FEMALE LITERACY IN ANDERSEN'S THE RED SHOES

In the Andersen tale "The Red Shoes," (De røde sko) orphan protagonist Karen does not know how to read until her wealthy female guardian has her taught how to, opening up avenues of opportunity for a young Victorian nouvelle riche female that, sadly, the author closes abruptly for her. Even when she gets to work in a vicarage at the end of the tale, she never uses her position to teach the underprivileged to read...

Now how does Maria Tatar translate this detail of the tale and what does she have to say about it in the annotated edition?

Sadly there are no annotations by Tatar about Karen's literacy, though that of the highborn and high-ranking Clever Princess in the Fourth Story of The Snow Queen she has not given short shrift to (and annotated as a reference to a satirical barb on newspapers, I quote verbatim, at an early Victorian time when the press was the one and only mass medium!). Here is, though, how Tatar translates Karen's literacy:

"She had to learn to read ...,"

A very short six-letter half-sentence, but still one that counts as a reference to female literacy and to saving a female orphan child from the gutter.

Sur La Lune has H.B. Paull's Victorian version:

"... she was taught to read ..."

but sadly no annotations at all for "The Red Shoes" either. The annotations page for the tale only has:

Nothing!

The Myths and Legends podcast also mentions that magic four-letter verb (READ) as part of Karen's education with her posh old female guardian:

"Karen was taken into the house, and taught to read ...,"

While the Tales podcast by Parcast Media has:

"She had ..., tutors who taught her how to read ...,"

In Spanish:

"Tenía ..., tutores (sic) que le enseñaban a leer ...,"

In The Midnight Archive:

"She was taught to read, to write, ...  to behave like a proper young woman."

Andersen seems to be as ambivalent towards intelectuallism in "The Red Shoes" as he is in The Snow Queen. The Prince and Princess are as out of touch with reality as they are "gode" (a word variously translated as ("good" or "kind"); their ostentatious carriage drawing the attention of the robbers, who massacre all the redshirt servants and claim the bounty of pastries. Likewise, Karen is taught how to read, learning to read from tutors, but never puts this knowledge to good use (in my oral secularized adaptations, at least, I vindicate this literacy --Andersen, EAT YOUR HEART OUT!-- and have her teach how to read to the children at the orphanage --yes, the vicarage became an orphanage in my version-- where her journey started...).

PS. Andersen's source text for Karen's literacy has:

"... hun måtte lære at læse ..." 

"At læse" means "to read." Compare this description of the Clever Princess in the Fourth Story of The Snow Queen:

"... hun har også læst alle aviser, der er til i verden, ..."