Reflections on the Emperor’s Clothes
February 8, 2011
HURRICANE BETSY writes:
Regarding Eric’s comment that the emperor is wearing clothes and your reply to him.
Why draw a naked man? That would never have washed in the earlier part of the 20th century, when Edmund Dulac lived and worked. So he put some light-coloured long underwear on the emperor, and everyone, especially children, would have understood.
All the old fairy tale books I’ve seen have a similar illustration to go with this story, with one exception – a wonderful drawing by Maxwell Armfield where we don’t see the emperor, only the shocked looks on the faces of the citizens.
Laura writes:
There is a problem with your theory. Dulac did not put long underwear on his mermaid.
Perhaps he thought it was more shocking for children to see a naked emperor. It is also possible to interpret Hans Christian Andersen’s tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes” differently. According to the translation by Margherita O. Osborne:
The emperor took of all his clothes, and the impostors pretended to give him one article of dress after the other, of the new ones they had pretended to make.
Perhaps the emperor took off everything but his underwear. When the child in the crowd later cries that the emperor “has nothing on,” he may have meant “nothing but his underwear.”
Either way, it is a shocking way for an emperor to appear in public. Or, at least it once would have been shocking.
— Comments —
Thomas F. Bertonneau writes:
In Danish, the little child says, “Men han har jo ikke noget paa,” which the people watching the royal procession repeat: “Men han har jo ikke noget paa.” The jo is emphatic; it underscores ikke noget paa, or “nothing on.” In English, with a bit of license: “Wow, he really doesn’t have a stitch on!” The Kaiser is as naked as Adam.
Laura writes:
Thank you for your expertise on this important matter.
That certainly fits with the conventional interpretation, which leads us back to the question of why illustrators such as Dulac have shown the emperor with his underwear on, particularly when they are going around depicting naked mermaids and when it is possible to portray an unclothed man in a modest way (for instance, by having him holding something that obscures parts of his body.)
Andersen’s story is one of the greatest children’s tales ever written. It has entered our collective psyche. Think of how many times you have heard people say, “The emperor has no clothes.”
Hurricane writes:
It is abnormal for a mermaid to wear clothing. It is normal for an emperor to appear in public dressed.
That is why Dulac, I think, would have his mermaid nude (yet covered) and the emperor covered yet seemingly nude. I suspect that young children would see him as totally naked, according to the story. I do recall a storybook I had when very young (7-8 yr. old) with a somewhat crude black and white drawing of the emperor wearing long underwear. How literal do we all have to get, anyway? Children’s minds work differently from adults’ and I think Dulac maybe understood this. I would welcome an opportunity to read this story to a child for the first time and see if they question the wearing of long underwear. Anyway, is there anything better in this world than fairytales and their illustrations? Not to me!
Laura writes:
If the story said the emperor had no clothes and yet the picture depicted him with long underwear, children might see it as one more instance of adult inconsistency or illogic.
