The Little Mermaid, Hans Christian Andersen

I think the sea witches educates the mermaid about human sexuality using similar images. That is an image of flowing blood prepares the girl for menarche. She prepares to become the woman as a human. She needs to recognize the changes body inside before she will give a chance to realize her love. Andersen portrays human love, as a product of maturity unlike the mermaid in Disney seems to grow up complete because she has already been experienced love, whereas Disney depicts it as a cause of full-grown. Disney makes loss maturity of value that Andersen had conveyed a message throughout the story. Andersen’s story perpetrates sexist values by teaching of values for a new generation.

The sea witches thinks the mermaid’s decision is foolish but helps the mermaid anyway. She is irrevocably trades her tail for human feet in order to close the prince. The mermaid suffers the resulting pain willingly because she hopes to gain eternal life with the prince by self-denial in this life. Andersen’s mermaid is long-suffering. He forces the readers to think again about sacrifices, especially in loves, which are always rewarded-able. He feels that the over optimistic characters of sacrificial love in another romantic novel have been misunderstood and gain him engrosses readers to come face to face with the imperfect reality of love. The physical pain of humans is distinctive to the emotional pain of mermaid-life:

“Mermaids can’t weep and that makes their suffering even deeper and greater.”[Andersen, p. 61.]

A physical pain is described as less devastating than emotional pain. The mermaid chooses a pain, as she knows to gain an immortal soul. Her pain has a purpose: Through her suffering, she will find an eternal identity. Nevertheless, Disney’s mermaid makes pain- sacrifices so that she can become attractive to a man.

I find a few differences between the endings of the movie and the conclusion of Andersen’s original story. The mermaid’s sisters have sold their hair to the sea witches to buy a knife. If the mermaid will use the knife to kill the prince on his wedding night, the original enchantment will be broken and she can assume a mermaid’s body again. However, she is accepting responsibility for her own actions; the mermaid chooses to die herself. The reason is unclearly in the tale. Is it because of “love”: that she does not want to lose him? Is it that she is “noble”: that she could not kill another living being? Alternatively, she accepts the fact that she has already lost everything. By the way, it does not behave badly which behave nice and noble, no matter what you may lose. A young girl should be beautiful, nice and good. Nowadays lots of women can be heard talking about how painful if you want to be beautiful. It is the same with the Little Mermaid. In order to be accepted by the society, she has to exchange a pair of legs instead of a tail. There are similarities between the patriarchal aspects of The Little Mermaid and the ancient Asian traditional binding.

Even though the Andersen tale does not focus on growing up, the story’s many positive female figures provide more accurate portrait of woman. That in the original tale the grandmother serves as a source of information and as a positive model for the little mermaid. In the Disney version, this role model is a male bird who misinforms the mermaid. Second, unlike the Disney witch, the Andersen sea witches supports the little mermaid’s search for an immortal soul; she never attempts to foil the mermaid’s plans and even contributes blood from her own breast to make the potion that transforms the mermaid into a human. Third, the sisters of the mermaid in the original story sacrifice their only treasure to help their sister; Ariel’s sisters do nothing. Finally, femininity gets its ultimate affirmation from the daughters of the air. They teach the little mermaid about charity, and they exist only as females. The grandmother, the sea witches, the princess, the sisters, and the daughters of the air are all strong, beautiful, supportive, and feminine. Nevertheless, Disney destroys all of these characters by changing their gender, by making their motivations anti-feminine, or by editing their function from the story.

Andersen was quite proud of this development:

“I have not . . . allowed the mermaid’s acquiring of an immortal soul to depend upon an alien creature, upon the love of a human being…. I have permitted my mermaid to follow a more natural, more divine path.” [Virginia, p.4]

I think that Andersen provide women several easy way self-realization, and the message for children is much more far-sighted than Disney’s limited messages that are only through marriage can a woman be complete. He wants a woman to be independent of someone. The tale is been considered by some feminists to contain a message about love and self-sacrifice, and the dangers of accepting or inconsiderate treatment in love.

Hans Christian Andersen saves the Little Mermaid from dying or becoming foam with the Air Fairy, thus avoiding a sad ending. The audience never gets to see the protagonists die because the frame freezes. They make them live in their minds and do not feel sad for their death. It is the same with the fairy tale of the Little Mermaid. The reader does not feel sad although she has lost her love and turned into foam. They feel relieved by learning that she would win an immortal soul if she carries on her good deeds for 300 years more.