The Little Mermaid

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The Little Mermaid

From the moment the world introduced us to television, we have been bombarded with images of fantasy and “happily ever after’s.” Perhaps the most well known corrupter of reality lies within the Disney franchise. Disney’s, The Little Mermaid, follows a typical fairy tale format in which all goals and dreams are achieved. Its counterpart, however, moves to the beat of a different drum. Hans Christian Andersen’s, The Little Mermaid, portrays a more serious plot much different from Disney’s loveable adaptation. One may conclude that the most these two stories have in common is their titles, but a deeper theme runs throughout both of these fictional plots. Despite these two stories’ conflicting agendas and the fact that they were written for different time periods, Disney’s, The Little Mermaid and Hans Christian Andersen’s, The Little Mermaid, focus on a protagonist who yearns to attain her ambitions through self-sacrifice.

Disney’s version of this classic tale exaggerates the effect of self-sacrifice through colorful depictions and vivid characters. Ariel, the protagonist, dreams of a life on land away from the confines of her home beneath the ocean’s surface(Disney). Her constant yearning for a glance of land leads her to bypass her father’s warnings of being, “snared by some fish-eater’s hook” (Disney). She makes a habit of visiting her seagull friend, Scuttle as well as collecting various land items, such as a fork and a pipe, which she mistakenly labels as a “dinglehopper” and a “snarfblow” (Disney). Ariel’s surface trips also introduce her to Prince Eric, whom she later rescues from a shipwreck (Disney). She falls in love with the human much to her family’s dismay (Disney). Kno...

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...heir wish to be with their princes calls for similar sacrifices such as the loss of both of their voices. Anderson and Disney’s version calls its protagonist to choose between a life in the sea with her family and a life on land with her prince. Disney’s, The Little Mermaid, and Hans Christian Andersen’s, The Little Mermaid, depict the effects of one’s ambitions and the actions one takes to achieve those dreams. Their stories present the theme of self-sacrifice to eager audiences of children. Although the outcomes of the stories do not coincide, surface differences do not overrule the dominant aspect of self-sacrifice in both tales.

Works Cited

Anderson, Hans Christian. The Little Mermaid. Pacificnet. http://www.pacificnet.net/~johnr/cgi/aesop1.cgi?hca&a51.

Disney, Walt. The Little Mermaid. Freeserve. http://www.robbo24.freeserve.co.uk/tmlscript.htm

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