Merfolk of the Ocean : Fact or Myth?
From the rumbling murmurs of the sea lies a mystery sailors and explorers have tried to find and exploit to the world (P), a thought-to-be-myth rooted deep into history that may or may not inhabit the gentle sea waves: mermaids. According to Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, a mermaid is “in folklore, [a] sea-dwelling creature commonly represented as having the head and body of a woman and a fishtail instead of legs” (Mermaid). Stories of these beings began way back thousands of years ago, claims of sightings all over the world from ocean sailors to locals bound to the coast. Along with the growth of these stories are the theories that make us question what these beauties really were, from either a stout sea manatee to a big change in evolution. The question whether
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However, based on the many aging claims of mermaid sightings all over the globe, the numerous fraud accounts of the mythical creature, or the chances whether sailors have mistaken some tailed-creature of the ocean for a mermaid, it all seems to lead to the conclusion that maybe these ladies of the sea may just be a lie of childhood we wish to be true.
Starting from thousands of years ago, tales of a svelte woman with half the body of a fish’s blossomed along ocean-faring nations. One story in particular originates from seventeenth century Holland. It tells of a mermaid that had entered a dike through Holland. She soon after “became a productive citizen, learned to speak Dutch, performed household chores and converted to Catholicism” (Radford) as the story tells.
Thus far, the mermaid has been referenced as both a seductress, as per the devil and as a sister by Adrian. The nature of their connection is inherent in both suggestions, but chiefly this verbal fluctuation perhaps could symbolize Adrian’s own inner temptations between lusty artistic ambition and the quest for soul salvation.
Lisel Mueller’s “Oil on Canvas, 1942” unravels the mysteries contained in Paul Delvaux’s The Village of the Mermaids. While Delvaux’s painting merely conceptualizes the desired image, Mueller’s poem delves deeper into the analysis of the motives of the characters and the purpose of the setting. Further, Mueller provides an enlightening interpretation that readers may have not recognized by just glancing at Delvauz’s painting.
No, no way! This can’t be real. She can’t be gone, she just can’t be! Everyone has got to be lying. If Leslie is really gone then I need to see the rope. This can’t be, the rope snapped! Nope, I can’t believe it, I just can’t. I never should have gone with Miss Edmunds! That was the biggest mistake I have ever made.
Many people have seen manatees “from a distance and thought that they were mermaids”(“Mermaid”). Many sailors have sighted mermaids and think they have seen them but what they see is a huge animal called a manatee. The sailors come “home with strange tales of what they had encountered”(“Manatees”). The shape of this mammal has been mistaken for a mermaid many times.
existence”. This is just a theory trying to make sense of what could of happened back in time that could make sense as into how mermaids are real. Does the theory really make sense though? In a post by the website The Guardian, it says, “It is one of the most unusual evolutionary ideas ever proposed: humans are amphibious apes who lost their fur, started to walk upright and developed big brains because they took to living the good life by the water’s edge”. This theory was brought up in the 1960s by a biologist that goes by the name Sir Alister Hardy, that the ape developed an upward stance and a subcutaneous fat to keep warm in the water temperatures and this allowed all of their hair to fall off. It is also proves that there is a lot of omega
Walt Disney’s movies have been thrilling young children, most especially young girls, around the world for years. One specific movie, The Little Mermaid, had young girls wanting to be just like Ariel and buying any paraphernalia they could after the movie came out. But have you ever wondered where these stories have come from? Or why they always end with a “happily ever after”? The famous, Danish, children’s writer Hans Christian Andersen is the father of the tale of “The Little Mermaid”. Andersen’s original is quite different than Walt Disney’s “happily ever after” tale. With differences in imagery, theme, and storyline in Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” and Walt Disney’s The Little Mermaid, there is a lot to be said for Andersen’s emphasis on the female character of the Little Mermaid as well as her struggle in finding her sexuality through various different events and aspects of her life.
Mermaids were once mythological creatures that little to none believed in. They were the mystery of the sea that no man could solve. Some say they saw them bathing on the rocks, swimming near shore to watch landwalkers, or prowling for prey in the water, but there was never any definite proof. We know now that these conspiracists were right all along.
When I was a child, watching Disney’s The Little Mermaid became a sort of ritual. While other girls dreamed of ball gowns and tiaras, I desperately wanted to sprout a tail and dye my hair red—not orange-red, but Ariel-red. Singing along with Jodi Benson, I longed to be a part of Ariel’s underwater world. As the years passed, my dreams faded and reality set in. Gradually, I became more intrigued with Ursula—I began to realize that she did not conform with the other female characters; though female in nature, she was a masculine character. In fact, I later discovered that Ursula was actually inspired by the drag queen, Divine (Dart). Consequently, it is her masculine characteristics that further set her apart from the world around her.
In the original version The Little Mermaid, longing for the prince and an eternal soul, eventually visits the Sea Witch, who sells her a potion that gives her legs, in exchange for her tongue. The Sea Witch cuts her tongue and warns her that once she becomes a human, she will never be able to return to the sea. Drinking the potion made out of snakes and
In both versions of ‘The Little Mermaid’, the mermaid is depicted as a strong character who faces the challenges of growing up and struggling to obtain what she most aspires to attain in
Hans Christian Andersen’s story follows a similar protagonist, but a varied story line. She, too, yearns to visit the surface like her five older sisters (Anderson). However, she must wait for her fifteenth birthday (Anderson). On her visit to the surface, she saves “a young prince, the most beautiful of all, with large black eyes,” from a shipwreck and falls in love with him (Anderson). Repeated visits to the surface cause her to “grow more and more fond of human beings, and wish more and more to be able to wander about with those whose world seemed to be so much larger than her own” (Anderson). The little mermaid discovers that if her young prince were to love her, she could gain an immortal soul (Anderson). Despite her fear, she decides to visit the sea witch who then cures her of her fins…for a price
Mermaids, half human half fish, have been the subject of sailors fishtails for hundreds of years. Obviously the idea of mermaids is nothing but mythology, nevertheless, you still find people trying to prove the existence of these mythical beings. Popular culture has depicted mermaids in two drastically different ways. One, as beautiful creatures able to draw in anyone without saying a word, who will do no harm to humans; some go as far as saying they will help humans.The other, as evil conniving creatures, eager to lead men to their deaths. If we use the tools Carl Sagan has given us in his Baloney Detection Toolkit, we can easily debunk the idea of mermaids.
The little mermaid, born into royalty as a princess, not only as the most beautiful voice on land and in the water, but posses a strong curiosity about life on land. Her infatuation with life on land is characterized by the rose garden she grew around a statue of a prince. Her “desire to leave the female dominated mer-world is already anticipated in her garden, which has as its center a male statue resembling the prince. The desire of the little mermaid to leave the mer-world, the work of the pre-Oepida mother, dominates the initial part of the story.” Despite the innocent and privileged life she lived as a mermaid in a matriarchal world, she longed to grow into adulthood, get married, and experience sexuality on land, where patriarchy was
mermaids were in disguise walking among us human on land. After my discovery I still took into consideration that these mermaids in disguise would most likely be found near a body of water. I spent my every waking moment at the ocean closet to my house. After a week of being at the beach and observing people I found a mermaid. She came to the beach every day, but I had to be certain that she was a mermaid, so I waited a month and my hypothesis was correct. Every time she the water touched her legs she turned into a mermaid, it was true I had seen it with my own eyes. Seeing that beautiful tail made shivers run down my spine, and the euphoria gave me hope. I knew I had to have her as the first mermaid in my collection. I knew that the mermaids that I collected would not be comfortable in their tanks at first and have to adjust to their new homes. Considering that in the ocean they were free animals. I had to keep this in mind when I was collecting her, so I used chloroform to make her sleep. I did not want to have trouble transporting her into her new home. She did not like her new home, she tried to leave the tank multiple times, so she forced me to attach a chain to her hand. She would not eat I food I fed
When first reading “The Little Mermaid”, the reader is sure to notice the imagery painted by Anderson. He finds a way to make a place we see as dark and abysmal, the sea floor, seem bright, vibrant, and full of joy. One sentence Hans Christian Andersen writes, “The most wonderful trees and plants are growing down there, with stalks and leaves that bend so easily that they stir at the very slightest movement of the water, just as though they were alive” (216), perfectly exemplifies this imagery. It is also important to take note of how the imagery changes by location. In the part of the sea where the witch lives, the imagery evokes the feeling of gloom and loneliness that one would naturally expect from the sea floor. Above the surface of the ocean, in the human world, the author uses imagery that quite frankly blows the beauty of our world out of proportion. Andersen writes, “The whole sky had looked like gold, she said, and the clouds—well, she just couldn’t describe how beautiful they were as they sailed, all crimson and violet, over her head.” (218) This makes something we find trivial seem like something everyone must see before they die. While some may view this as odd, it is important to consider that the story centers around a mermaid who has never seen these things before.