The Ugly Duckling
The last egg in a duck's clutch is larger than the rest and hatches a grey, ungainly bird that the farmyard sets about pecking. He runs to the marshes, is shot at among the wild geese, half freezes into a winter pond and is taken in by a cottager whose cat and hen explain to him what he is worth. Andersen called it the closest of his tales to his own life, and refused to let it be read any other way.
Open The Ugly Duckling in the archive — filters, lineage graph and full facet browsing.
Attributes
Plot structure
Symbol / motif
Conflict
Mode / tone
Culture / tradition
Closest analogues
- 52% · 11 shared
- 47% · 10 shared
- 47% · 9 shared
- 44% · 10 shared
- 42% · 9 shared
- 42% · 9 shared