Question

Select the correct answers. In this excerpt from “The Red Shoes” by Hans Christian Anderson, who are the two minor characters? There was once a pretty, delicate little girl, who was so poor that she had to go barefoot in summer and wear coarse wooden shoes in winter, which made her little instep quite red. In the center of the village there lived an old shoemaker's wife. One day this good woman made, as well as she could, a little pair of shoes out of some strips of old red cloth. The shoes were clumsy enough, to be sure, but they fitted the little girl tolerably well, and anyway the woman's intention was kind. The little girl's name was Karen. On the very day that Karen received the shoes, her mother was to be buried. They were not at all suitable for mourning, but she had no others, so she put them on her little bare feet and followed the poor plain coffin to its last resting place. Just at that time a large, old-fashioned carriage happened to pass by, and the old lady who sat in it saw the little girl and pitied her. "Give me the little girl," she said to the clergyman, "and I will take care of her." Karen Karen’s mother the shoemaker’s wife the old lady the clergyman

Answer 1

The shoemaker’s wife

The old lady

Step-by-step explanation:

In this excerpt from “The Red Shoes” by Danish writer Hans Christian Anderson (1805-1875), Karen is the major character since all the description revolves around her. Although Karen's mother and the clergyman are mentioned in this excerpt, they are not described at all. We know nothing about them. However, the author does give some description of the shoemaker's wife who lived in the center of the village, was old and kind, and the old lady who was old, sat in a large old-fashioned carriage, and pitied Karen. Based on these observation, the shoemaker's wife and the old lady can be categorized as minor characters in this excerpt from "The Red Shoes".