In Hans Christian Andersen’s short story “The Little Match Girl”, ‘beautiful visions‘ refers to the images of the warm iron stove, the lovely roast goose, the great glorious Christmas tree and her lost grandmother that the little girl came across in her hallucinations while sitting outside in an utterly distressed condition in a snowy wintry night.

As her first vision the girl saw a great iron stove with brass knobs and brass ornaments. She stretched her feet to take the warmth from the beautiful flame of the stove.

After that she saw a shining white cloth spread on the table. It was covered with beautiful china and in the centre of it stood a roast goose, stuffed with prunes, and apples, steaming deliciously. What was even more wonderful was that the goose hopped down from the dish and came towards her with the fork and knife on its back.

As her third vision, the girl came across a beautiful Christmas tree which was larger and lovelier she had seen last year. The green branches were lit up by numerous candles and gaily coloured balls.

The last vision the match girl had was that of her old grandmother who had ever been good to her unlike others and was now dead. Her grandmother stood before her, bright and shining, looking gentle, kind and loving. As requested by her, the grandmother took her in her arms and flew up high in the sky.

How does the girl encounter these visions?
The little girl had all these visions with the strike of every match stick. Actually the visions are the imagination of her mind and reflective of her unfulfilled desires. The poor little girl was fatigued walking down the streets with no success in her effort to sell match sticks. So her mind tried to realize those dreams and came across such visions in the light of the match sticks in the dark and cold night. It has been a great effort to peep through the human psychology from the author’s part.