The ugly duckling faces discrimination from the other ducks and farmer due to his appearance. He is helped by an old woman and peasant who give him shelter. Throughout his journey, he tries to find happiness and discovers he is actually a swan when he finds a female swan. The story follows a linear structure, focusing solely on the ugly duckling's progression from facing prejudice to finding acceptance.

1. The hero of the story is the ugly duckling, as the story focuses solely on him as a
character, his progression and all of the things he is going through. The audience
are supposed to feel sorry for him because he is being discriminated for no
reason, and they want him to succeed and find happiness.
There isn’t necessarily a villain in the way you would typically expect, as all of
the characters that are against the duckling are against him because they are
scared or unfamiliar with his appearance, such as the other ducks and the
farmer. The farmer character could also be classed as the dispatcher as well,
since he is the one responsible for kicking the duckling off the farm and starting
him on his adventure. The audience are supposed to dislike these characters for
their unprovoked prejudice against the hero, which is why they could be defined
as the villains of the story.
There are two helpers in the story, the old woman and the peasant. They are not
helpers in the traditional sense of being sidekicks, but they do appear at critical
times to save the duckling from danger. For example, the old woman rescues him
when he is lost in the woods, and the peasant rescues him when he is nearly
frozen in the snow. Helper characters typically have imperfections; the old
woman has a hunched back and the peasant has a bad job and is poor. Potentially
these characters are also donors because they provide the hero with temporary
shelter so he can continue to survive and go on with his quest.
Throughout the story, the duckling is trying to find happiness and he eventually
does so when he discovers that he is a swan when he finds a female swan. This
swan is the princess/prize, but again it is not presented in a traditional way
because he comes across her unintentionally and doesn’t deliberately seek her
out from the start of the story. There is no false hero or princess’ father.
The story itself-starts with equilibrium on the first page, showing the characters
going about their daily lives and everything in balance. Once the duckling is born
on the second to third pages, there is immediately disequilibrium, as the peace is
broken on the farm when the farmer attacks the duckling for his appearance and
the other ducks ignore him. This is an example of binary opposition, and is where
the story begins to properly start as two opposing sides (the duckling and the
farmer) come together.
The story is structured through a single strand narrative, following just one
storyline and focusing only on the duckling’s progression. It is also structured
linearly, starting at the beginning and following the story through in straight line
through to the very end. This is the simplest way of structuring a story, and it is
done this way because the book appeals to a younger audience and therefore
needs to be easily understood. Towards the end of the story where the duckling
eventually finds the princess/prize, which takes the form of a female swan, there
is a new equilibrium as happiness has been restored and all of the chaos has
ended. This means that the story has a closed narrative, and the story ends when
the duckling finds the prize.
In terms of realism, the story is an anti-realist story because animals cannot
communicate with humans, despite the fact that the story would be realistic if it
happened to a human, as the events are very believable and there is nothing
magical such as wizards, witches etc.