Shoe Stories

[shoesense]

I just found this little story about a "foolish (Chinese) man buying shoes" and I thought it would be neat to inaugurate a little thread in which I collect shoe stories. There are quite a few stories in which shoes play an important and/or (at least) symbolic/significant part. I'll try to find them on the web as well!

And of course, for good measure, here's a discussion of the Cinderella story as well. I don't need to tell you what happens in that one, do I?

[mist]

hey thanks for sharing it to us...I think its ok to post shoe story...For me its still interesting topic...

[galligator]

The 1st one that comes to my mind is Hans Christian Andersen's "The Red Shoes"

This is from the Wiki entry:

A peasant girl named Karen is adopted by a rich old lady after her mother's death. She grows up vain. She tricks her adoptive mother into buying her a pair of red shoes and repeatedly wears them to church, without paying attention to the service. Her adoptive mother becomes ill, but Karen deserts her, preferring to attend a party in her red shoes. Once she begins dancing, she can't stop. The shoes take over. She cannot control them and they are stuck to her feet. The shoes continue to dance, through fields and meadows, rain or shine, night and day. She can't even attend her adoptive mother's funeral. An angel appears to her, condemning her to dance even after she dies, as a warning to vain children everywhere. Karen finds an executioner and asks him to chop off her feet. He does so and gives her a pair of wooden feet and crutches. Thinking that she has suffered enough for the red shoes Karen decides to go to church in order for the people to see her, but the chopped-off feet with the red shoes dance before her, barring the way. The following Sunday she tries again, thinking of herself at least as good as the others in church, but again the dancing red shoes bar the way. Karen gets a job as a maid in the parsonage, but when Sunday comes she dares not go to church. Instead she sits alone at home and prays to God. Then, it is as though the church comes home to her and her heart becomes so filled with sunshine, peace, and joy that it bursts. Her soul flies on sunshine to heaven, and no one there asks her about the red shoes.

Another one by Andersen that really comes to mind is "The girl who Trod on a Loaf".