into such powerful emblems of Karen’s sinful nature that it is easy to forget that they begin as exquisite ornaments arousing wonder and admiration.
8. She looked at her black shoes, and she looked at the red ones. Faced with a choice between remaining a self-effacing girl raised by an old woman or becoming a princess, Karen hesitates only for a moment. Her fixation on the red shoes is driven in part by their beauty but to a great extent by their association with a princess who is acclaimed by her subjects and accompanied by her mother.
9. At the church door they met an old soldier. The old soldier occupies a liminal, or in-between, space at the threshold to the church. In policing entry into a sacred space, he appears to be an enforcer of socioreligious codes. His red beard points in the direction of a diabolical force linked with Karen’s red shoes. That he is depicted as an invalid anticipates Karen’s fate.
10. “Just look at those beautiful dancing shoes.” The shoes are linked here for the first time with dancing. They have been seen as objects that open up the possibility of social mobility, and indeed they allow Karen to engage in activities that are both artistic and adventurous. Linking the beauty of the shoes with an expressive activity draws attention to the possibility that the moral and religious sentiments expressed in the remainder of the narrative may not necessarily be the dominant discourse of the tale. Note also how evil is associated with the act of covetous looking.
11. “May they stay on tight when you dance.” The soldier uses a charm or curse, a maleficium that will lead to Karen’s inability to stop dancing. He taps the soles and animates the shoes, endowing them with a life of their own. Oddly, the very figure who steps in to enforce submission to Christian values and bring Karen back to the fold is a diabolical character who uses black magic.
12. which seemed to be floating in the chalice. That the vision of the red shoes displaces the sacrament suggests that Karen places her faith in (and communes with) what is on her feet, not the sacrament representing the blood of Christ. She is more deeply invested in social mobility through the red shoes than in the salvation offered in church, and she will pay a price through the shedding of her own blood.
13. Then she looked at the red shoes. Once again, Karen is faced with a choice between duty and pleasure. Just as she turned away from the black shoes, she now leaves the old woman and elects to put on the red shoes once again. Looking and desiring lead to her downfall.
14. Karen thought it must be the moon. The moon, as in Andersen’s “Snow Queen,” is associated with diabolical forces that stand in opposition to the warmth and light generated by the sun, which is, in turn, associated with divine powers and redemption.
15. the dead did not join in her dance. Karen may be wearing beautiful shoes and her dancing may free her from the constraints of village life, but that dancing is also linked more emphatically to death than to life. She is presented as a solitary figure performing what was known in medieval times as the dance of death, or danse macabre and “skeleton dance.” The concept originated in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries and gained greater prominence during the outbreak of the plague in European countries. The danse macabre overturns social hierarchies by presenting a row of figures, sometimes led by the personified figure of Death, in descending order of social rank, beginning with the pope and ending with a peasant—all are equal before death. The dance of death could also be performed by the dead, who rose from their graves and danced in the cemetery before going out to fetch the living.
16. where bitter tansy weed grows. Tansy ragwort (Senecio jacobaea) is a noxious Eurasian weed that causes liver damage in cattle and horses.
17. he held a broad, gleaming sword. When Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, two angelic beings were placed at the gate, with “a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life” (Genesis 3:24). Dazzling in his whiteness, the angel contrasts sharply with the soldier, whose most prominent feature is a red beard.
18. “they will hear you and fear you!” Karen becomes a figure of warning, reminding children that pride (her desire for social mobility) and vanity (the wish to put herself on display) must be avoided. Her story becomes a cautionary tale about making the effort to aspire to the nobility of the princess waving to the crowds.
19. she had to keep on dancing. Karen’s compulsive dancing became the inspiration for the 1948 film The Red Shoes, directed by Michael Powell and starring Moira Shearer. Victoria Page, the ballerina in the film, is deeply committed to her professional life as a dancer and makes her name in the ballet The Red Shoes. She is torn between her desire to dance and her love for her husband. The film and novel that inspired it end when Victoria Page leaps to her death just before the performance of The Red Shoes. With her last dying breath, she bequeaths the shoes to her husband, shoes that are “alas, more red than ever before,” as noted in the novel (Powell and Pressburger, 279). By removing the shoes, she signals to her husband the decision to abandon her career.
Ivor Guest, in a history of the romantic ballet, captures the way in which ballerinas are continually driven to dance: “Rest! Does a dancer ever rest? We were just poor wandering Jews at whom M. Barrez incessantly shouted, ‘Dance! Dance!’ . . . And do not imagine that such brutal fatigues only last for a short time. They must continue forever and be continually renewed” (Guest, 25). Andersen understood the rigors of the ballet, for he sang and danced on stage before returning to his studies in the town of Slagelse.
20. “go to church and let everyone see me.” Karen makes the fatal mistake of going to church in order to put herself on display, this time as a wounded creature who has liberated herself from the torments inflicted by beautiful shoes.
21. the red shoes dancing in front of her. The shoes, with bloody feet inside them, are charged with a powerful spirit of resistance and dance off on their own. They return to haunt and mock Karen as a talisman of her earlier desires.
22. looking as beautiful as a queen. Karen recognizes in the make-believe activities of the children her own desire to imitate the princess. Discrediting the attractions of beauty, she accepts the codes of her community and dedicates herself to a life of hard work and piety.
23. no one there asked her about the red shoes. The red shoes presumably continue their manic dance on earth, achieving a kind of immortality through a magic blend of beauty and horror.
