Ps1 Little Mermaid
Denisha Simcoe
"The Little Mermaid" (Danish: Den lille havfrue), sometimes translated in English as "The Little Sea Maid",[1] is a fairy tale written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. Originally published in 1837 as part of a collection of fairy tales for children, the story follows the journey of a young mermaid princess who is willing to give up her life in the sea as a mermaid to gain a human soul.
The original story has been the subject of multiple analyses by scholars such as Jacob Bggild and Pernille Heegaard, as well as the folklorist Maria Tatar. These analyses cover various aspects of the story, from interpreting the themes to discussing why Andersen chose to write a tragic story with a happy ending. It has been adapted to various media, including musical theatre, anime, ballet, opera, and film. There is also a statue portraying the mermaid in Copenhagen, Denmark, where the story was written and first published.
The Little Mermaid lives in a Utopian underwater kingdom with her father, the Sea King, her paternal grandmother, and her five older sisters, each one of them born a year apart. The Little Mermaid is fascinated by the world above the sea, and human beings, and keeps a statue of a human boy in her garden in the palace. Lonely and feeling isolated from her family, she yearns to explore the world above, and constantly asks her grandmother to tell her stories of humans.
When a mermaid turns fifteen, she is permitted to swim to the surface for the first time to catch a glimpse of the world above. When the six mermaids become old enough, each of them visits the upper world one at a time every year. As each returns, the Little Mermaid listens longingly to their various descriptions of the world inhabited by human beings. The elder sisters, however, soon become jaded of the world above and are content to remain below the sea.
When the Little Mermaid's turn comes, she rises up to the surface, watches a birthday celebration being held on a ship in honor of a handsome prince, and falls in love with him from a safe distance. A violent storm then hits, sinking the ship, and the Little Mermaid saves the prince from drowning. She delivers him unconscious to the shore near a temple. Here, the Little Mermaid waits until a young woman from the temple and her ladies-in-waiting find him. To her dismay, the prince never sees the Little Mermaid or even realizes that it was she who had originally saved his life.
The Little Mermaid becomes melancholic and asks her grandmother if humans can live forever. Her grandmother explains that humans have a much shorter lifespan than mermaids (around 300 years), but that they have an eternal soul that lives on in heaven, while mermaids turn to sea foam at death and cease to exist.
The Little Mermaid, longing for the prince and an eternal soul, visits the Sea Witch who lives in a dangerous part of the ocean. Although the witch warns the Little Mermaid that her attempts to win the love of the prince are doomed, she willingly helps her by selling her a potion that gives her legs in exchange for her voice (her tongue), as the Little Mermaid has the most enchanting voice in the entire world. The witch warns the Little Mermaid that once she becomes a human, she will never be able to return to the sea. Consuming the potion will make her feel as if a sword is being passed through her body. When she recovers, she will have two human legs and will be able to dance as no human has ever danced before; however, the pain of losing her tail will never leave her: she will constantly feel as if she is walking on sharp knives, and her feet will bleed terribly. Moreover, she will obtain a soul only if she wins the love of the prince and marries him, for then a part of his soul will flow into her. Otherwise, at dawn on the first day after he marries someone else, the Little Mermaid will die with a broken heart and dissolve into sea foam upon the waves.
When the prince's parents encourage him to marry the neighboring princess in an arranged marriage, the prince tells the Little Mermaid he will not because he does not love the princess. He goes on to say that he can only love the young woman from the temple, whom he believes rescued him. It turns out that the princess from the neighboring kingdom was the temple woman, as she was sent to the temple for her education. The prince declares his love for her, and the royal wedding is announced at once.
The prince and princess celebrate their new marriage aboard a wedding ship, and the Little Mermaid's heart breaks. She thinks of all that she has sacrificed and of all the pain she has endured for the prince. She despairs, thinking of the death that awaits her, but before dawn, her sisters rise out of the water and bring her a dagger that the Sea Witch has given them in exchange for their long, beautiful hair. If the Little Mermaid kills the prince and lets his blood drip on her feet, she will become a mermaid once more, all her suffering will end, and she will live out her full life in the ocean with her family. However, the Little Mermaid cannot bring herself to kill the sleeping prince lying with his new wife, and she throws the dagger and herself off the ship into the water just as dawn breaks.
Her body dissolves into foam, but instead of ceasing to exist, she feels the warm sun and discovers that she has turned into a luminous and ethereal earthbound spirit, a daughter of the air. As the Little Mermaid ascends into the atmosphere, she is greeted by other daughters, who tell her she has become like them because she strove with all her heart to obtain an immortal soul.
Because of the Little Mermaid's sacrifice, she is given a chance to do good deeds for all her lifespan (300 years like the merpeople) and she will receive her soul and rise up into Heaven when her lifespan ends.
"The Little Mermaid" was written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1836 and first published by C.A. Reitzel in Copenhagen on 7 April 1837 in Fairy Tales Told for Children. First Collection. (Danish: Eventyr, fortalte for Brn. Frste Samling.), a collection of nine fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen.
The ending with the mermaid's death and resurrection caused debate and critique. On the fact that children are told that their good behavior will help the mermaid earn her soul more quickly, but their bad behavior will add days to her time of service, P. L. Travers, author of Mary Poppins and noted folklore commentator, wrote, "a year taken off when a child behaves; a tear shed and a day added whenever a child is naughty? Andersen, this is blackmail. And the children know it and say nothing. There's magnanimity for you."[3][4]
However, other critics including Sren Baggesen and James Massengale have argued that the ending is not tacked on, but is a natural part of the story's structure as a religious narrative.[6] The working title of the story was "Daughters of the Air",[3] which are spirits who, as Andersen conceived them, can earn souls by doing three hundred years' worth of good deeds. At the end of the story, one of these spirits explains to the Little Mermaid that they do as many good things for humankind as they are able so that, at the end of those years, they can receive an immortal soul and "take part in the happiness of mankind".[7] The spirits also explain that because the Little Mermaid refused to kill the Prince and has spent so much time in pain while still doing good things for men, she has "raised [herself] to the spirit-world" and can participate in the three hundred years of good deeds alongside the Daughters of the Air.
Andersen was influenced by Undine, another story of a mermaid gaining a soul through marriage, but felt that his ending was an improvement. In 1837, shortly after completing his manuscript, Andersen wrote to a friend, "I have not, like de la Motte Fouqu in Undine, allowed the mermaid's acquiring of an immortal soul to depend upon an alien creature, upon the love of a human being. I'm sure that's wrong! It would depend rather much on chance, wouldn't it? I won't accept that sort of thing in this world. I have permitted my mermaid to follow a more natural, more divine path."[8][9] Andersen was concerned that the story's meanings would appeal best to adults, but wrote in the foreword to Fairy Tales Told for Children, "I dare presume, however, that the child will also enjoy it and that the denouement itself, plainly considered, will grip the child."[10]
In Maria Tatar's The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, the transformation of the little mermaid from sea creature to mermaid in human form, and then to a creature of the air, is believed to reflect Andersen's constant engagement with mutability and changes in identity.[11] Tatar also suggests that the Little Mermaid did not give up everything for love alone. Tatar's interpretation of the tale is one that presents a rare heroine with an investigative curiosity which is shown through the mermaid's fascination with the unknown, the forbidden, and her intent on broadening her horizons from the start. Even before she sees the prince, she displays an intense longing to visit the world above the sea through her actions such as: arranging the flowers in her garden into the shape of the sun, listening to her grandmother and sisters' stories of the surface, and peeking in through the window of the prince's cabin during his birthday celebrations. Tatar argues that the mermaid wants, above all, to explore the world and discover things that are beyond what she already knows. The world above seems larger than her own and holds a greater range of possibilities to exercise her adventurous spirit. This is demonstrated in some versions of the story when the prince has a page boy's costume made for her so that she may ride on horseback and explore the land with him. Here, her willingness to cross-dress implies a willingness to transcend gender boundaries and take risks to be able to see the world. Tatar feels this also comments on Andersen's interests in changes in identity.[12]
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