The story touches on the themes of destitution, deprivation, rejection, happiness, death, and life after death. The little girl of the story does not have a life of luxury or comfort. She loiters the streets to sell matchsticks in order to procure a single meal.

Motherless, she is a victim of domestic abuse and she braves all that suffering, every day. She does not get happy holidays or joyous Christmas or New Year. Eventually, she freezes to death on the very streets she called home, alone and unloved.

However, through the light of matchsticks and fantastical images in that light, she has some respite and comfort. For the World, she died cold and painfully, but for her, she dies in the warm embrace of her grandmother.

Her death brings her sweet release from the pains of a tortuous and cruel life. Maybe she was not dead after all, but a new beginning in the world of the divine.

Read summary of The Little Match Girl