Little Match Girl
Andersen's tragic waif
The Little Match Girl is a character from Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale about a poor child who freezes to death on New Year's Eve while trying to sell matches.
The phrase evokes pathetic vulnerability and neglect—a figure of innocent suffering ignored by an indifferent world: She stood there like the Little Match Girl, shivering outside the locked door.
- flameBurning gas made visible
- dying flameFire nearly extinguished
- burning outDepleting through overuse
- coldLow temperature state
- snowFrozen crystalline precipitation
winter · Copenhagen · Hans Christian Andersen · Andersen · Victorian era · barefoot · frozen · visions · grandmother · stove · roast goose · Christmas · Christmas Eve · poverty · hunger · shivering · streets · street corner
- Fairy Tale CharactersCinderella, Snow White, Goldilocks, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel
Little Match GirlCinderella
Rags-to-riches heroine
survivor · Oliver Twist · Annie · Little Orphan Annie · Snow White
Little Match GirlRichie Rich
Juvenile cartoon billionaire
princess · heiress · Daddy Warbucks · trust fund baby · Marie Antoinette
Little Match GirlPippi Longstocking
Katniss Everdeen · Matilda · Hermione Granger · Nancy Drew · heroine
little, littler, littlest, match, matches, matched, matching, matcher, matchless