Innocence and Eternity in “The Snow Queen”

by Emelie Thomas

Disney claims The Snow Queen as inspiration for their Frozen movies. Spoiler alert: aside from a few frozen hearts melted by self-sacrificial love, the similarities cease. In fairytale form, The Snow Queen elucidates the true nature of innocence, the pitfalls of our fallenness, and the path into eternity. Hans Christian Andersen’s story leads us, with his characters Gerda and Kay, to die to the “sensibility” of the world and to discover the true essence of life.

The distinction between “sensibility” and “innocence” runs through the heart of this tale. Kay and Gerda start the story as innocent children, sharing such love and affection for one another that their rose-canopied setting becomes a sort of Eden, full of play and delight. Their innocence gives them an “inner sense,” apt to perceive the true nature — the essence — of the world around them. They are not naive; rather, their inner sense serves an internal compass towards the good and true. During these days of bliss, Gerda discovers a verse which she shares with Kay:

“The roses fade and die, but we
Our Infant Lord shall surely see.”

The children repeat it to one another often, and it recalls them to the essential — the truth — amidst trials to come. And trials are not long in coming; “sensibility” enters the story suddenly, as shards of goblin glass pierce Kay’s eye and heart and subvert his inner sense. This goblin glass holds a wicked magic which impairs Kay’s sight and alters his affections, causing him to become “sensible” and scoff at anything whimsical and winsome, rejecting all but his own sardonic pleasure. The difference is shocking, and Kay becomes alienated from Gerda and his grandmother.

Kay and Gerda’s world is shattered, and broken glass is the cause — broken in a fall, reminiscent of Lucifer’s fall from heaven and Adam and Eve’s “fall” in the garden. The goblin mirror, the source of Kay’s obfuscation, was forged to magnify the faults of anything in its frame. It accomplished this so marvelously that the goblins flew it around the whole world, laughing with sardonic delight at each creature it contorted. When the goblins decided to carry the mirror upwards to view the angels and the heavens, the mirror resisted and shook so violently that it slipped from the goblins’ hands, shattered upon earth, and formed minute shards that became embedded in hapless persons, inexplicably altering them. Kay and Gerda knew nothing of the goblin mirror, yet it irrevocably altered their lives. Similarly for us, Adam and Eve’s fall predates us, yet affects us all. We are forced to reckon with the poison of an original sin we did not commit — a sin which exceeds our ability to control and correct. We are bound to face our fallenness and the fallenness of one another. 

As soon as the glass is lodged, Kay turns upon what he once held dear, thinking himself mature and “sensible.” He ridicules Gerda, rips apart their beloved roses after spotting “a crooked stem” and “a worm,” and mocks his grandmother behind her back as she tells the children once-beloved stories. Kay forgets his prayers and becomes obsessed with mathematical figures and stark orderliness. Kay’s “maturity” is a false maturity, paralleling the modern passage from a belief in wonder to the nihilistic rejection of anything that numbers can’t “prove.” The “sense” wrought by the shards removes Kay from the wonder he shared with Gerda and leaves him vulnerable to a frigid emptiness — emptiness we are all prone to without our ties to innocence and truth.

Enter, the Snow Queen. She is no Elsa; instead, she embodies frigid emptiness itself — the furthest state of sensibility.  She lives in a frozen wasteland, throned beside a lake she calls the “mirror of Understanding.” This lake is no better than the goblin mirror — its surface is broken into thousands of ice chunks, passing off disintegration and fragmentation for “understanding” (rather than coherence and correspondence, which lead to true understanding). When the Snow Queen beckons to Kay in his “sensible” state, he no longer has the inner sense to resist. He blithely attaches himself to her sleigh, allowing her kisses to numb him of all memory and purpose and reduce him to a frost-blackened shell of himself. As the Snow Queen leads Kay away, he figuratively fades and dies, incarnating the consequences of his cynical state.

Kay’s fate is shared by all who succumb to sensibility. When Adam and Even listened to the “sense” of the serpent, attaching their alliance to something other than God, the result was exposure and death. Ever since, “sensibility” has become a facet of all our sin. We are prone to pursue base pleasures and to withdraw into futility. We, like Kay, like Adam and Eve, cannot escape fading and death.

Gerda’s innocence is the shining light in this story. Although she is rejected and marginalized by Kay, she does not become embittered or join Kay in his distorted sensibility. She maintains her inner sense, and with it, she chooses to see Kay as he is in essence — a dear friend in dire need of rescue. Gerda sees Kay the way Christ sees us, with an almighty affection, despite  our callousness and outright rejection. Gerda leaves her family and her home, risking danger and exposure to pursue her lost friend. As she seeks Kay, Gerda undergoes fading and death, but it is death to herself. Gerda and Kay both venture from their childhood Eden out into the fraught world, yet their path to maturity looks vastly different. Kay’s maturity is shallow and false, never leading outside of a self-centered spiral. Gerda’s maturity maintains a sense of innocence, equipping her to look not to her own interests, but to the interests of others as she steps out to pursue her friend.

The love and innocence in Gerda’s pursuit are not hers alone — they are the love and innocence of Christ. As she travels, Gerda repeatedly tells her story, and, like the Gospel story, it compels others to act. One character says of Gerda, “I can give her no greater power than she already possesses; don’t you see how great that is? Don’t you see how both men and animals are obliged to serve her…? She cannot receive any power from us; she possesses it in her heart. It consists in her being a sweet innocent child.” Gerda’s innocence, her inner sense, points to the true nature of a thing, and thus, it points to the Logos  — Christ, the essence of all things. In Him, Gerda is undergirded.

At the Queen’s throne, Gerda finds Kay endlessly configuring the lake’s ice blocks to try to spell the word that will grant his freedom — “Eternity.” Though the glass in his eye makes him think the figures he completes are of greatest importance, his “ice game of reason” is futile, and Kay is fast freezing to the point of perishing. How similar are our own efforts to find significance and meaning in our own right! We desire to make an impact, to accomplish something lasting, and yet, without the eternal significance of Christ’s sacrifice, we remain dying in a realm of vast emptiness. Eternity only becomes ours when we step away from our striving as outcasts of Eden and step into true maturity — the innocence of the Infant Lord.

Gerda holds fast to Kay, and her sincerity and sacrifice prove more powerful than the forces holding Kay in thrall. As she embraces her frost-blackened friend, her tears consume the splinter of glass in his heart. Yet, Kay is not fully restored — the glass in his eye remains, and he cannot recognize Gerda. She sings their rhyme…

“The roses fade and die, but we
Our Infant Lord shall surely see.”

and Kay bursts into tears, flushing the shard from his eye. At last, at the mention of the Infant Lord, Kay sees surely. He recognizes Christ even before he recognizes Gerda, and Christ’s innocence becomes his own. Joy fills the throne room, and the ice blocks are animated in dance until they come to rest in the form of the word “Eternity,” marking Kay’s free passage from the frozen hall.

Kay and Gerda reenter the world hand-in-hand, finding it familiar and yet full of new life: “wherever they walked the winds sank to rest and the sun came out… it was glorious spring with flowers and verdure.” The flowers point to new creation, to the maturity and fullness of all things after the birth pains are spent. Kay and Gerda are not swept up into some other-worldly realm; they are in this world, yet they are changed. They return to their grandmother’s house, opening the door and stepping into their play room:

“as they passed through the door they noticed they had become grown-up people… The grandmother sat in God’s bright sunshine and read aloud from the Bible: ‘Except ye become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter the Kingdom of God.’ And Kay and Gerda looked into each other’s eyes, and all at once understood the old song:

“The roses fade and die, but we
Our Infant Lord shall surely see.”

There they both sat, grown up and yet children — children in heart; and it was summer — warm, pleasant summer.” 

Thus, Hans Christian Andersen ends his story. When we die to ourselves and open the door to Christ, we come to see our Lord:

“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” 1 Corinthians 13:12

May the mirror we see through be entirely unlike the goblin mirror of sensibility. May it be the mirror of innocence and eternity, and through it may we, like Gerda, reflect the face of Christ. Like Gerda, may we join in the work of seeking and saving the lost, even at great personal cost. Perhaps the veneer of friendship and the veneer of life fades away — the roses fade and die. Yet, when we die to ourselves, we see our Infant Lord. We see with that innocent view commended by Christ: “to such as these belongs the kingdom of heaven.” We become like infants in our trust of our Father and in our undaunted desire to confess and to forgive.

Emelie Thomas is a nuclear trained Naval Officer with a degree in English Literature. She is married to Jay Thomas, who shares the same odd pedigree, and they are parents to three children. Emelie spends her days with the Nuclear Navy and spends her evenings celebrating literature and liturgy with her little ones.

[1] 2 Corinthians 10:17, Jeremiah 9:24, Psalm 34:2