It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark. Evening came on, the last evening of the year. In the cold and gloom a poor little girl, bareheaded and barefoot, was walking through the streets.
The story's opening lines set the desperate tone and gloomy mood as the little girl trudges through freezing streets on New Year's Eve. The prevailing atmosphere of darkness Andersen establishes at the beginning is necessary as a contrast to the warm, joyful visions the girl experiences when she starts striking matches.
And so the little girl walked on her naked feet, which were quite red and blue with the cold.
After the girl's slippers are stolen, she must continue on without and shoes. Her feet are described as being "red and blue with the cold." The striking contrast between the two colors is alarming and suggests the onset of frostbite.
She was getting colder and colder, but did not dare to go home, for she had sold no matches, nor earned a single cent, and her father would surely beat her.
Despite the fact the little girl has been on the streets selling her matches all day, she was unable to sell a single one. The threat of her father's violence keeps her on the street. The cold—in her hypothermia-induced logic—is preferable to the beating she would endure if she went home.
"She drew one out. R-r-ratch! How it sputtered and burned!"
In this passage, Andersen uses auditory imagery to convey the satisfying sound of the match being struck. The exclamation points also serve to capture the girl's delight at the magical spectacle of the ignition.
But in the corner, leaning against the wall, sat the little girl with red cheeks and smiling mouth, frozen to death on the last evening of the old year.
In the story's penultimate paragraph, the narrator reveals that while the little girl's soul ascended to heaven, her body stayed on Earth, frozen and leaning stiff against a wall. The girl's smiling mouth is the only hint of the joy she felt as her grandmother swept her up into the afterlife.
