The Red Shoes

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2014

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Background

Literary Context

Although Black’s poems have a multifaceted appeal, her noted influence includes her spearheading the disability poetics movement in which the disabled experience is embodied and rendered with explorations toward agency. As she told Ukrainian American poet Ilya Kaminsky, she was “almost forty before I sort of ‘came out’ as a person with a disability—and [. . .] I think that is also when I began to write with some degree of authenticity” (See: Further Reading & Resources). She notes that, “because disability deals so directly with many of the soft, inchoate, under-exposed parts of being alive in the world, it is a rich ground for thinking about this project of being human in genuinely new ways.”

Black is known for her community building, both in expanding inclusivity through her role at AWP and for starting Zoeglossia, a nonprofit organization that supports poets with disabilities. She has also served as one of the co-editors, with Jennifer Barlett and Michael Northen, of an anthology called Beauty Is A Verb: The New Poetry of Disability (2012), which was one of the first of its kind. Black is quick to credit other disability poets as inspirational, including “Josephine Miles, Vassar Miller, Tom Andrews, Laura Hershey, [and] Larry Eigner,” as well as several newer poets, including Kaminisky and Bartlett. She explains that poetry is in an expansive period in which the “disability perspective [. . .] does not accept the premises by which disability has been historically defined as burden, as stigma, as tragedy.” Black believes, “This is kind of a remarkable moment, because there are so many great disability poets right now. We are living through a kind of renaissance of disability poetry,” of which she notes she is grateful to be a part.

Mythic Context

“The Red Shoes,” published in 1845, was created by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, who was famous for fairytales like “The Little Mermaid.” In this story, which critics have noted verges on horror, an impoverished little girl named Karen loses her mother. She is adopted by an old woman who is nearly blind and lives comfortably, and Karen quickly becomes addicted to items of beauty, especially a pair of crimson shoes that mimic those of the realm’s princess. Unbeknownst to the old woman, Karen wears these shoes to church, scandalizing the congregation. She is told to never do so again but cannot resist the temptation.

The story is one of addiction, much like Black’s poem. When Karen approaches the church in her forbidden shoes, an old soldier curses them. They adhere to Karen’s feet but, by struggling, she manages to get them off. Again, she tries to ignore the shoes. However, when her foster mother dies, instead of going to the funeral, Karen goes dancing. This time, the shoes remain on her feet, and she is condemned to dance to death.

Get access to this full Study Guide and much more!

8,800+ In-Depth Study Guides
4,700+ Quick-Read Plot Summaries
Downloadable PDFs

In the poem, the speaker’s partner remembers The Red Shoes, the 1948 movie version in which the ballerina sacrifices love for fame and is doomed to die. The speaker by contrast remembers the Andersen tale and its climax of amputation. In the story, Karen gets an executioner to agree to chop off her feet. The cursed shoes, feet still inside, dance away. Karen humbly asks God for forgiveness and is allowed into Heaven. The speaker misremembers her hands as amputated as well and that she is given “wooden ones” (Line 48) as a replacement. Karen’s journey is spiritual and physical, whereas the amputation for Black’s speaker is mainly emotional as she must get rid of her relationship to have a better life.