based on a fable by Hans Christian Andersen 1805-1875

The Emperor’s New Clothes

A telling satire on fashionable thinking among the elite.

1837

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Introduction

Why do fashionable ideas continue to circulate among the elite, long after ordinary people have realised that they are nonsense? Andersen’s folk-tale explains it brilliantly.

based on a fable by Hans Christian Andersen 1805-1875

ONCE upon a time, some weavers arrived at court, and offered to make robes so fine that only men fit for the very highest offices could even see them.

The Emperor paid them handsomely, and they set to work.

By and by, the Emperor went with his ministers to learn how things were going. When he found only empty looms, he casually asked his ministers what they saw.

Fearing that he might think them unfit for their high offices, they described wonderful robes of many colours. ‘That’, replied the Emperor hastily, ‘is what I see too.’

Now the weavers suggested that he try the robes on. His chamberlains helped him off with every last stitch, and on with the clothes no one could see, and they walked red-faced back through the town.

Suddenly a common boy cried, ‘Look, the Emperor has no clothes on!’. But neither the Emperor nor his ministers dared admit to each other what all of them knew to be true.

based on a fable by Hans Christian Andersen 1805-1875

Based on The Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen.
Précis
Some dishonest weavers told an Emperor that they made robes so fine that only the best men in the land could see them. The Emperor and his ministers did not dare admit to each other that they couldn’t see them, so the red-faced Emperor paraded naked in his imaginary robes, even after a little boy blurted out what everyone knew.
Sevens

Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.

What was remarkable about the cloth that the weavers promised to make?

Tags

Myths, Fairytales and Legends 128 Hans Christian Andersen 3

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