The Red Shoes is a short story written by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. Most of Andersen's fairy tales have an underlying meaning to them and The Red Shoes is not an exception.

The story is about a little girl named Karen who gets a pair of red shiny shoes. She really wants to wear them all the time but she is not allowed to wear them to church since it is not concidered to be appropriate. However, Karen wears the shiny red shoes anyway and everyone at church is looking at her red shoes. Even Karen herself thinks of her church instead of paying attention to the mass. She even goes so far that she ignores her sick fosterparent to go and party in her red shoes. The story ends with Karen being cursed to dance forever in her shiny red shoes.

This story actually tells about vanity and how Karen cares more about her looks than what is appropriate. This subject is very important today since we are very vain today and care more about how we look to other people than caring about other people. It is more important to have the new iPhone or what ever it is than actually caring about that every one does not even have food on their table every eavning. 

The story also contains symbolism, which in this case one of them are the red shoes. By begging God for mercy and gives up her red shoes Karen is allowed to go back to church. The red shoes symbolises ones pride or vanity and not until we give them up we are allowed redemption and join God in heaven.

Most of H.C Andersen's fairy tales are available on google.