Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Little Mermaid and Other Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen The Little Mermaid and Other Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen. The story of "The Little Mermaid" has many morals ranging from ancient ideas of how a woman should behave to more modern thoughts on what is considered "bravery." One of the most argued morals of this tale is that of women holding their tongues and being silent beings. In older times, it was considered ill mannered for a woman to voice her opinions. Women were beings that should be looked at, not heard. They were there for the entertainment of men and to keep the house clean and warm for the return of their husbands from a long day of work. Another well argued moral is that of "the grass is not always greener on the other side." While the mermaid wishes to live a life on land because the celebrations, the clothing, the machines, etc. infatuate her, she eventually realizes her mistake. She had overlooked the greatness of the life she was already living and regrets that she will never be able to return to her wonderfully peaceful life. One argument that is present in almost all versions of the tale is that of being careful what you wish for. This oral is seen in most tales but specifically in this one. The main character wishes for the undying love of her prince but she must give up her voice in exchange. While she does know what she is giving up, she doesn't realize how important her voice is to her. A fourth possible moral is that of the voice and the ability and bravery to speak up. The main character loses her voice and with it any hopes of marrying her prince or ever having a say in anything again. While this may have been a virtue in the beginning days of the tale, it is now considered shameful to be quiet and keep your opinions to yourself. It is important in today's time to share your opinions and have your own thoughts. One cannot go through life without ever having a say in decisions that affect you. I believe that a very important moral in this story is that of family value. The main character quickly gives up the love of her family for a prince whom she's never even talked to. She disappoints her father and leaves her sisters without a second thought. She gives up such a powerful love from her family, for a questioning love from the prince. It is important that reader's realize the main characters mistake in trading in her family for one man who she doesn't know very well. Andersen’s The Mermaid: A Tale of Female Sacrifice. Andersen, Hans Christian. “The Mermaid.” The Mermaid and Other Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen . Illus. Maxwell Armfield. Trans. Mrs. Edgar Lucas. Ed. F. D. Tilney. New York: E. P. Dutton & Company, 1910. 9-35. Introduction. Mermaids have been a part of popular culture dating back to their date of origin in 1000 BC in Assyria. For centuries they have been interpreted in many different mediums (including folklore and film) and portrayed in different societal roles. This exhibit examines by example the way in which their roles and moral representation in pop culture have morphed through the ages. Specifically this presentation focuses on Hans Christian Andersen’s short story, The Mermaid (1837), and Disney’s film, The Little Mermaid (1989), to demonstrate how evolving time and an ever- changing societal moral code have defined these two distinct interpretations of mermaids. Category. Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was knowledgeable on mermaids as they appeared frequently in popular culture during the period in which he lived. Andersen used elements of traditional mermaid characteristics, but still created his own personal version that is original in its story. Since the time of early mythology, fantastical creatures of the sea have had a place in the oral traditions of folklore. Merfolk exist in stories from all the world over, and are represented in a multitude of forms. Their top halves are human-like, while their bottom halves are fish-like. This combination of sea and land forms appears time and time again in real life accounts and in fictional tales of mermaids in contact with humans. Living in the ocean, the merfolk may rest on the waves or a rock in the water and be often disguised by the water or as a fish. In Andersen’s story, the Mermaid holds a fascination with humans. She begs her grandmother and older sisters for information about the wildlife, the greenery, and the scents. From the time that she was young, she was desperate to find out as much as she could. When she turned the age of fifteen, she was allowed to approach the surface of the water to view the world from above the waves. Her adoration of mankind grew until she could no longer sustain the thought of being a mermaid. Despite her Grandmother’s clear warning to steer away from thoughts of life above water, and her insistence that she honour her commitments as a mermaid, the Mermaid pays no heed and determines the land is where she wishes to be. She must be loved by the Prince as though she is a family member, yet she dares to risk everything to take advantage of the opportunity to win his love and affection. She approaches the Sea Witch to help her in reaching her goal. The natural ability to entrance men with her loveliness and siren-like voice is a key characteristic of a mermaid. With her enchanting voice, she sings to fishermen. Traditionally, mermaids offered these men safe harbour from harm. Andersen’s mermaids have beautiful voices, which he describes as being clearer than any mortal voice (Andersen). During storms on the sea, they sing to the fisherman, bidding them no ill will. It is this lovely voice which the Mermaid sacrifices in order to be in touch with the Prince to discover love and happiness on land. Essential to her character, her voice defined one of the key features of mermaids and their purpose to living in the sea. On land, her ability to prove her love and dedication to the Prince relied only on her physical beauty. That which made her unique was no longer an option for her, and the Mermaid was punished for her unfortunate lack of understanding of reality and the human world. Without her voice, she is able neither to convince the Prince of how she saved his life, nor seduce him with her voice. The Sea Witch has bargained with the Mermaid for her sexuality and it has not paid off for the Mermaid. In some versions of stories involving merfolk, the merfolk make actual contact with human life. These tales have been passed on through the ages, allowing mermaids to maintain a certain reputation of both trickery and safety. In some stories, the mermaids are the thought to have carried men out to sea and to not have allowed them back (Waugh). In others, she is merely a flash on the ocean, and a good story at the local pub as fisherman regale one another with tall tales. Andersen’s Mermaid has the opportunity to have the Prince perish at her hand, but she chooses instead to release herself from the promise of love. There are many instances of sexual undertones in Andersen’s story. Although the Mermaid has made many sacrifices, she is not emotionally mature enough to engage in a relationship with the Prince. This story is meant to be a warning to girls to wait for what will naturally come to them, as Andersen intended. The Mermaid’s fascination with mankind, and the initial motivation to approach the Sea Witch, in the end undid the Mermaid and her contact with her family. Illustrations. Maxwell Armfield (1881-1972), a British artist, illustrated the collection of Andersen’s stories. The book is bound and decorated intricately with gold leaf. It features an illustration from one of Andersen’s stories, and is enticing to the viewer. One is able to see keen detail in Armfield’s work inside the book, especially. The graphics are printed in colour, and display a wide range of shades and tones. Armfield has exercised extreme care in imagining life for merfolk. The Mermaid’s long, flowing hair masks her body partially and adds to the allure of the mermaid. The clothing of the Prince, and the structure of the ships, are intricately illustrated. They demonstrate the grandeur and exoticism of human life to which the Mermaid is attracted. "A big three-masted ship lay close by." Just in front of her stood the handsome young Prince. Context. In the time period between the first publication of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Mermaid in 1873 and Disney’s interpretation, The Little Mermaid in 1989, much has changed in the way of moral structure between the two stories. At face value, the moral seems to be that with great sacrifice and change comes great reward. The issue is whether that moral is even universally realistic. And this begs the question of whether Andersen’s interpretation has a deeper meaning. In Andersen’s version, the Mermaid experiences monumental sacrifice before she is rewarded. The Mermaid rescues the Prince from drowning and immediately falls in love with him. The unfortunate issue in this scenario, however, is that the human Prince could never fall in love with a woman of the sea. Being infatuated with the Prince, the Mermaid desperately tries to change herself to accommodate and gain the Prince’s affection. The Mermaid sacrifices her impeccable singing voice in exchange for a potion to convert her mermaid tail into a pair of legs. Although it brings the Mermaid excruciating pain at every step, she sets forth to find the Prince. While he is attracted to the Mermaid it is not enough to terminate his arranged marriage and despite the Mermaid having sacrificed the fundamental aspects of herself is to entice the Prince, it is inevitably not enough. It is at this point in the story that the mermaid suffers a broken heart. Through all the trouble and turmoil through which she has gone in order experience freedom and love, it is clear that she made her sacrifices in vain. She can’t bring herself to kill the Prince and return to being a mermaid, so she instead kills herself, ending her life after rejection. In order for the Mermaid to be rewarded for her personal sacrifices, she must first live through the pain and torment, and also be forced to make impactful decisions. Only after she has experienced all that she had in her life under the guide of humanity is she given the opportunity to return to the world as sea foam in the afterlife. She becomes a daughter of the air and by performing good deeds, she will one day gain access into the Kingdom of God. At first look, it seems that Andersen leaves the reader with a similar moral to that which Disney presents. By sacrificing the key aspects of yourself to conform to society’s picturesque standards, you will eventually be rewarded with acceptance. The Mermaid went through extreme pain and upheaval to gain this acceptance and eventually it paid off—but only in the afterlife. It is this key detail of the reward in afterlife that makes Andersen’s moral appear deeper than originally interpreted. Upon closer analysis, Andersen’s imparted moral is in fact suggesting the opposite message to that of Disney’s film version. The Mermaid is rewarded for her sacrifice but not during her lifetime. She may find fulfillment only in the afterlife. This underlying meaning comments on the fact that not in reality is such an accepted transformation possible. While eventually the Mermaid was rewarded, she does not find happiness as a result of her actions during her own life in the real world. Andersen’s moral can be interpreted as one which is darker and more realistic. In reality, despite how great of a sacrifice or outward change is made, one can never fundamentally change the essence of who one is, and can therefore never find true acceptance and happiness in the altered form. Disney’s version interprets Andersen’s moral at face value, however. To begin with, the protagonist Ariel has to go through no great lengths to gain the love and acceptance of the Prince, unlike Andersen’s mermaid. While Ariel is forced to change to accommodate the love of the rescued Prince, her mild-by-comparison sacrifice pays off. In this interpretation, the protagonist also makes a deal with a sea witch, Ursula, sacrificing her beautiful singing voice to gain human legs, though without any physical pain. Ursula tries to gain the Prince’s affection herself, not because of love, but to gain power of the sea. She attempts to trick the Prince out of marrying Ariel. Ursula’s trickery is short lived and although there is much chaos and excitement, no real suffering is experienced by Ariel. Ursula is eventually killed, and Ariel and the Prince live happily ever after. In the end, Ariel is granted the human life that she wished for from the start without having to experience the traumatic pain, rejection, and even death, that Andersen’s mermaid underwent. The significant changes Ariel makes to be accepted by the Prince cause her to be successful, and she is rewarded with human love and life. Stereotypically, Disney’s messages are known for being positive and seemingly morally right, thus making Andersen’s moral seems quite grim by comparison. However, if one were to really look at the morals presented in each of these interpretations, one would find that the roles in this particular story are reversed. Andersen presents the more realistic message: one cannot achieve true acceptance by falsifying one’s genuine identity. No matter how much suffering and sacrifice one undergoes, there is no real reward in fundamental change. Disney’s version portrays a more censored moral: one is able to achieve true happiness and acceptance by undergoing extreme change for the one they love. Through minor sacrifice and patience during said change, eventually they will gain the love and respect of those they changed for. While Andersen’s moral seems more negative and dark than Disney’s, the truth and realism behind it make it a much more valuable lesson than Disney’s. The moral presented in The Little Mermaid is deceptively false and packaged as morally positive despite its true nature. Conclusion. The Mermaid in Andersen’s tale is a sexualized, symbolic figure of female sacrifice, following the desire of her heart and making choices which suit her want for love and human form. Flouting social conventions of the sea, she makes a decision to pursue a different life despite the clear risks involved. Ever seductive, mermaids throughout history have proven to have a grip over humans. By delving under the surface and exploring the deeper meanings behind the morals presented in these two interpretations of mermaid’s tales, one gains a greater understanding of the way in which the ethical message of a decades-old tale changes through the process of “Disneyfication.” Upon making this analysis, one is able to determine which moral is more poignant and realistic past face-value. Selected Works Cited. Auerbach, Nina. Woman and the Demon: The Life of a Victorian Myth . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982. Print. Cashdan, Sheldon. The Witch Must Die . New York: Basic Books, 1999. Print. The Little Mermaid . Dir. Ron Clements and John Musker. Perf. Jodi Benson. Disney, 1989. Videocassette. Meyers, Robert W. “The Little Mermaid: Hans Christian Andersenʼs Feminine Identification.” Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies 3.2 (2001): 149-59. Scholars Portal . Web. 13 Oct. 2011. Mortensen, Finn. “The Little Mermaid: Icon and Disneyfication.” Scandinavian Studies 80 (2008): 437-54. ProQuest . Web. 13 Oct. 2011. Triste, Roberta. “Disney’s Sub/version of Andersen’s The Little Mermaid.” Journal of Popular Film & Television (1991): 145. ProQuest Library Search . Web. 15 Oct. 2011. Waugh, Arthur. “The Folklore of the Merfolk.” Folklore 71.2 (1960): 73-84. JSTOR Arts and Sciences 3 . Web. 15 Oct. 2011. The Little Mermaid. "The Little Mermaid" is a Danish literary fairy tale written by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. The story follows the journey of a young mermaid who is willing to give up her life in the sea as a mermaid to gain a human soul. The tale was first published in 1837 as part of a collection of fairy tales for children. The original story has been a subject of multiple analyses by scholars such as Jacob Bøggild 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 an underwater kingdom with her widowed father (Mer-King), her dowager grandmother, and her five older sisters, each of whom had been born one year apart. 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, and when the sisters become old enough, each of them visits the upper world one at a time every 365 days. As each returns, the Little Mermaid listens longingly to their various descriptions of the world inhabited by human beings. 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 hits, sinking the ship, and the Little Mermaid saves the prince from drowning. She delivers him unconscious to the shore near a temple. Here, she 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 mad and asks her grandmother if humans can live forever. The grandmother explains that humans have a much shorter lifespan than a mermaid's 300 years, but that, when mermaids die, they turn to sea foam and cease to exist, while humans have an eternal soul that lives on in heaven. The Little Mermaid, longing for the prince and an eternal soul, visits the Sea Witch who lives in a dangerous part of the ocean. The witch willingly helps her by selling her a potion that gives her legs in exchange for her tongue and beautiful voice, as the Little Mermaid has the most enchanting voice in the 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, yet when she recovers, she will have two human legs and will be able to dance like no human has ever danced before. However, she will constantly feel as if she is walking on sharp knives. In addition, 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. After she agrees to the arrangement, the Little Mermaid swims up to the surface near the prince's castle and drinks the potion. The liquid felt like a sword piercing through her body and she passes out on the shore, naked. She is found by the prince, who is mesmerized by her beauty and grace, even though she is mute. Most of all, he likes to see her dance, and she dances for him despite suffering excruciating pain with every step. Soon, the Little Mermaid becomes the prince's favorite companion and accompanies him on many of his outings but he does not fall in love with her. When the prince's parents encouraged their son 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 he can only love the young woman from the temple, who 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 on 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 her selflessness, she is given the chance to earn her own soul by doing good deeds for mankind for 300 years, and will one day rise up into Heaven. Tor.com. Science fiction. Fantasy. The universe. And related subjects. Pain, Humanity, and Ascension: Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” Hans Christian Andersen’s earliest years were marked by extreme poverty. His parents did not live together until nine months after his birth, leading Andersen and others to wonder if his father of record—also named Hans Andersen, a shoemaker—was indeed his father. Highly dubious legends later insisted that Andersen was the illegitimate scion of noble, even royal blood, but if so, noble and royal money was distinctly absent in those early years. His maternal grandmother died in a poorhouse, as did his mother. His (probable) paternal grandfather became mentally ill later in life, and also landed in a poorhouse, leaving his wife and children in desperate financial straits. A cousin landed in jail for begging. What saved Andersen’s soul, then and later, were fairy tales about magical things like little mermaids. Andersen probably first heard traditional folk tales from his grandmother and other relatives, tales he later worked into his own fiction. Despite the family poverty, the young Andersen also managed to attend, if irregularly, two infant schools and the town’s charity school, which gave him the ability to read a book that transformed his imagination: The Arabian Nights. He also discovered the theatre, another source of magic. When he was fourteen, he travelled to Copenhagen to work in a theatre there, a job that brought him the opportunity for more schooling and exposure to more books. Slowly, he became a writer and creator of new fairy tales. His initial fairy tales tended to stay close to their oral roots, but gradually, Andersen began to add his own elements to his tales, creating stories that combined elements of folklore, romance, angst, social commentary, angst, delicate magical details, and, for a change, angst. His first volume of fairy tales, which initially appeared as a series of three thin booklets between 1835 and 1837, included a mix of retold folktales and original work, including “The Little Mermaid,” which was first translated into English in 1872. Andersen had undoubtedly heard legends of mermaids and selkies and sirens and other creatures of the water. The stories date well back into ancient times, and European interest in mermaids had recently resurged thanks in part Frederick de la Motte Fouque’s worldwide bestseller Undine (1811) , the tragic story of a water spirit and a knight. Andersen certainly knew the book; he may also have known the E.T.A. Hoffman opera based on the book, first performed in 1814. It reminded him that not all fairy tales need to have a happy ending, and that the quest for a soul can be a dangerous one. “The Little Mermaid” opens happily enough, with a rich description of the underwater palace of the Sea King. Andersen, unlike other fantasy writers who told stories of similar underwater kingdoms, makes no attempt here for any oceanographic accuracy: his intent here is to build fantasy, and so the palace windows, for example, are made of amber, not exactly a sea product—although later, the little mermaid has to pass through what sounds suspiciously like fire coral, very definitely a marine product, to reach the sea witch. The little mermaid is the youngest of six sisters, eagerly waiting her chance to head up to the surface of the water where she’ll be able to see humans and other surface wonders as well. The minute she does, things go wrong: she sees glorious fireworks and a handsome prince, but the ship she sees is almost immediately wrecked, with no survivors other than the prince, who only lives because the little mermaid drags him to the shore. That’s the first hint that the story will not go well. The little mermaid becomes obsessed with the prince—she kissed him a few times in the water— and starts following him as much as she can, and collecting information about him. From this, she learns he’s a good guy—I have my doubts about this, but let’s move on for now—and decides to become human, so she can be with him. The sea witch she consults counsels her against this, since if it doesn’t work out, the mermaid will die, but the mermaid is determined: she gives up her voice, and heads to the surface, to walk on legs that cut like knives at every step. Once on the surface, the prince dresses her up as a pageboy, and occasionally kisses her passionately on the forehead and says that he might—he might—just marry her. And then he marries someone else—the girl he thinks saved his life, who is also very beautiful, and, I might note, not dressed up as a pageboy, and who does not ask any pointed questions about the beautiful voiceless girl who has been sleeping at the prince’s door on a velvet cushion. Prince, I feel we need to talk about a few things, including the sleeping arrangements you’ve made for little voiceless foundling girls that you occasionally kiss on the forehead, but we may not have that kind of time. Fortunately for the little mermaid, she’s caught not only in an tragic romance, but also in a Christian redemption story, and so, when she dies, she’s not quite dead yet: she has a chance, perhaps, to earn an immortal soul after all if she’s willing to wait three hundred years with other air spirits. Maybe: ….for every day on which we find a good child, who is the joy of his parents and deserves their love, our time of probation is shortened. The child does not know, when we fly through the room, that we smile with joy at his good conduct, for we can count one year less of our three hundred years. But when we see a naughty or wicked child, we shed tears of sorry, and for every tear a day is added to our time of trial! Like, THANKS FOR THE GUILT TRIP THERE, AND LETTING ME KNOW THAT EVERY TIME I SCREWED UP AS A LITTLE KID, I HURT A DEAD MERMAID, HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. I FEEL GREAT NOW. Despite the focus on earning a soul, and redemption, and the pain involved in both, this is not just a story about love and eternal salvation, but also about social class, and unfairness. I think it’s significant that the little mermaid is not motivated just by her love for the prince, but also by her grandmother’s explanation of the differences between mermaids and humans. Mermaids get to live for 300 years—long by human standards—but when they die, they die , becoming only sea foam on the water. Humans have much shorter lives, but get to continue into immortality. The little mermaid wants love, yes, but she also wants that immortality, and feels that anything—even another 300 years of working as an air spirit—is worth it. But the process of gaining that immortal salvation is deeply unfair. It’s not just that in her first try, the mermaid has to give up her voice, her home and her family, and experience torture in every step, but that the humans don’t need to do any of this. Indeed, if a little kid messes up, it’s a dead mermaid’s soul that suffers, not the kid. It reflects a certain social divide that Andersen had witnessed, as he used his skills as a writer to climb from poverty to making regular appearances at the Danish court. The upper classes he interacted with had advantages he never had as a child, and although he later received a tax free stipend from the royal court, he never forgot those early differences. But I can’t entirely blame social inequities and class divisions for the eventual separation of the prince and the little mermaid. Here, something else seems to be going on, namely Andersen’s own difficulty in forming long term romantic relationships. He was, by his own account, shy with women, and by the accounts of others, not always good at picking up basic social clues. He was also bisexual, in an age where this presented, to put it mildly, difficulties. Despite this attraction to both genders, and long held passionate feelings for specific individuals, it is highly possible that he never had an intimate physical relationship with anyone of either gender. This tends to be reflected in many of his tales, which do not always end with the happy marriage of most 19 th century fairy tales. In this, he is perhaps closer to the early French salon fairy tale writers—many of whom were also unhappy in love, who often wrote unhappy endings, and who also often used fairy tales to critique their contemporary society. Not that everything in “The Little Mermaid” is serious, or tragic, or depressing. Part of the magic of the story is the various throwaway moments here and there. My favorite might be the one where the sea witch announces that cleanliness is a good thing—right before scouring her cauldron out with snakes. I think she and I may have different ideas of what “cleanliness” means. But Andersen has other great moments—including a nice knock at the idea of enduring pain for fashion and status, as the little mermaid complains that the oysters set in her tail, partly to make her look beautiful, but mostly to emphasize her importance, hurt. Hmm. Maybe she had another reason for wanting to escape to the surface and mingle with humans. At the very least the oysters were probably good training for the painful walking she had to do later. It’s probably that mix of charm, imaginative detail and sorrow that has allowed “The Little Mermaid” to endure as one of Andersen’s most popular and famous tales, translated into at least 150 languages, and retold in various media—opera, ballet, prose and poetry retellings, and at least one animated feature. In 1913, it also became the basis for a Copenhagen tourist attraction, when a small bronze statue of the protagonist gazing wistfully at mortal lands was unveiled in to honor the tale. The statue soon became a target for vandals (I can personally testify that in its current location, it’s not hard to reach); the current one is a replica of the damaged original. But the vandals did nothing to end the statue’s popularity; tourists happily stood in line to take pictures (I can also personally testify to the lines), and more replicas (authorized and unauthorized), popped up in various cities around the world, in a nice reflection of the enduring nature of Hans Christian Andersen’s original tale. A Summary and Analysis of Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ Fairy Tale. ‘The Little Mermaid’ (1837) is one of the most layered and fascinating fairy tales written by Hans Christian Andersen. At once the quintessential fairy tale and a curious subversion of the fairy-tale form, ‘The Little Mermaid’ requires some careful analysis to unpick its various strands and meanings. Before we offer an analysis of the story, though, it might be worth recounting its plot. The Little Mermaid: summary. First, a brief plot summary of ‘The Little Mermaid’. Deep down at the bottom of the sea live the mermen and mermaids. Six sisters live there, all of them princesses, the youngest of whom is quieter and more thoughtful than her older siblings. Each of the mermaids has their own little garden under the sea, but whereas the others decorate theirs with all sorts of things they have salvaged from shipwrecks that have drifted to the bottom of the sea, the little mermaid has just some roses and the statue of a beautiful boy. They are all intrigued by the world beyond the sea, but this youngest sister – the little mermaid of the story’s title – is more interested in the world above the sea than her other sisters. The sisters are looked after by their grandmother, who tells them that when a mermaid reaches the age of fifteen, she can rise to the surface of the water and explore the world above the surface. In turn, each of the sisters reaches that age and goes up to the surface, returning below the sea to tell her sisters what she has seen. When it’s finally the turn of the little mermaid, she notices a ship, which contains royalty. The people on board are celebrating the birthday of a handsome prince. The little mermaid is instantly attracted to him. There is a storm, and the ship sinks. The little mermaid is initially delighted when she sees the prince sinking beneath the water – as it means he can join her – but then she remembers that humans cannot survive underwater, so she rescues him and takes him to shore at a temple, where some novice girls appear and one of them restores the prince to consciousness. The mermaid sinks back under the water, with the prince entirely unaware of her existence, or that she has saved his life. The little mermaid asks her grandmother about humans. She learns that humans don’t live as long as mermen (who can live for up to three hundred years), but that they do have immortal souls which float up to heaven when they die, unlike the mermen who don’t have souls. The little mermaid says she would trade three hundred years of life as a mermaid for one day as a human, if it meant she would have a soul and live forever. The grandmother tells her not to think about such things, because the only way a mermaid could gain a soul is if a human loved her so much that his soul would merge with her and she would gain one. But the little mermaid realises that she so loves the handsome prince that she could give anything to be with him and gain an immortal soul. So she goes to visit the one woman who might help her: the sea witch. The sea witch says she will make the little mermaid a potion which the mermaid must take onto land with her and drink. It will turn her fish’s tail into two human legs, and she will not be able to transform back into a mermaid again. It will also hurt her every time she walks. If the handsome prince will not marry her, she will not gain an immortal soul; and she will die and become foam upon the water (as is the fate of soulless mermen) the day the prince marries another. The little mermaid is so desperate to marry the prince and gain a soul that she readily agrees, despite this gamble; she also agrees to the sea witch’s demand for a payment, which is to possess the mermaid’s beautiful singing voice. This means the little mermaid will be able to become a woman, but a mute one, unable to sing, or speak. She floats up to the surface and drinks the potion, and falls unconscious. When she wakes, the handsome prince is standing over her, asking her where she came from, but because the sea witch has taken her tongue she cannot answer. He takes her into the palace and finds her the finest clothes to wear, and her beauty is much admired by everyone at court. She grows closer to the prince, but at night she often sees her sisters, who float up to the surface and tell her how she saddened them when she left them behind. The little mermaid learns that the prince is fond of her, but has fallen in love with the pretty girl at the temple who brought him back to consciousness on the night of the shipwreck. Unaware that the little mermaid was the one who’d dragged him to shore, he thinks that the novice girl at the temple saved his life. Being mute, the mermaid cannot tell him that she was the one who saved him. The prince is told to undertake a voyage to a neighbouring kingdom, because his parents wish him to marry the princess in that kingdom (to forge an alliance). The little mermaid undertakes the journey with him, and when the princess appears, it turns out to be the very girl who had ‘found’ the unconscious prince on the temple steps, the night the little mermaid had saved his life. Believing the princess to be the one who had saved him, the prince declares his love for her and they travel home to his kingdom, to be married. The little mermaid realises that, having failed to gain a human’s love, she will die the next morning, without having gained a soul. Heartbroken, the little mermaid is travelling back on the prince’s ship when her sisters appear above the water, their hair cut off. They know their sister’s fate, and tell her that they have sacrificed their hair to the sea witch in exchange for a magical dagger, which they hand to their sister. The little mermaid must plunge it into the heart of the prince, so that his blood will touch the little mermaid’s feet and merge them together to form a fish’s tail. Then, she can dive back under the water and be with her sisters and her grandmother, who is at her wit’s end. But when the mermaid sees the prince and his bride sleeping together in his tent on the ship, she cannot go through with it, and hurls the dagger into the sea before diving overboard and dispersing into foam on the surface of the water. Her spirit floats up into the air and she is informed by other mermaid spirits or ‘daughters of the air’ that, whilst they cannot gain a soul, they have a chance to do so if they provide a useful service to the world by bringing cooling breezes to the hot winds in warmer parts of the globe. At the end of their three centuries of service, they can create their own everlasting soul – and they can shorten the period of time it takes to earn one. Each house they travel into on the breeze, if they find a good child who is a credit to its parents, one year is taken off their three hundred. But if they travel into a house where a bad child is bringing shame to its parents, a year is added onto their time in this ‘limbo’. And that is how the story of the little mermaid ends. The Little Mermaid: analysis. ‘The Little Mermaid’ is that rare and paradoxical thing: a tragic tale with a happy ending. Although the mermaid fails in her quest to gain the prince’s hand in marriage and thus a human soul, she does learn when she dies that there is ‘life’ after being a mermaid, and that her kind actions in her life (saving the prince’s life, and then letting him live even though it will mean her own death) carry some (long-term) reward. This is one of the aspects of ‘The Little Mermaid’ which make it such a rewarding tale (see the picture above for the popular statue in Copenhagen depicting the title character). Andersen avoids the (perhaps expected) happy ending whereby the prince and the little mermaid are married and live happily ever after, with her gaining a soul and truly joining the world of humans. Instead, the rather more bittersweet ending is more mature and realistic: we cannot make people love us if they do not, and we have to live with that fact. The best we can do is to act well towards them, and to the world at large. Although modern readers in particular may blanch at the final sentences of the story (which, one wonders, may have been on J. M. Barrie’s mind when he came up with the idea of a fairy dropping down dead every time a child lies), and they seem an odd fit for the rest of the tale’s moral thrust (why should the ‘daughters of the air’ be blamed for other people’s children being naughty?), the conclusion to the story does manage to be both satisfying and unexpected. On this note, it’s worth reflecting that Andersen initially ended the story with the mermaid’s dissolution on the surface of the waves; he revised it to give it a more hopeful conclusion. And indeed, the little mermaid’s tears of happiness when she learns she has become a daughter of the air confirm what we have suspected all along: that what she really wants is a soul, and she sees the prince as her chance to gain one. It’s true that she loves him before this, and she saves his life before she knows he can be of practical value to her; but once she learns that he may be her royal road (as it were) to souldom (to coin a word … or perhaps ‘soulhood’?), her focus seems to be on this, rather than on any happiness she will necessarily enjoy with the prince while she is still alive once she has joined the human world. So, taking all this into account, what does the story of the little mermaid actually mean ? Should we analyse ‘The Little Mermaid’ as a tale about love, or about immortality, or about selflessness, or about religion (the little mermaid wants to ‘live’ forever through some spiritual or supernatural means)? Or should we offer a feminist interpretation of the tale, which sees the price that young women pay for marriage and motherhood (the intense pain to her lower body which the little mermaid must undergo if she is to join the prince) being muteness, physical pain, the loss of an outlet for her talents (giving up her singing voice), and a curtailing of her freedom? That she must leave behind the world of her family to marry into his? One of the reasons why ‘The Little Mermaid’ is such a rich tale is that it invites these and other interpretations. It might be reductive to view the little mermaid’s actions as solely motivated by love, especially since she appears to long for ‘something more’, something beyond , and that this is reflected from the beginning of the story when we learn that she was more quiet and thoughtful than her five sisters, and that she has a statue of a beautiful boy as the sole ornament in her personal garden. This can be interpreted as a sign that she yearns for love – but it also reflects her interest in humans, and in the human world above the surface of the ocean. In the last analysis, then, we should avoid reductive interpretations of the story because ‘The Little Mermaid’ is that rare and true thing: a text which contains many different meanings beneath its symbols and plot details. It is more than a love story, not just a tragedy, more than a fantasy, more even than ‘just’ a fairy tale. The author of this article, Dr Oliver Tearle, is a literary critic and lecturer in English at Loughborough University. He is the author of, among others, The Secret Library: A Book-Lovers’ Journey Through Curiosities of History and The Great War, The Waste Land and the Modernist Long Poem.