Mermaid Myths

This is because it is a weapon for them to lure the men. Andersen revels, “Then she cut off the mermaid’s tongue, so that she become dumb, and would never again speak or sing” (8). This shows her naïve behavior, as she believes she can still enchain the prince’s heart without her beautiful voice. Moreover, she has a strong desire of being a human being as the author said, “I would give gladly all the hundreds of years that I have to live, to be a human being only for one day, and to have the hope of knowing the happiness of that glorious world above the stars” (6). This shows her curiosity of being a human being for one day.

The Little Mermaid is a fairy tale that was written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1836 and then remade by Disney in 1989, which turned out to be a popular animated film targeted for young, juvenile children, specifically girls. The Little Mermaid is about a fifteen-year-old mermaid, named Aerial, who was willing to give up her family, voice and tail to win over a man, Prince Eric. Watching The Little Mermaid as a kid, I loved the movie. I never seen any negatives until watching it again as an adult. It characterizes how women are viewed in today’s society. In The Little Mermaid, Aerial is characterized for her appearance and beautiful singing voice. Throughout the film, we learn that Aerial changes her appearance against her father’s wishes all for the marriage of a man. Aerial gave up her voice and her mermaid tail to the sea witch, Ursula, for a man that she fell in love with. The Little Mermaid is about doing whatever it takes to make dreams come true for girls but shows it negatively because Aerial alters her body to please a man. “The princess stories in the folk fairy tales are full of symbolism and portray a gritty, harsh world to reinforce the cautionary aspects of the tales being told. The Disney version of the Princess story shies away from cautionary story elements and centers on the dreams and ideals.” (Bethmann 7) With the audience and popularity targeted by children, The Little Mermaid teaches

He says that the history of mermaid start seven million years ago in Africa. Human ancestors left their shelter to find food, and there were curious about what’s in the ocean. Because of the instinct of human, the ancestors went to the ocean and adapt. Some of them drawn to the sea, but the rest adapted very well even their body change and adapt as

Mermaids are half woman and half fish. They are considered very beautiful. The myths say that mermaids comb their hair, sit on

While Walt Disney’s 1989 version of “The Little Mermaid” is based on Andersen’s original text, there is a significant difference between the two. Other than having the same tittle, there is very little that they have in common. A major dissimilarity between the two versions of “The Little Mermaid” is that Disney’s version, like several other Disney adaptations, appears much more jovial and less brutal. This adaptation of “The Little Mermaid” is certainly not a true representation the original tale by Andersen. This may be the result of Disney’s need to cater to an audience younger than that Andersen had intended.

Do you know that manatees are considered the foundation of the mermaid legend? They are considered the basis of the mermaid legend because it is believed manatees are responsible for sailors’ tales of mermaids and sirens. That must have been a long time at sea because the manatee’s also known as the sea cow. Manatees are marine mammals that breathe air through their nostrils. They are a few species of manatees: the West African, the Amazonian, and the West Indian. They are settled in rivers, in the ocean, and the shoreline of the islands. The name manatee comes from the Taino, a pre-Columbian people of the Caribbean, meaning, and “beast”. The manatees are critically endangered due to human conflicts and red tide; however, concerned

The documentary "Mermaids the body found" released in May 2012, produced by Josh Wilkins and Theresa Ryan discusses the possibilities of real-life mermaids and how they came to form. In 2004 the NOAA team also known as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration claimed that there was a group of boys who saw a weird animal that appeared human-like and lived underwater. This theory was reported to the navy for investigation when a bunch of whales appeared dead on the beach, the whales and sharks had serve force to their ear, that caused internal bleeding. The question was what caused it?

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

Close your eyes and imagine you’re in the ocean with beautiful fish swimming all around you. Now look down. You have scales all over you and they’re holographic. You are a mermaid. Once you open your eyes it is all gone voices in your head tell that it is all just a legend but, is it really? These majestic creatures that we call mermaids have been seen before.

In Hastings article, he describes how women are portrayed throughout each fairytale. It is clear that in the Disney movie of “The Little Mermaid”, women usually end up relying on men and do not have their own clear voice. They also end up changing for their men. Hastings says, “…all “bad” desires within a figure of female evil”(Hastings pg 86). when mentioning The Little Mermaid. In each story, the little mermaid gives up something of hers for the prince. However, in the fairytale, the mermaid sacrifices her sexuality in order to keep this feminine ideal. She goes through a sexual awakening and holds back any desires. The Disney version gives women an unrealistic expectation of perfection. There is a lot of “female stereotyping”(pg 86). It makes women believe that they need to be beautiful and if they are, life will be easy as perfect. Whereas in Andersons little mermaid, the mermaid has more

Mermaids have multiple human bodily functions and multiple fish bodily functions to support their bodies and keep their have fish and have human bodies healthy and running. As Irene Ziegler has stated, “When a real mermaid is underwater, that third eyelid closes over her eyes like a window shade pulled from the side of the sash.” The mermaids third eyelid serves to let the mermaids keep their sight while living beneath water for most of their lives. Without their third eyelid, Mermaid's eyes could potentially dry out and they would be blinded for over 50% of their lives. These mystical creatures also have a tail covered in aquatic fish scales. These scales that surround the mermaids tail help protect it from predatory attacks and can also to show the origin of that specific mermaid. Inside the top human half of a mermaid is an aquatic respiratory system. Without these aquatic respiratory system mermaids wouldn't be able to breath underwater or stay underwater for long periods of time. Basically, the mermaid would be a human with a fish tale. Mermaids also have a heart, lungs, and all other anatomy that a human has, but their body can survive the intake of great amounts of water. Unlike humans, mermaids use their outrageous bodily abilities to thoroughly embrace life. The third eyelid that helps them see underwater and prevents eye dryness, fish scales that prevents injuries from predatory attacks, and an aquatic respiratory system to allow the animal to live and breathe underwater, all work together to allow the mermaid to create a life strictly under ground

. Before making her decision, the Little Mermaid is warned by the Sea Witch about the terrible hardships she will face ahead. The Little Mermaid is told that she will be exiled from the sea, never allowed to return again and that she will experience tremendous pain and suffering for becoming human. The Sea which then goes on to explains that the Little Mermaid must make the prince fall in love with her and get married in order for her to gain a human soul. However, if the prince marries another woman then the Littler Mermaid will pay for her failure with her own life. The Sea Witch prophesied that on the sunrise of the prince’s wedding day, to another woman, the Little Mermaid will die from heartbreak and then will turn into sea foam making

Phillpotts analyzes the different influences that mermaids have on a culture, including: the first mermaids, mermaids and their relations to sex and religion, mermaid marriages, sea sightings, historical hoaxes, folk heroine and creative muse, and the modern interpretation of mermaids. The earliest record of a mermaid is Atargatis, a Semitic mood goddess, worshipped by the Philistines, Syrians and Israelites. She was represented as the fertility goddess who also personified a darker aspect: love as a destructive force. This is an element integral to the mermaid legend throughout history. Phillpotts connects the ancient goddess to Aphrodite and the Greek culture. I will be using this connection to analyze the connection between mermaids as goddess

On the large, slightly ovoid world of Teragoth, the morning sun inches over the horizon.  It makes a feeble attempt to burn through the many layers of cloud, but it is too early for its rays to strike the heaving sands and transform them from steely grey to dappled blue and green.  The sea is high and the weather windy.  White spray leaps from the top of each crest to sting and hiss across the uneven peaks, like sand across a desert and just as painful.

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