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H. C. Andersen was borne in Odense 1805, the only son of a shoemaker and a washerwoman. After the death of his father in 1816, his mother married again; at the age of 14, the boy left home and went on his own to Copenhagen. In 1835 he had his first novel ‘The Improvisor’ and his first small book of ‘Fairy Tales for Children’ published. He never married and had no children. He died in 1875 as a highly esteemed and quite famous writer.
Has any poor creature ever called out so much for our pity as The Ugly Duckling? As a self-portrait of its author, Hans Christian Andersen, it strongly expresses his recurring neurotic attempts to obtain sympathy and participation in his own suffering from his surroundings. In fact, he was a neurotic with a number of phobias and anxieties. Among them was, that he was panic striken by any small wound or scratch, as he imagined that it would lead to tetanus or gangrene. He was also afraid of fire and he would often be caught with an uneasy feeling that the candles were not properly put out, so that he had to check them a number of times during the night. And many other neurotic feelings and reactions could be mentioned, that bothered him substantially during much of his life (Helweg, 1927).
However, The Ugly Duckling is not an example of the work of art of a neurotic. Why? Because the duckling grows and becomes a beautiful swan. So the author promises the child, that if he can wait for growth and maturation, he will become like those he admires, and with whom he wants to identify.
Andersen left an unusual amount of information concerning his private life. At least three autobiographies, eleven volumes of his diary, several almost complete collections of letters, and then his fairy tales, novels and