The earliest childhood story I can remember my mother
reading to me was an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Ugly Duckling. It was one of those little books with
imaginative and fascinating hand-drawn pictures. It showed the plight of the little bird as a
misfit in a group of ducklings—not looking the same and thought ugly. It was only with maturity that the true
identity of the ugly duckling became apparent to others, but most especially to
the ugly duckling himself. He was not a malformed
duck after all, but a swan—eventually with a beauty far surpassing his
detractors. As a child, I greatly empathized
with the ugly duckling that was misunderstood and ridiculed simply for being
himself. The judgment heaped upon the
assumed duckling turned out to be uninformed and unfair. The “duckling” in the end was triumphantly
vindicated. Now I must ask myself, on
what basis did I identify so strongly with the ugly duckling? Did I actually see myself that misunderstood
and unappreciated or did my feelings represent an admirable compassion for someone
so victimized even though I myself felt far more fortunate? That for me is an open question I cannot
answer satisfactorily today—my childhood state of mind now being a remote mystery. Perhaps at this stage I secretly long for the
fresh, sensitive childhood ability to empathize with the unfortunate—a capacity
that has been largely traded-in for the complacent and purblind prejudices of
adulthood. Is The Ugly Duckling primarily a story for children or for
callous and jaded adults?
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