Who is the Little Mermaid? For me, when I was growing up, all I knew was Disney’s version. The Little Mermaid was a teenager named Ariel who fell in love with a prince named Eric. He was on land; she was in the sea. Going against her father’s advice, Ariel goes to the sea witch Ursula so that she can walk on land as well. Through ups and downs, the story concludes happily and everything is a fairytale ending. That’s what fairytales are--happy endings, right? In today’s society, when we hear “fairytale”, we think of a whimsical story that has a happy ending for the protagonist and the villain is defeated, but that’s not how they used to be.
The original Little Mermaid is a story by Hans Christian Andersen (1836). Andersen’s version of the story was a literary fairy tale, and was not passed on verbally like many fairy tales were. Disney did take some aspects from Hans’ story and are similar in some ways (such as the mermaid trading her voice for legs), but in Andersen’s story, her tongue is …show more content…
It also reveals that not everything is going to work out the way that you want it to or thought it would but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. As far as Disney’s version, “Ariel is a fully realized female character who thinks and acts independently, even rebelliously, instead of hanging around passively while the fates decide her destiny” (Ebert). Even though Ariel is going against her father’s wishes, we still root for her, in hopes her falling in love with Eric. There are plenty of great things about the film. It’s happy and bright because that is how the story is told and ends, whereas if Andersen were still around to create a movie for his story, it would be much darker and colder. It would not be as enjoyable for children and would still be aimed towards adults, just as it was intended to
The original Little Mermaid is a story by Hans Christian Andersen (1836). Andersen’s version of the story was a literary fairy tale, and was not passed on verbally like many fairy tales were. Disney did take some aspects from Hans’ story and are similar in some ways (such as the mermaid trading her voice for legs), but in Andersen’s story, her tongue is …show more content…
It also reveals that not everything is going to work out the way that you want it to or thought it would but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. As far as Disney’s version, “Ariel is a fully realized female character who thinks and acts independently, even rebelliously, instead of hanging around passively while the fates decide her destiny” (Ebert). Even though Ariel is going against her father’s wishes, we still root for her, in hopes her falling in love with Eric. There are plenty of great things about the film. It’s happy and bright because that is how the story is told and ends, whereas if Andersen were still around to create a movie for his story, it would be much darker and colder. It would not be as enjoyable for children and would still be aimed towards adults, just as it was intended to