Religious motifs : Overview. Search. About religious motifs
God contains among others: The Holy Spirit
See also Allah, Divine light, God's Kingdom, heaven
Description of this motif: "God" is the God of christianity, which in the eyes of Andersen is the God of all people. Andersen's religious were not dogmatic, and he never accepted the dogma of the trinity; God is for Andersen one, and he never speaks of the Holy Ghost. He considered Jesus to be a chosen man.
Example 1:
"God gives us the strength for much," she said, "if only we try to do our best."
Comment on this quote: These are Johanne's words for Knud, who is devistated after she told him that she does not love him as he loves her.
Example 2:
The Alps seemed to him like the folded wings of the earth; what if they were to unfold themselves and display their varied pictures of black woods, foaming waters, clouds, and great masses of snow! On the last day, he thought, the world will lift up its mighty wings and mount upward to God, to burst like a soap bubble before the glance of the Highest.
"Ah," he sighed, "that that last day were here now!"
Comment on this quote: Judgment Day is a rare motif in Andersens oeuvre, and it is in this case only Knud's wish. A wish for death and being freed from this cruel world (he suffers from heartache over a woman). The thought of the world rising to God on wings and its bubble-like bursting in the light of God is significant. It resembles especially The Old Oak Tree's Last Dream (1858), but also The Comet (the "future bubbles" of soap and later on the old man's "bubbles of memories") and The Little Mermaid's transformation via 'death' in foam on the sea.
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