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.