The Little Mermaid Analysis

Improved Essays
People say that love can make you do crazy things. A short story written by Hans Andersen called “The Little Mermaid” sounds like a story based on this quote. This story is about a young mermaid who wants to be loved. In the story the young mermaid has a growing obsession with the world of the humans. She dreams of the day that she is allowed to go to the surface, sit on the rocks, and watch the ships go by. The girls are only allowed to go to the surfaces at the age of fifteen and at night. Since she was the youngest it seemed like, she had to wait for what seemed like forever to turn fifteen. When she finally turned fifteen she swam up to the surface, while she was up on the surface she saw a ship wreck. In all the wreckage was a young prince sinking to the bottom of the ocean, when she saw him she instantly fell in love with him and saved him. After that encounter she was willing to do anything to be loved by him, so she gave up her tongue to get a pair of legs so she could have a chance with him. …show more content…
But, the deal was that she had to marry the prince to stay alive and also every time she would walk she would feel enormous amounts of pain. When the prince seen her walking around the city he had her brought back to his castle, during that time at the castle they had developed a love for one another. The prince’s parents told him he had arranged marriage already set up for him. So he picked to marry the new girl than the mermaid. The mermaid’s sisters missed her and wanted her to come back home so they gave up their hair to give her a chance to come home and be a mermaid again. In order for her to become a mermaid again she had to kill the prince. While she stood over prince as he slept she decided not to kill him. In the story “The Little Mermaid” the author Hans Andersen uses the young mermaid as a way to illustrate his theme that our desires can lead us to do crazy things. The author was able to depict his theme by making the young mermaid, a protagonist character in the story, a major character whose role is vitally important in building the elements of this theme as well as the overall development of the story. With so much pressure of being perfect in this generation, people usually go against the social normal and start becoming the person who they really want to be. Which usually leads to all the different personalities around us. Sometimes going against the social normal will lead you to make major sacrifices, can cause backlash from friends, family, and even strangers, and can cause them to face major consequences. Anderson depicted this by having the little mermaid go through the process of becoming a human to go to the surface to gain the love of the prince. He did it to show the struggles of trying to become the person you really are. To become something other than the normal she had to make major sacrifices such as losing her tongue and deal with major consequences like death. This type of situation happen in our generation when people come out the closet to everyone they knew. For example

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    I know it sound juvenile, but if I could be one character from a movie it would be Rapunzel from Disney’s Tangled. At the end of the animated movie, Rapunzel is reunited with her parents the King and Queen of Corona and the audience sees the whole family dancing in the middle of the square with all of the citizens. I know it is every little girl’s dream, but I have always wanted to be a Princess. When you are a princess, you get to live happily ever after with a wonderful prince and you never have to worry about taxes, college, or getting a job. Princesses are also listened to; they have the power to really change what they think is unjust in the world.…

    • 175 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Good and Evil Mermaids are majestic and beautiful creatures that are often misunderstood by humans. When one sees a mermaid they are usually struck in awe. With their superficial beauty, they can take advantage of people in good ways and bad through manipulation and deceit. In Richard Van Camp’s short story ‘Mermaids’ the author depicts the mermaids with duo personalities. They are seen as both angels and devils using their beauty through the use of symbolism.…

    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Brothers Grimm version of the fairy tale “Cinderella” is a perfect example of a person’s journey from dark to light, or, as Tatar says it, “a way out of the woods back to the safety and security of home.” (Behrens and Rosen 254) While there are many versions of the story across different cultures, this variant describes the journey not only for Cinderella, but for the desired path of the stepsisters as well. The idea of Cinderella being a story of a journey comes from Tatar’s idea, which is “fairy tales are up close and personal, telling us about the quest for romance and riches, for power and privilege, and, most important, for a way out of the woods back to the safety and security of home.” (Behrens and Rosen 254)…

    • 814 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The evolution of media has evidently influenced the lives of females—young and old—across the globe. Peggy Orenstein, the author of Cinderella Ate My Daughter, attempts to capture the ongoing issues that affect the behaviors and mindsets of girls in America. She focuses on princesses, toy preference, media, children’s TV shows/movies, and the internet. She wants to apprehend the impact of images, ideas, and societal standards that girls absorb about what they must be, how they should act, and the specific role they take in a girlie mainstream culture.…

    • 2543 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Compare/Contrast between Beauty and the Beast and Tale of Tulisa Tale of Tulisa and Beauty and the Beast both feature a love story between a human and a non-human figure. There are many similarities and differences between each story. Motifs of unrequited love filter throughout both works, highlighting on the struggles between central characters. The central characters within the stories include: Belle, Tulisa, King of Serpent, Beast, Nur-Singh, and Maurice. Tale of Tulisa, is a mythological folktale that originated from North India, and relates to the ancient myth AT Folklore Type 25, “The Search for the Lost Husband.…

    • 1567 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Thelma And Louise Analysis

    • 1886 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Thelma & Louise is a 1991 American road film that was directed by Ridley Scott and written by Callie Khouri. The film stars Thelma and Louise as two friends who embarked on a road trip that had disastrous consequences. The two friends set off on a road trip and became outlawed after Louise shot a would-be rapist. The two friends find themselves running away from law and starts finding their independence as well as shaping their characters all through their journey. A woman 's film is a film that contains a storyline that is centered around women and deals with everyday issues faced by women whether physical, social or emotional that are related to their gender (Bassinger, 2000).…

    • 1886 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Little Mermaid Greed

    • 630 Words
    • 3 Pages

    A hero’s story isn’t complete without a powerful villain to battle. From books to movies or TV shows, villains are everywhere. Their devious plans for grandeur and their impeccable adaptability make them fun to follow and enjoy. Most of the beloved villains in today’s pop culture share similar character traits. Villains are greedy, egotistical and cunning.…

    • 630 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Once upon a time, there was a beautiful girl named Cinderella who lived with her wicked stepmother and two cruel stepsisters. Jealous of Cinderella’s beauty, they forced her to dress in rags and put her in charge of all the housework. She suffers silently until one night her fairy godmother helps her get to the royal ball. When at the ball, the prince falls in love with her and she has the opportunity to live “happily ever after.” At least that’s the version most young girls have been told.…

    • 2228 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Walt Disney Network has been a part of almost every American’s childhood life. For 35 years, Disney has created animated fairy tale movies that were intended to be child-friendly and create positive images. After, close analyzation it is evident that instead Disney has produced distorted images of racism and segregation in their movies. I have selected the animated film, The Princess and the Frog (2005). In the film, Tiana represents The Other of African American’s in the 19th century.…

    • 1009 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Fantasia Film Analysis

    • 1363 Words
    • 6 Pages

    There have been many animated movies that were very popular during the 1940’s and 50’s. Some are still watched and have been recreated in today’s times: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, and Dumbo. Although not the first animated movie to be created, Fantasia (1940) was the first movie to connect classical music with animations. Directed by James Algar and released in 1940, this movie was the first of its kind, using classical music and creating scenes with animations around that music or vice versa. This movie contains eight musical segments all narrated by Deems Taylor with different music and animations like Mickey Mouse, fairies, flowers, dinosaurs, figures from mythology, animals, and spirits for each of the scenes.…

    • 1363 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Because he is a human and she is a mermaid, their love is forbidden. The desire for him soon clouds the little mermaid’s judgment. When the prince’s ship wrecks, she dives in “among the wreckage, forgetting the danger that she herself was in” to save him (Andersen 156). This impairment, caused by her desire for love, inevitably leads to her demise. The more she loves him, the more she grows to “love human beings and [wish] that she could leave the sea and live among them” (Andersen 158).…

    • 1541 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    “The Little Mermaid” is a fairy tale about a young mermaid who is waiting until the day she is allowed to explore outside her father’s…

    • 1291 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Little Mermaid Comparison

    • 1741 Words
    • 7 Pages

    How the Little Mermaid is Crucial to the Symbolization of What Many Endure for the Acceptance of Society in Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” A multitude are not familiar with the written story of “The Little Mermaid” but plenty of people would recognize the film version created by Disney film studios. While there are some differences in plot, the personalities of the young girls from the two versions come out as practically identical. These adventurous young women crave the need to understand more about a life that they have never experienced before. Yet throughout both versions, a consistent concept appears that identifies as one of meanings of the term monster.…

    • 1741 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Each follows the journey of a little mermaid who dreams of being with a prince who lives on land. In the Hans Christian Andersen version of the story the little mermaid is not yet old enough to go to the surface. When she is, she sees a prince celebrating his birthday…

    • 1702 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    These women are mysterious creatures of the water that enchant and seduce, they lie in waiting for their next victim. Mermaid are complex creatures of the sea. The Sunday Overseer defines them as a “mythical sea creature with a woman 's trunk and fish 's tail, instead of legs. ”(“Do Mermaids really Exist?” 2009).…

    • 1017 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays