The Emperor’s New Clothes (Classic Fairy Tale)

The Emperor’s New Clothes is a story by Hans Christian Andersen published in 1837. It is a fairy tale with no magic or perhaps a fable with no animals. Either way, it is remarkable how many moral lessons Andersen was able to embed in such a short story.

As is tradition, this is a retelling in my own words.

The Fairy Tale

A long time ago, in a faraway kingdom, there lived an Emperor who was extremely fond of new clothes. He spent his time changing from one fabulous garment to another, parading around for his subjects to admire.

News of the Emperor’s vanity spread far and wide until it reached the ears of two cunning weavers. Seeing an opportunity, they journeyed to the kingdom, promising they could weave the most magnificent fabric imaginable. The unique quality of this material, they said, was that only the wise could see it.

The Emperor thought this was an excellent opportunity to discover which of his ministers and courtiers were unfit for their positions. He paid the weavers a hefty sum so they could begin their work at once.

After a while, the Emperor sent his most trusted advisors to see how the work was progressing. The weavers invited them to inspect the loom. They all praised the material, expressing admiration for its colours and patterns.

Word of the garment’s beauty quickly spread through the court, and soon the Emperor himself came to see the marvellous garment. He was shocked when he could not see the cloth himself, but he was afraid of appearing foolish, so he lavished praise upon the weavers and their work, expressing his eagerness to wear the finished garments.

On the day of the grand procession, the weavers carefully dressed the Emperor in his new clothes, complimenting his appearance and explaining the intricacies of the designs. The Emperor nodded along, unwilling to admit he couldn’t see any of these supposed wonders.

As the Emperor paraded down the streets, his subjects, who had heard of the cloth’s strange properties, praised the invisible finery, not wanting to appear unwise themselves.

Finally, a small child, too young to understand the pretense everyone was upholding, cried out, “But he hasn’t got anything on!” The child’s innocent words broke the spell, and whispers started spreading among the crowd.

The Emperor heard the murmuring and felt a chill of doubt, but he held his head high. He decided to continue the procession even more majestically. After all, the only thing more magnificent than an emperor’s garments is the Emperor himself.

The Moral

The moral of The Emperor’s New Clothes is that when we try to impress others, we lose sight of what’s actually worth caring about. It’s a common moral. Tolstoy wrote about it, too, using the same analogy:

A rich man goes to a threadmaker to spin some fine (thin) threads. The threadmaker spins the finest threads she can, but they feel too coarse to the rich man, so he asks for even finer ones. She cannot spin finer ones, so she shows the man nothing, explaining how the threads are so fine that they cannot even be seen. The rich man is delighted and pays her a hefty sum of gold.

The Emperor’s New Clothes goes deeper, with a variety of other morals embedded into it:

• Peer pressure can lead us down silly paths.
• The situation gets worse with every lie.
• Our pride blinds us to reality.
• The fear of judgment can silence the truth.
• The popular opinion can be wrong.
• Sometimes, the naive are best able to see the truth.
• We ought to face humiliation with dignity.

These fairy tales with moral lessons are very similar to Jewish and Muslim folktales. Or you might like The Spider King and His Astrologer or perhaps The Man Who Never Lied.

Hans Christian Andersen also wrote the original Little Mermaid fairy tale. And if you like those classic fairy tales, you might like Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault.