The Ugly Duckling

A few days ago I found myself thinking about The Ugly Duckling fairytale. It was written by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen and published in 1843.

The little bird is the child of a swan whose egg accidentally rolled into a duck's nest. He suffers much verbal and physical abuse from the other birds and, in general, other animals. He is teased and taunted; an outcast by his peers and unaccepted because different.

He has no home or a safe place to go. No other animal to turn to. He is all alone and sad. He feels like he can't fit anywhere. Months pass and the now-grown duckling can't bear the loneliness any longer.

So he flew into the water and swam toward the splendid swans. They saw him, and swept down upon him with their rustling feathers raised. "Kill me!" said the poor creature, and he bowed his head down over the water to wait for death. But what did he see there, mirrored in the clear stream? He beheld his own image, and it was no longer the reflection of a clumsy, dirty, gray bird, ugly and offensive. He himself was a swan! Being born in a duck yard does not matter, if only you are hatched from a swan's egg.

Just when he decides to die, he is shocked when the swans welcome him. He looks at his reflection in the water and realizes that he became a beautiful swan. He spreads his wings and takes flight with the rest of his new family.

This fairytale makes me think about a few things.

It captures the challenges faced by those seen as “different” by society and the effort to find where they truly belong. How unfairly many people reject, hate, and attack everything or everyone that's different from them, in any way.

It ranges from bullying (in schools, workplace, online) to entire scapegoated groups, that throughout history have included almost every imaginable group of people: genders, religions, people of different races, nations, or sexual orientations, people with different political beliefs, or people differing in behavior from the majority.

Or again, we could think about the black sheep, the disgrace of a family.

People fear what they don't understand; it threatens their security. And so they seek to destroy what's unknown to them. A nonconformist, an unusual or unconventional person is usually regarded as strange and singled out, even when they are the ones who usually change the world for the better.

Always be proud of who you are. I can't say it's easy to believe in yourself when many don't place the same trust in you. It's not. The ''real'' family who will welcome you may come later. In the meantime, we shall work on ourselves. Just like the little duckling, we must go through a transformation, from caterpillar to butterfly, to be able to break free and fly proudly.

"I never dreamed there could be so much happiness, when I was the ugly duckling."