Sophie Wan
Scandinavian 106
4/16/14
Dare to Dream Andersen’s stories are unique in the way their magic and honest messages shine through. Using words, Andersen paints pictures of the places he traveled and the scenes he witnessed. He is an artist in his own right, and his respect for other artists and the way they transform life and pain into something that can last ages is seen through his stories “‘Lovely’” and “Psyche.” Using his characters’ relationships with art in both stories, Andersen conveys that only the people who dare to dream can achieve immortality. From the beginning, the innocence of Andersen’s characters is what allows them to find inspiration in the world around them. The sculptor from “Psyche,” a perfectionist who is constantly destroying his art, “‘could laugh and walk as wittily as any of his friends. But when he stood in front of one of Raphael’s paintings, it seemed as if he caught a glimpse of God” (786). This sculptor, who has all the qualities of a normal man and experienced much of life, is still awestruck by Raphael’s paintings because his contact with reality has not erased his response to beauty. He will not be satisfied with his own art until it is perfect. To the sculptor, Raphael’s painting captures the spirit of God, and the sculptor’s ability to interpret that through a canvas shows his faith that a world exists beyond his. After he meets his Psyche, he sculpts a figure that “reflect[s] the innocence of the young artist,” indicating the idealistic dreams of a young man who has not been crushed by harsh reality (788). The sculptor’s desire to create something divine like Raphael’s painting is daring, but through his pursuit of perfection, he achieves something close. In contrast to his sincere passion, however, his friend Angelo argues that “‘a life beyond the grave… is a fiction, a fairy tale for children, delightful if you can convince yourself that it’s true… Be a man and come with me’” (790). Religion to Angelo is something unproven and abstract that is not for grown men to contemplate. Angelo leads the sculptor astray, pressuring him to pursue momentary pleasure through vices and “grow up.” In ways, he resembles the devil and convinces the sculptor that there is no path to righteousness, and to seize pleasure even if it is brief because all his fantasies are lies and delusions. The sculptor’s decision to follow Angelo causes, “a strange, horrible smell of corruption [that] blended itself with the odor of roses; it lamed his mind and blinded his sight. The fireworks of sensuality were over and darkness came” (791). Where the sculptor’s soul could once be compared to a rose as delicate, natural, and pure, it has now been poisoned by his actions. He loses the mind that is the source of his vivid imagination, and his sight, which allows him to take in beauty. By rejecting his innocence, the sculptor loses his special talent and withers without a dream world to escape to. In a more comedic fashion, Andersen uses irony to capture the naivety of the sculptor Mr. Alfred. Kala is a girl whose loveliness “bound the young sculptor, it touched and fascinated him; it captured him… That was Mr. Alfred’s judgment; and he was a sculptor. He understood that sort of thing” (654). Alfred’s need to justify his judgments on Kala by asserting his position as a sculptor contradict the judgments themselves; in reality, he knows nothing about Kala beyond her beautiful exterior. He does not analyze reality and see that Kala is unsuitable; instead, he allows his childlike fascination with beautiful things to guide his actions. Both sculptors possess the same sort of imaginative innocence when they are presented with things of beauty, and it distinguishes them from the people who stay in the world of reality. The creative spirit of Andersen’s characters translate into the way they isolate themselves in the world of dreams and are never fully able to join society. Andersen shows the pain that comes with the gift of imagination, channeling it through the sculptor’s unrequited love in “Psyche” and his conclusion that “art was only an enchantress who with her magic gave him vain dreams of earthly glory. She could make us all false to ourselves, false to our friends, false to God” (792). Although uninhibited love is what inspires the sculptor to create art, it also becomes the cause of his suffering. He shuns art as an enchantress because he realizes the blasphemous nature of playing God through his attempts to recreate life in objects. By then, however, his imagination has already led him to a world separate from that of others. He cedes control over life in order to have control over medium, but as a result he cannot reconcile his dreams with reality. This struggle is evident through his dramatic declaration of love when “words gushed out of his mouth and he could no more control the flow than the crater can stop the volcano from vomiting burning lava” (789). By comparing his sculptor to a natural disaster, Andersen communicates the rawness and spontaneity that drives the life of an artist, instead of the social behaviors that should hold him back. As a result of his impulses, however, the sculptor is rejected and labeled a madman. He regards his gift as an evil that has given him false hope and can ultimately offer him nothing but illusions; nobody else understands his pain, and only his neglected sculpture remains. Similarly, Alfred loves Kala because “the magic of form had charmed him, he had looked at the beautiful decoration of the box without bothering to find out what was inside it” (654). Alfred walks a different path from Kala and her mother because of their intellectual dissimilarities, but he finds value in possessing Kala when she is only an empty shell. Ultimately, Kala is only the outside of a box into which he can pour his stories and opinions, and he contents himself with this false happiness. Only when Alfred marries a Sophie, a girl described as “crooked,” does he enter the world of reality. Instead of being with someone who is lacks personality, Alfred chooses someone who has her own personality but none of the perfection and symmetry that an idealistic artist would pursue. By choosing a real person, Alfred brings himself out of his isolation and is able to join the real world to live in contentment until his death. Both Alfred and Psyche’s sculptor become entangled in their illusions, but ultimately Alfred escapes the dream world while the sculptor becomes a slave to it. Although Andersen’s characters are misunderstood during their lifetimes, their stories are the ones that are immortalized. The sculptor from “Psyche” once observes that “‘eternity, you are a great ocean of endless stillness. You fill us with curiosity and foreboding; you beckon and call; but if we step out upon your quiet waters we disappear, cease to exist’” (794). In this line he captures the struggle of the human existence. The life of mankind is transient, and we always strive to leave a legacy, seduced by the idea of being remembered throughout time. But many fail in this endeavor; pitting their own individual traits against the vastness of eternity, they rarely are able to leave a mark. However, the sculptor’s Psyche, a sculpture where his “soul had been carved in marble” is a surviving representation of who the sculptor was (795). In creating art, he has given it his heart, causing it to come alive. Alfred observes that “spirit and beauty could be seen in form, and the sculptor revealed the human form in its perfection,” and this applies to both his situation and Psyche’s creator (653). Alfred, though he is foolish in his evaluation of Kala, understands the power that the artist wields over material. Despite that, he does not have the capacity to create immortal art because he is a man who is satisfied with taking things at face value. His obsession with Kala almost remakes her into someone else; it is said that “he talked only about her, he thought only about her, the two of them had become one! In this manner silent Kala became talkative too, for Mr. Alfred talked enough for two, if not three” (654). Alfred’s endless repertoire of ideas is enough to bring Kala to life. Kala is similar to marble, a flawless material that must be shaped by the artist in order to come to life. Alfred communicates his own loves and interests until it is as if they become hers. Thus, we can see Alfred’s skill as an artist; his passion brings a lifeless form—in this case, Kala—alive. However, Alfred is selfish because he does not try to capture any of Kala’s humanity and only communicates his own. Unlike Alfred, the sculptor from “Psyche” strives to capture the spirit of his human subject while perfecting it with his imagination. His tragedy resounds more than Alfred’s happy ending, and between the two sculptors, Psyche’s creator feels a wider range of pain and joy. As a result, the life that Alfred brings to Kala only lasts as long as she lives because it is only momentary infatuation, but Psyche’s sculptor creates life that lasts for eternity because of his enduring struggle for perfection. Years after his death, “no one knew but the star of dawn, who knew of his earthly struggle, his trial, his weaknesses, his humanity! […] But his gain, his profit from his struggle and his search, the glory that proved the godliness within him, his Psyche, will never die” (795). Unlike all the men before him who have tried and failed, the sculptor achieves immortality through his art. Because of his innocent hope for love, he transfers his dreams into marble. Despite the fact that this sculpture is of a woman, she reflects the artist’s mind. With the progression of time, the artist himself is buried and forgotten, and his flaws are wiped away so that only the sculpture remains as a testament to the moment the artist achieved perfection. Both sculptors have artistic talent, but only the sculptor from “Psyche” immortalizes himself because his ideals turn a simple mortal woman into something divine. “Psyche” and “‘Lovely’” differ in their tones and the messages that are conveyed, but they are both about the power and burden of dreams upon the human soul. Only through their idealizations of the women they love do these two artists grasp perfection. Yet for both the women they love, the artists’ dreams fall flat and they must carry disappointment or withdraw from their worlds completely to preserve their sanity. What Andersen conveys through his stories is that the honor of immortality comes at a price, and between Alfred and the sculptor of Psyche, Alfred does not struggle internally over his choices, while the sculptor surrenders his control in order to convey the widest depth of human feeling in his art. Their approaches to the world around them influence the art they create and how long it lasts.

References
Andersen, Hans Christian. The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories. New York: Anchor Books, 1983. Print.