The Little Mermaid is a literary fairy tale. The plot is drawn from Hans Christian Andersen's imagination rather than a specific folktale. However, Andersen's writing was influenced by traditional folklore about merfolk and water nymphs.
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.
In the original story, The Little Mermaid is motivated by a fear of death and desires a soul and an afterlife in addition to love. The original Little Mermaid story is much darker and violent than Disney's version, with the sea witch brutally cutting out the mermaid's tongue in exchange for legs.
What is the moral of the story for The Little Mermaid?
Overall, The Little Mermaid's emphasis on sacrificial love speaks to a larger psychological theme about the importance of putting the needs of others before our own. By doing so, we not only enhance our own well-being, but we also build stronger and more fulfilling relationships with the people around us.
The prince is captivated by her appearance but fails to recognize her - he only remembers being saved by a girl with a magical voice. Eventually he marries someone else. Broken hearted, the Little Mermaid throws herself off a cliff and turns into sea foam.
In the Disney movie, Ariel marries Eric and the two live happily ever after. In Andersen's fairy tale, the Little Mermaid takes the knife and agrees to kill the prince. But when she tries to do it, she finds that she can't kill him, and instead, she sacrifices herself to save his life and turns into sea foam.
Since the animated feature film had a white mermaid as Ariel, some people are angry that Disney has gone with a black actress in the live-action. Some people also believe that Hans Christian Andersen described the Little mermaid as a white mermaid in his book. Therefore, Disney should have cast a white actress instead.
In Disney's 1989 animated adaptation of The Little Mermaid, Ariel is 16 years old. The Disney adaptation makes many changes to Hans Christian Andersen's original fairytale, but Ariel's age is consistent as she's depicted as a teenager in the original tale too.
What is the spiritual meaning of The Little Mermaid?
In this sense, “The Little Mermaid” can be read as an allegory of the different stages in a woman's life in her quest for a higher, spiritual world – childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age/death (of course, this is not the only interpretation, nor the most exhaustive, it's just something that popped into my head ...
In the movie The Little Mermaid (Clements & Musker, 1989), Ariel displays symptoms of disposophobia, which is defined as the fear of getting rid of things.
While lighting itself isn't all that expensive, darkness can be used to hide a lot of things. Halle Bailey is not actually a mermaid, and so having the scenes be darker makes it easier to disguise the CGI work.
What race is Ariel in the original Little Mermaid?
In the 1989 movie, Ariel was born in the fictional underwater kingdom of Atlantica, which technically makes her Atlantican, not Danish. As Ariel is half fish, she cannot be categorized by our ethnicities and races.
While it is known that her mother perished, there is no story attached to the event. However, much later, in 2008, an animated The Little Mermaid prequel revealed that Ariel's mother was crushed by a pirate ship during an altercation between humans and merpeople.
In this novel, Ursula is King Triton's younger sister who was betrayed by him as a child for choosing a tentacled form instead of a mermaid's tail, and grew up as a human in the town of Ipswich with an adoptive human father.
In Denmark, there is a little mermaid statue that is meant to represent the heritage of the story. Since Hans Christian Andersen was Danish, it is widely theorized that the fairy tale was set around Denmark.
What religious morals are taught in The Little Mermaid?
In “The Little Mermaid”, he focuses on Christian ideas of immorality and self-sacrifice. Because of this fixation, some scholars consider the tale to be one about morality. The depiction of the mermaid as prioritizing a soul has been interpreted as Andersen's main goal.
Rather, Ursula's appearance is radically different from her family, and she sports tentacles that look like a permanent black dress. It's possible Ursula is not a mermaid in appearance because she and Triton did not have the same mother or father. If they're half siblings, Ursula's tentacles make more sense.
In the animated version of The Little Mermaid, Ariel literally signed the deal with Ursula, as the sea witch gave her a contract. Thanks to that, Ariel voluntarily gave her voice to Ursula in exchange for legs, leaving her completely mute.
Representation of an African American woman as a love interest and a beautiful being should become natural. This version of The Little Mermaid is great for young people because it allows them to better appreciate diversity and gain a better sense of the world.
There are several instances when Eric's mother Queen Salina (Noma Dumezweni), who is Black and adopted him as a child when he washed up from the ocean, chastises him for his obvious love for beings that are considered other.
Diversity. Ariel had 3 male animal friends, so they needed to make one a girl. Same reason they made Jock a girl (Jacqueline aka Jacque) in the Lady & The Tramp live-action remake.
“There's so much you can do with tentacles. They give a creepy feeling,” supervising animator Ruben Aquino told Premiere magazine in 1989, adding the team ultimately decided to make her look like an octopus.
The video goes on to talk about how this original concept for Ariel was too close to the Splash mermaid and the designers wanted to differentiate Ariel, so her red hair was born. We can't imagine Ariel without her red hair, but not everyone felt the same way back in the 80s.
In the past, Ursula was a resident of King Triton's palace, before being banished and exiled by order of the king. Scorned, she has since vowed to exact vengeance by harnessing the power of the king's trident and installing herself as ruler of all the ocean.
