1st question.

Though the girl faces cold, hunger and apathy of the people around her, she does not lose her faith
and hope. Justify this statement in context on the story.

Despite facing cold, hunger and apathy of the people among her, the little girl does not lose her
faith and hope. She hopes she will pull through the difficulties. She has firm faith in God. She thinks
that God will help her. Due to having an optimistic attitude and true faith in God, she is capable of
imagining certain things which she must have longed for and which made her feel better, including
an iron stove, a huge Christmas tree and a table laden with delicious food. Just because of having
hope and faith, she is capable to imagine her deceased grandmother’s face. When she lights a
match, she sees her grandmother and does not want to lose her. Hence she lights the whole bundle
of matches.

She pleads with her grandmother to take her to heaven with her where there would be neither cold
nor hunger, nor any abuse. It is her faith and hope that she dies with a smile on her face. When the
people find her the next morning, leaning against the wall with red cheeks and smiling mouth, they
feel surprise to see her face and ask in wonder why she looks so happy.

2nd question

Describe the class differences in the society during Victorian Era in the context of the story The Little
Match Girl.
Answer:
The story The Little Match Girl is said to have taken place in a town around the early 20th century
when the middle class emerged and took over an important percentage of work places. It is at this
time, there appeared an ‘under class’, which remained unemployed and lived in abject poverty.
There existed a huge gap between the financial condition of this class and the wealthy. The author
has reflected this class differentiation through the character of the little girl in the story. The girl’s
clothes and her house as having only the roof, through which wind whistled and large cracks were
stuffed with straw and rags, clearly showed that she belonged to the ‘under class’ of the society.

Due to suffering from poor financial condition, the little girl was sent on a cold night to sell match.
When she walked along the street in the freezing cold, she was seen bareheaded and with no shoes
on. When she left home, she had slippers on, but they were so large for her feet that she had lost
them. It seemed that the slippers belonged to her mother and the little girl had no slippers of her
own. In an old apron that she wore she had bundles of matches . All this shows utter poverty of
girl’s family.

The class difference is clearly reflected in the story through the comforting vision the little girl had.
In her first vision, the little girl saw a large iron stove. When the little girl’s hands were nearly frozen
with cold, she thought that a match might warm her fingers if she lit it. So she draw one out. She
struck it and it blazed and burnt.
The first three visions clearly show the gap between the rich and the poor and the things which the
little girl could only dream of. The fourth vision reflects her desire of being loved and cared for. It is
symbolic of apathetic attitude of the rich towards the poor. Those who were prosperous and
wealthy, were least worried of their poor fellows. They enjoyed of eating, drinking and merry making
without thinking of those people who, like the poor little girl in the story, died of cold and
starvation.

Last question

When she lights the first match, she hallucinates a large iron stove with fire burning and she is
feeling warm and when the fire goes out only the color of black and gray of the burnt-out match
is seen.  This is the color of mourning and it also states what the girl’s fate is going to be.  
The second vision of hers is that the wall becomes a transparent veil. She could see a table
decorated with Christmas Eve dishes and the goose hopped from the plate with fork and knife
poked on its chest.  This signifies how hungry the child had been and it also signifies that she
could only dream of having such a grand dinner but not in reality.    
In the third vision, she sees a beautifully decorated and lighted up Christmas tree.  Then she
sees the colors and lights rise to become stars.  She also sees a star falling and remembers her
grandmother saying when she was alive that when a star falls, a soul will ascend to God.  Her
grandmother had been the only person who had shown her love.  This hallucination signifies
that the soul to ascend would be hers and that she is earning to see her grandmother  
In the fourth vision, she sees her grandmother with all the love she had experienced standing
there.  The girl lights up all the matchsticks so that her grandmother doesn’t disappear like all
the others and begs her to take her along with her and her wish gets granted.  She is finally free
of the freezing cold, hunger and the thrashing that she used to get from her father for not getting
money for his drink.