“The Red Shoes” is a fairy tale about vanity and thoughtlessness, harsh punishment, and redemption. And isn’t there just something fabulous about red shoes? The makers of The Wizard of Oz sure thought so, trading the silver slippers of the Baum book for ruby slippers. Red shoes have an odd place in our cultural psyche—perhaps you’ve heard the phrase “red shoes, no knickers,” referring to a kind of shallow, flashy person (although the origin of the phrase might have been a reference to prostitution). That might be the angle that Hans Christian Andersen was driving at in his original tale (though he did not mention knickers).
If you aren’t familiar with the story, here’s my hot-to-trot take:
The shoemaker’s wife makes a pair of red shoes out of scraps from other projects, and gives them to a poor local girl, Karen. With nothing else to wear to her mother’s funeral, Karen wears the shoes. A rich old lady sees the funeral procession and offers to take Karen in, but burns the shoes and gives her new neat-but-modest attire. Karen grows up to be a lovely (if rather spoiled) young woman, and when she looks in the mirror, she decides she’s really quite beautiful.
The rich old lady starts to go blind, so when Karen gets a chance, she gets her hands on a new pair of red shoes and wears them to church! Outrageous! The old lady doesn’t notice, but all through the service, all Karen can think about is her hot red shoes. After church, the congregation is abuzz about the shoes, and they come to the attention of a mysterious soldier, who taps each shoe, telling them never to stop dancing once they start. Karen apparently doesn’t think much of the soldier’s odd command, because once she’s outside, she can’t help but dance a little—and then of course she can’t stop. One of the old lady’s servants helps her by forcing her into the carriage, ending the compulsive dancing (for now).
The old lady becomes ill, but instead of caring for her, Karen decides to attend a dance. Once she starts, she can’t stop, and nights and days pass without her being able to pause or rest. Eventually she sees the old woman’s funeral procession and realizes that she’s damned herself.
Karen manages to find an executioner, and gets him to chop the shoes off with her feet still inside. He also makes her wooden feet and crutches, and she returns to town where the preacher takes pity on her and invites her into his household. Thinking she’s done enough penance, Karen tries to go to church with the family, but the red shoes, with her amputated feet inside, block her from entering the church. She returns to the preacher’s house and prays for mercy, at which point an angel comes to her. Having truly repented, she’s able to return to church, and lives out the rest of her life counseling the young’uns against vanity.
…Seems harsh, am I right?
I should note that Mari Ness has discussed this tale in depth a couple of times on this site, and both her articles are worth revisiting if you haven’t read them before, or in a while.
Okay: I’ll be honest, I love a good pair of red shoes. I’m right there with Ms. Ness: I’d like to have a conversation with Andersen during which I would wear rich, red, velvety shoes. I own at least a dozen pairs (I’m not going to pause to go count, I’m not… okay, fine, I will. Okay, it’s 21 pairs) of ridiculously fancy shoes. I’d say that working with a cabaret company for the last five years is what did it, but my shoe enthusiasm goes back much further than that. Anyway, it’s safe to say that I can fully relate to Karen’s longing for a pair of really fabulous shoes.
Although it would be easy to see the whole story as a diatribe against feminine vanity, it’s likely that it was meant more as a homily against the lure of letting earthly pleasures get in the way of religious righteousness—although of course you can argue that it’s both. If you take out the religious and sexist overtones, there’s still an interesting story about the value of the spiritual over the commercial, which perhaps resonates a bit more with a modern audience. It never hurts, after all, to pause and reconsider who and what we value, as individuals or as a society. And, never fear, modern authors have offered their own takes on the original story, crafting clever retellings filled with vanity and love, curses and redemptions, and also some truly fabulous shoes…
“The Merrie Dancers” by Alison Littlewood, from Cursed edited by Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane
It almost feels like a cheat to put this story in this list, because the connection to the red shoes is a slow reveal (though if you’re reading a collection of fairy tales, you’re likely to catch on very quickly). The events of the original tale are in the distant past of this story, related by the narrator’s cursed and aging new neighbor. The narrator, a young woman who has just inherited a house from her mother, listens to Annis’ tales of her childhood on the Shetland Islands, where the fair folk were only a breath and a thought away, finding them both comforting and disturbing. As she gets caught up in the web of Annis’ stories, she finds them creeping into the edges of her own life and grief and story.
“The Red Boots” by Leah Cutter, from Black Heart, Ivory Bones ed by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
This retelling hits the floor with toes tapping and roars into full swing quickly, when Karen hits the tiny town of Annaville and likes what she sees in cafe waitress Freida. They both end up at the local dance hall, but there Karen’s curse gets the best of her for what we feel must be the hundredth time? Maybe the thousandth time? There is a timelessness to Karen’s thoughts, as though she has been doing this forever and will continue so long as she lets her pride get the best of her. She feels like she’s left her own time as surely as she left home, and perhaps her attitudes can change with society, perhaps she can finally find a home where she can be accepted for who she is… but only if she allows herself to be vulnerable.
The Red Shoes (1948), directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Victoria Page is a ballerina, a rising star who is offered the chance to dance the lead in a new ballet production of “The Red Shoes.” The show is a hit and producer Boris Lermontov swears he’ll make her the greatest dancer in the world, and casts her as the star of the company’s other productions. However, she grows close to composer Julian Craster, who scored the ballet that made her famous. In a fit of arrogance, Boris kicks them both out of the company, but when he offers Victoria a chance to resume her career, it’s impossible for her to resist her passion for ballet, leading to jealousy and tragedy. Although at times the pacing feels like there are too many talking gentlemen and not enough dancing ladies, on the whole this motion picture is a beautiful meditation on love and art, ballet, music, and human desire, reflecting the choices we all must face in deciding what we will pursue with our time and passion.
“Ruby Slippers” by Susan Wade, from Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears edited by Datlow and Windling
This retelling blends The Wizard of Oz and “The Red Shoes,” with a dash of Hollywood glam and hustle thrown in for good measure. Taking the form of a transcript of an interview with “DG,” an aging starlet tells how she made an impression from the moment she first landed in town, and while she regrets the death of the witch, well, the body disappeared anyway, leaving behind the most beautiful ruby slippers. DG is still wearing them to this day, in fact, and feeling lucky that she’s still on top of the world—at least for now.
“Shoes as Red as Blood” by A.C. Wise, from Twice Cursed edited by Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane
Nessa’s mother, a former ballerina, buys Nessa a pair of magical ballet shoes, hoping her daughter will find more fame and fortune than she ever did. Nessa senses the twisted magic of the shoes, but decides to put them on anyway, in spite of understanding the intense cost of the curse. She hopes to free her mother from her own curse—a loss of self that has come from years of being only what others want her to be. During the day, Nessa dances and mingles with the rich and powerful, but at night she dreams of mysterious woods, and she knows that it’s in her dreams that the answer to breaking both curses lies. With shades of other tales involving shoes, especially the “The Twelve Dancing Princesses,” this is a shivery little story that plays on dreams and fears alike.
What other versions of this deeply odd story have you come across? Please share in the comments!
