The Little Mermaid Comparison Research Paper

The little mermaid original story is dark and Intended for a more mature reader than the Disney movie the little mermaid. The original l story is sad and gruesome while the Disney movie is full of cute sea animal and singing. In the Disney movie, Ariel is naturally beautiful and has everything she could ever want, while in the original story she has to work for it, her grandmother quotes ‘’you must put up with a great deal to keep up appearance’’.

“The Little Mermaid” by Hans Christian Andersen is certainly not a Disney movie. The tale is disturbing the reality that the mermaid and human beings is totally from different world, which the story does not end up with a happy ending. Little Mermaid is not Ariel; instead she sacrifices her freedom, her voice, her family, her body, her identity and even her life to be with the man who does not love her and who treats her as a slave girl. She is not a role model for modern teenagers because she sacrifices her entire life and her dignity for someone does not value her sacrifice. Although her selfless self-sacrificial love may consider as a great behavior to some people, it is not worth for her to give up everything and be with the one who does

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

The Little Mermaid showed multiple concepts of social psychology. Prince Eric decides he wants to find his own bride, not have one provided for him which leads to him and Ariel developing passionate love. The movie displays the ideals for males and females and what people define as physically attractive. These physical attractiveness ideals are found in Ariel, Prince Eric, and Triton. Ariel is not like the other mermaids since she dreams of being a human. Her father and Sebastian try to bring Ariel back into the merfolk community since she is resisting normative social influence. Ariel in the end of the movie had conformed to the human society, allowing the humans to tell her how she is supposed act by watching them having which in turn had an influence on her.

There are many other short stories that show this, like “Cinderella”. The male figure in “The Little Mermaid” gets to be the handsome prince that the little mermaid is so in love with. The little mermaid sees him from the ocean when he is attending his own birthday party at a ship. Later on, a storm destroys the ship completely, which leads the prince seeking for help, and the little mermaid gladly saves him. As we all know, the little mermaid is in love with the prince and she also wants to become a human for that immortal soul she desires so deeply. The sea-witch gives her the poison, and tells her that she can only acquire this immortal soul only if she gets the prince to fall in love with her. Likewise, she must make the prince marry her. Even with all the side effects the poison gives her, like the feeling of walking on knives she will get when she steps, she puts them aside just to be with the prince and get what she wants: the prince himself and immortal soul. We can infer that here the prince (being a male) has become the sole dominant figure of the story, and that the little mermaid has become the sole victim, with everything against her. The little mermaid absolutely depends on the prince to get what she wants, and that represents that the prince is her only salvation. Her only hope to become what she really wants has become the prince himself. If analyzed this part of the short story shows that women depend on men to get what they want. In addition, Hans Christian Anderson makes the prince all rich, powerful, and handsome just to make him look like a dominant man. Hidden messages like these blind little girl’s view of the correct society that we should have, making them think that the man is always the most powerful, the most independent, and the most important compared to

Images of dehumanization exploring the deprivation of female individuality and the text’s overall impairment to children’s understanding of equality are primarily apparent through the Little Mermaid’s lack of a soul (Anderson par 20). Specifically, just as a “soul” is by definition, “the essential, immaterial part of a human being,” by articulating that the Little Mermaid does not have one, it alternately communicates that she is not inherently a person but something undeveloped and lesser (OED).

Contrasting the Grimm brother's version and Disney's version of The Little Mermaid. Although both stories follow along with the same idea, they are entirely two different stories. Having lesser detail, the original fairy tale was very short and only gave the main character a name, a back story, and a goal. Disney's interpretation was more decorated and told a much longer, kid-friendly story.

The Little Mermaid is a 1989 Disney film that captured the hearts of children and critics alike. An adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen tale, the film focuses around Ariel, a teenage mermaid who is still under the control of her father, King Triton. She constantly visits life above the water, and on one of these visits, she encounters a ship with a human prince on deck. Ariel falls in love with this prince, Eric, immediately and suddenly has a desire to reach land, not only to escape her father, but to be a part of Eric’s world. In order to satisfy this desire, Ariel meets with Ursula, a sea-witch and former Queen of the Sea. Ursula has the power to change Ariel from mermaid to human, but Ariel must pay her with her voice. In this exchange,

In the movie, Ariel seeks out Ursula asking her to help her meet Prince Eric. This is a relatively painless ordeal, she is magically turned into a human and the only problem is that she realizes she cannot breathe underwater. In Andersons story, she is making a much larger sacrifice. The witch tells the young mermaid that every time she walks it will feel like, "treading on sharp knives..." (pg. 8) and her tongue must be cut out, meaning her voice may never return. In the Disney universe, there is a happy ending. Ariel and Eric beat Ursula and all is well in their world, they even go on to have a child in the next movie. Sadly, that is not the ending of the story originally. The young princess does not end up marrying the prince, he ends up with another. The agreement with the witch was that if he marries another than she will die and turn into sea foam. When he marries the other, her sisters go to the witch and ask to spare her. They tell the princess the only way she will not die is by piercing the heart of the prince with a special knife from given to them by the witch. She could not bear to hurt the prince in that way, for her good deed she became a daughter of the air instead of the sea

. 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

The Disney movie The Little Mermaid, is about a 16-year-old mermaid named Ariel who falls in love with Eric, a human. She wants so desperately to be with him that she makes a deal with the sea witch Ursula. The deal is that Ariel gets to be a human for three days in return for Ariel’s voice. Ariel must get the kiss of true love by the third day or else she will turn back into a mermaid and her soul will belong to the witch. All is going well until Ursula betrays Ariel and disguises herself as a beautiful woman and uses Ariels voice and casts a spell on Eric to forget about Ariel and Ursula makes Eric fall in love with her. They are about to get married until the spell ends up breaking and Eric realizes what

The original story of The Little Mermaid is encompassed by the mermaid’s desire for an eternal soul, which is only an attribute of humans not mermaids. Her longing to achieve salvation is the overriding reason for almost all of her decisions, which leads her on a journey of self realization and self sacrifice. This longing consumes almost every aspect of the story and is a clear, if not at times literal, incorporation of Andersen’s religious ideals that were influenced by his current culture. Let’s remember that this fairytale is intended for children; the story is used as a lesson to teach children about the importance of religion and moral behavior, encouraging moral obedience through self control. This interactive fairytale “transforms [its listeners] into participants in the fictions...and thus returns them to their real lives for the choice between good and evil-smiles and tears” (Mortensen 445). The story encourages self control through the character of the little mermaid by witnessing the various painful tasks she endures to achieve the ultimate goal. Moral behavior, while riddled throughout, is most powerfully expressed in the conclusion when the little mermaid stabs herself instead of the prince, transforming into sea

In The Little mermaid, Ariel leaves her family and changes her body to impress a man. She saved by a man in the process of her journey just like all the six main Disney princess movies being Cinderella, Snow white, Beauty & the Beast, Sleeping Beauty, Aladdin and obviously, The Little Mermaid. All the princesses lose something about themselves like Ariel loses her voice, which is her best talent. Although The Little Mermaid is a Disney classic that many love, it demonstrates men being superior to women who do nothing else but thrive to look pretty and has cultural putdowns through the characters.

For months, a slew of Disney artist came together and worked tirelessly to release one of the most beautiful works of art on November 17, 1989 (Corliss, 2014); it came to be known affectionally as, The Little Mermaid. The storyline behind The Little Mermaid was originally written by Hans Christian Andersen (Heiner, 2007), as a fairy tail. According to Corliss (2014), The Little Mermaid was on of the last Disney animated films to be hand-drawn as well as uses cels and Xeroxing. The artist also kept the movie a classic by going back to the tradition of using songs to help the story progress, “with songs that explained the characters and propelled the action. The movie was basically a Broadway musical, but animated and underwater.” (Corliss, 2015). I chose to study a scene that encompasses the whole meaning behind the music and the plot of The Little Mermaid. This seen is two worlds colliding, the world of the sea and the world of humans in a single moment of longing and unity.

On the afternoon of November the eleventh, I went to the matinee showing of “The Little Mermaid” put on by the Cookeville Children’s theater. To be completely honest, I went in with low expectations, but I was completely shocked at how amazing it was. The singing was spectacular, the set and costumes were fabulous, and the air stunts really added to the believability of the entire show. Before the show, I was wondering how they were going to have mermaids ‘swimming’, but all of that was resolved as soon as the show started. It was all very well-planned out and a very enjoyable experience overall.