Hans Christian Andersen did not intend to be remembered for his fairytales. In fact, he “saw his novel as his main achievement and the fairy tales just as what they were intended to be: entertainment, written only for financial reasons”[1]. There is a reason, however, that Andersen is so remembered for his fairytales. They are entertaining, yes, but they also resonate with “broadly human fears, wishes, and nightmares”[2]. Over one hundred years later in 1968, Garrett Hardin put forth his theory: the Tragedy of the Commons. His theory claimed that human beings, when given unlimited access to free resources, will take more than their fair share and thus deplete the resource for everyone involved. The “the commons” can represent any body of people. Beryl Crowe’s “The Tragedy of the Commons Revisited” presents a strong explanation of who “the commons” is: “The commons is a fundamental social institution that has a history […] which antidates the Roman conquest. […] in societies there are some environmental objects which have never been, and should never be, exclusively appropriated to any group or group of individuals”[3]. In other words, the commons (the common body of the people) have a right to public goods. The tragedy here is the inevitable overconsumption that comes with ungoverned access. Andersen (1805-1870) was not alive when the theory was published, but poverty and greed were.
In this paper I will explore how Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytales, in particular the Tinder Box and the Little Match Girl, shed light on the Tragedy of the Commons. Andersen’s examination of greed, depletion, sacrifice, and poverty (among other things), provides a literary lens through which we can understand our current day Eco tragedy.
The Tragedy of the Commons’ tragedy lies in its inevitability. When Garrett Hardin published his theory, he quoted an English mathematician and philosopher: Alfred North Whitehead. Whitehead claimed that “the essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the remorseless working of things”[4]. What is the “remorseless working of things”? It is the idea that, perhaps, things work a little too well. In the midst of the gears of our society working, producing, industrializing, people get left behind, it is inevitable. Whitehead adds: “This inevitableness of destiny can only be illustrated in terms of human life by incidents which in fact involve unhappiness. For it is only by them that the futility of escape can be made evident in the drama”[5]. Thus, tragedy can lie in its casualty, its inevitability, and its normalcy. These aspects establish the “futility of escape”, as ultimately, one cannot escape a properly functioning, normal society. The Tragedy of the Commons comments on this inevitability, that our capitalistic tendencies will push us to create and witness tragedy.
Andersen’s the Tinder Box explores our capitalistic urge to take and take. The story begins with a soldier who comes upon an old woman. The old woman asks him to do her a favor: go into the tree and fetch her the matchbox. She promises that in the tree there are three chests, each filled with bronze, silver, or gold. The soldier follows her request and finds that she was truthful. He gathers up as many coins as possible and leaves the tree a rich man. There is a change in the soldier when he lives with his pockets full. He tells the old lady: “if you don’t tell me what you are going to do with [the tinder box], I will draw my sword and cut off your head”[6]. The soldier begins to feel entitled to all goods, even those that belong to others. The soldier (having not received an answer from the old lady), cuts off her head and takes the tinder box for himself. This pattern does not end; soon, the soldier learns that with the strike of the tinder box, he can earn more and more money. He has endless access to wealth. He begins to feel as though he has access to other human beings, including the princess. At the end of the story, the soldier is not punished for his deeds. Rather, he uses his tinder box to win the princess and kill anybody and everybody in his way. There is no moral in this tale; the bad are not penalized. Yet, perhaps, the lack of punishment is a commentary on its own. In the Tragedy of the Commons, the analogy commonly used is that of individual cattle farmers. In unclaimed land, cattle farmers will act selfishly by releasing their cows onto the “common parcel”, despite knowing that their cows “will eventually deplete the land of all grass and inevitably drive everyone out of business”[7]. The point being: the cattle farmers want the immediate benefits of having more cows and are willing to push the damage and consequences to others. The soldier represents this cattle farmer; he has unlimited access to the money of the tinder box, and rather than redistribute or use it to others benefit, he acts selfishly. It is not a character flaw, but rather a symptom of a western, capitalist society, in which only the most selfish survive. It reflects a greater prisoner’s dilemma, where one fears if they do not act in their own best interest, others in the game will deceive them. Thus, the soldier can be used to understand what ignites the Tragedy of the Commons; we act in our own best interest, not because we are evil, but because if we did not, someone else would. As Garrett Hardin put it, “freedom in a commons brings ruin to all”[8].
The Little Match Girl provides a perspective on how the other half lives. Part of the tragedy of the Tragedy of the Commons is that the poor and vulnerable are forced to deplete their resources for lack of a better alternative. In the Bay of Bengal, the community makes their living by fishing. Despite it being one of the most disaster-prone regions in the world, “many fishers defy warnings and continue fishing, which results in many fatalities every year”[9]. As a result of these fatalities, many of the families suffer economically, forcing them (in a twisted, cyclical process), to “cope in the only way they are capable of, that is by putting more pressure on common pool marine resources”[10]. Thus, the fishers in the Bay of Bengal consistently put themselves at risk, depleting the resources and threatening their climate because their community has been pushed into a singular line of work. There is no other way, it is inevitable. The little match girl faces a similar predicament; out in the cold on Christmas Eve, having failed to sell her matches for the day, she begins to light her matches. One by one, she hopes that the light from the flame will warm her: “Her little hands were almost frozen with the cold. Ah! Perhaps a burning match might be some good, if she could draw it from the bundle and strike it against the wall, just to warm her fingers”[11]. The little match girl is found the next morning, frozen to death, her match box empty. The tragedy, and perhaps the irony, is that the little girl died using the very resource that could have kept her alive. She was forced to deplete it, there was no better option. It was the running out of this resource (and its potential for warmth) that led to her death. Similarly, the fishers in the Bay of Bengal continue to fish, despite its fatal potential. The result of overfishing in their common pool is that the resources are depleted, less fish is widely available, and income declines. This leads to “food insecurity along the coast” that can be, just like fishing, fatal[12]. Thus, Andersen’s the Little Match Girl is a prime literary example for understanding how and why the poor and vulnerable engage in a short-lived, fatal cycle. The ability to act in one’s long-term best interest is a privilege, one that neither the match girl nor the most vulnerable in the Tragedy of the Commons can afford.
The Little Match Girl ultimately comments on who benefits from the common’s self-sacrifice. In Andersen’s tale, he writes: “She lighted another match, and then she found herself sitting under a beautiful Christmas tree […] Thousands of tapers were burning upon the green branches […] The little one stretched out her hand towards them, and the match went out”[13]. The irony here is painful; the little girl is freezing to death, match by match, as she watches a family light dozens of candles to decorate their home. She has, as part of the tragic lesson of the tale, given away her warmth for the rich families that surround her. She has sold her matches at such a cheap, unprofitable price, that she cannot ultimately warm herself. The fishers in the Bay of Bengal face the same problem: “Fishers and their families remain inadequately nourished and are not protected from avoidable diseases […] It is also a paradox that the price of fish the fishers earn is only 1 USD/kg of fish when the reported wealth that fisheries generate for the riparian countries is so immense”[14]. Thus, just as the match girl’s commodity is warmth, and she dies of the cold, the fishers’ commodity is fish, and they often die of malnutrition. The little match girl’s story is a literary analogy of the Tragedy of the Commons; the depletion of resources (her matches) is a consequence of others taking too much and giving too little in return. Andersen calls people’s attention to how we treat the most vulnerable; is society responsible for the little girl’s death? Is her death, in our capitalist society, inevitable and a symptom of the “remorseless working of things?”
Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales are harsh commentaries on western society. They call out our most greedy and profitable members of society and they provide a voice for our most vulnerable and disadvantaged. Though the Tragedy of the Commons is a contemporary theory, driven by a focus on the climate, Andersen’s tales provide a more accessible path towards understanding the concept. Made for children, the fairytales are clear: our greed has consequences. Notably, Andersen was writing most of his fairytales during and after many of the Industrial Revolutions across the world. The English Industrialization, for example, took place in the late 18th century. Thus, there is a hint of conflict between nature and humanity in his tales, particularly the Fir Tree. His personification of the cut down tree engages his audience with the disasters of the industrializing, Western world. The Tragedy of the Commons, then, is not only hinted at through the social dynamics in Andersen’s tales, but also as a forewarning of how we should treat the earth.
Bibliography
Andersen, Hans Christian. "The Little Match Seller." Translated by H. P. Paull. Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales and Stories. Last modified 1846. Accessed October 21, 2021. http://hca.gilead.org.il/li_match.html.
———. "The Tinder Box." Translated by H. P. Paull. Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales and Stories. Last modified 1835. Accessed October 21, 2021. http://hca.gilead.org.il/tinderbx.html.
Crowe, Beryl L. "The Tragedy of the Commons Revisited." Science 166, no. 3909 (1969): 1103-07. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1727455.
De mylius, Johan. "'Our Time Is the Time of the Fairy Tale': Hans Christian Andersen between Traditional Craft and Literary Modernism." Marvels and Tales 20, no. 2 (2006): 166-78. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41388793.
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Wood, Naomi. "The Ugly Duckling's Legacy: Adulteration, Contemporary Fantasy, and the Dark." Marvels and Tales 20, no. 2 (2006): 193-207. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41388795.
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[1] Johan De mylius, "'Our Time Is the Time of the Fairy Tale': Hans Christian Andersen between Traditional Craft and Literary Modernism," Marvels and Tales 20, no. 2 (2006): 168, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41388793.
[2] Naomi Wood, "The Ugly Duckling's Legacy: Adulteration, Contemporary Fantasy, and the Dark," Marvels and Tales 20, no. 2 (2006): 194, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41388795.
[3] Beryl L. Crowe, "The Tragedy of the Commons Revisited," Science 166, no. 3909 (1969): 1103, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1727455.
[4] Garrett Hardin, "THE TRAGEDY of THE COMMONS," Ekistics 27, no. 160 (1969): 168, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43614737.
[5] Hardin, "THE TRAGEDY," 168.
[6] Hans Christian Andersen, "The Tinder Box," trans. H. P. Paull, Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales and Stories, last modified 1835, accessed October 21, 2021, http://hca.gilead.org.il/tinderbx.html.
[7] Nikolaos Laoutaris, "Cows, Privacy, and Tragedy of the Commons on the Web," Nikolaos Laoutaris, last modified April 28, 2016, accessed October 21, 2021, http://laoutaris.info/index.php/2016/04/28/cows-privacy-and-tragedy-of-the-commons-on-the-web/.
[8] Hardin, "THE TRAGEDY," 169.
[9] Svein Jentoft, Paul Onyango, and Mohammad Mahmudul Islam, "Freedom and Poverty in the Fishery Commons," International Journal of the Commons 4, no. 1 (2010): 347, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26523026.
[10] Jentoft, Onyango, and Islam, "Freedom and Poverty," 348.
[11] Hans Christian Andersen, "The Little Match Seller," trans. H. P. Paull, Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales and Stories, last modified 1846, accessed October 21, 2021, http://hca.gilead.org.il/li_match.html.
[12] Jentoft, Onyango, and Islam, "Freedom and Poverty," 348.
[13] Andersen, "The Little," Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales and Stories.
[14] Jentoft, Onyango, and Islam, "Freedom and Poverty," 353.