The great granddaughter of Jonas Collin (Andersen’s benefactor in Copenhagen) danced the role of the mermaid in a ballet production of 1913. A patron of the arts gave to the city of Copenhagen a statue of a mermaid after seeing her dance. The head has been sawed off twice, once in 1964, and again in 1998. A group called the Radical Feminist Faction claimed responsibility for the act, apparently because the statue was seen as a symbol of women’s abject willingness to sacrifice everything for the love of a man.
EDMUND DULAC
Holding a shell in his hand and perched on a rock with a lobster, the Sea King feeds the subjects in his aquatic domain. His crown of coral and shells and his sparkling bracelets and necklaces are the signs of his regal status.
In turning an adult legend about fairies and mortals into a tale for children, Andersen also changed the story’s character, placing such social values as love, duty, and the transcendent value of self-sacrifice in the foreground. In her memoir Leaving a Doll’s House, actress Claire Bloom reminisces about the “sound of Mother’s voice as she read to me from Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ and ‘The Snow Queen.’ ” Although the experience of reading produced “a pleasurable sense of warmth and comfort and safety” for Bloom, she also emphasizes that “these emotionally wrenching tales . . . instilled in me a longing to be overwhelmed by romantic passion and led me in my teens and early twenties to attempt to emulate these self-sacrificing heroines” (Bloom, 9).
Andersen scholars frequently point out that the tale was begun the day after Jonas Collin’s son Edvard married, and that “The Little Mermaid” could be an expression of the writer’s anguish that his friend had an attachment to a woman with whom he could never compete.
2. Far out at sea. Here, Andersen calls attention to the performative aspect of the story. The phrase “far out at sea” presumes that narrator and audience are on dry land and need to be plunged, through their imaginations, to the depths of the sea. The sea bottom is represented as a world completely separated from the world of humans, at a depth that makes it completely inaccessible. The proliferation of adjectives—“blue,” “clear,” “pretty,” and “pure”—all point to an Atlantis-like beauty and grandeur, even if the sea kingdom remains a pagan site, though its distance from the human world is, ironically, measured in church steeples. (The early introduction of church steeples is significant, for church bells, as we shall see, play a significant role in the story.)
Water appears as the source of life in nearly all creation myths, and its healing properties are celebrated in many cultures. But bodies of water are also the site of death, the source of pollution as well as cleansing, the home to beautiful creatures as well as hideous monsters, the site of drowning as well as baptism and rejuvenation. “Bodies of water,” one commentator on “The Little Mermaid” points out, “are . . . emotionally charged in the human psyche, and the mythical creatures who reside in them become variously inflected with their power, with their potent blend of threat and allure” (Easterlin, 259).
3. The sea people live down there. The realm of the sea folk is described as a benign paradise, something of a parallel universe to the human world (with fish instead of birds, and so on) but with more natural beauty and the leisure to enjoy it. Disney’s little mermaid, Ariel, inhabits a kingdom where the creatures living under the sea seem to do little more than sing and dance.
4. Now you mustn’t think for a moment. Note the conversational tone that is taken right from the start as the narrator establishes himself as the source of authority on sea folk and vouches for their existence. The (presumably human) narrator seems to have an unbiased attitude toward merfolk. As James Massengale points out, “his narrative ‘camera’ . . . focuses upon the youngest of the Merking’s daughters, and from that point it essentially never leaves her” (“The Miracle and A Miracle in the Life of a Mermaid,” 556–57). His stance appears to be neutral and undogmatic, for he is both enchanted by the beauty of the undersea world and committed to the notion of Christian salvation. It is important to remember that he uses the term “we” to designate humans, and he reveals the spiritual shortcomings of the Sea King’s world in the course of telling the story.
5. the castle of the Sea King. The underwater domain of the Sea King is an aesthetic paradise, a site where art (song, dance, and spectacle) meets natural beauty. Still, certain hierarchical distinctions, such as the number of oysters worn on the tail of the Sea King’s mother, make it clear that this is no social utopia.
6. But like all the others, she had no feet. Despite the exceptional beauty of the undersea region, a clear hierarchical relationship begins to be established between humans and sea folk, in which humans are seen as superior. The “but” betrays a bias again the sea folk, who lack the feet that figure so importantly in Andersen’s tales. Note also the repeated allusion to movement in the seascape. It is, however, a movement that imitates life rather than capturing it—everything moves “as if” it were alive. Sheldon Cashdan, author of The Witch Must Die, points out that as long as the little mermaid lacks legs, she remains unappealing to the prince: “A tail is an impediment when it comes to making love” (Cashdan, 165). But in ancient lore, the fish tail was a symbol of the mermaid’s power rather than her inferiority, and the mirror she held was a symbol of the sea rather than a sign of her vanity.
W. HEATH ROBINSON
7. A wondrous blue glow permeated everything in sight. Blue and red are the dominant colors in the narrative, the one associated with the depths of the sea and the heights of the heavens, the other linked with sunlight, passion, suffering, and blood. Even the little mermaid is first introduced as having skin as delicate as a rose leaf and eyes as blue as the sea. Gold too makes frequent appearances and is often connected with gleaming, glittering surface beauty. It is possible that Andersen, who spent many months in Italy, may have been influenced by the blues, reds, and golds in Italian paintings of the Madonna and child.
8. the youngest made hers perfectly round like the sun. The little mermaid’s aspirations are clear early on. She strives to transcend her aquatic nature and reach a higher stage of existence. In the end, she does indeed become an airborne creature. Her two sisters remain wedded to marine life in choosing the shapes for their gardens (whales and mermaids), while she moves out of her own realm and her own being to represent something otherworldly (the sun). Focused on what she can perceive of the other world—the sun shining through the waters and the ships creating shadows as they pass by overhead—she exhibits desires that deviate from what is expected in the undersea realm.
9. She was a curious child. The little mermaid is “curious” in the double sense of the term—intellectually adventurous and also something of an oddity. She is (somewhat like Andersen himself) upwardly mobile, intent on gaining knowledge of the world above, but also destined to remain a misfit among the sea folk with her desire to inhabit land, and an anomaly among humans with her lack of a soul. As James Massengale points out: “She grows a different garden. She longs for church bells she has never heard. She saves the Prince instead of watching him drown. She pines for him instead of forgetting him as an inaccessible or inimical being. She refuses to follow her grandmother’s mermaid-rules. She denies her Mermaid tendencies and her Mermaid shape, and makes a contract with the Sea Witch, which causes her to destroy her body and abandon her kingdom forever, in order to balance on the keen edge of a possibility of becoming human” (Massengale, 568).
10. wondrous objects they had gathered from sunken ships. The sisters’ mania for collecting is transferred in the Disney film to Ariel, who hoards and fetishizes artifacts of civilization (forks, combs, and so on) as a sign of her desire to live with humans. If Andersen’s little mermaid is inspired by church bells she has never heard and is driven by longing for the hustle and bustle of the big city (as was the young Andersen), Ariel—as is appropriate for a Disney character—becomes a slave to commodity fetishism.
11. a beautiful marble statue. If Andersen’s me
rmaid has a fetishized object, it is the marble statue, which becomes the target of chaste feelings as well as erotic longings. Many of Andersen’s stories feature inanimate figurines such as the tin soldier and ballerina in “The Steadfast Tin Soldier.” The shepherdess and the chimney sweep, in the story of that title, are also both made of marble.
Stories of animated statues can be documented in folklore and literature from all over the world. The two most famous tales are of Pygmalion and Don Juan. The statue of the boy, rescued from a shipwreck, has none of the haunting qualities found in other nineteenth-century literary statues, for example, those in Prosper Mérimée’s “Venus of Ile” or Henry James’s “Last of the Valerii.”
Andersen’s “Psyche” works within a Romantic literary tradition of statues and portraits of women so disturbingly lifelike that they produce uncanny effects and (often) tragic endings. Inspired by the beauty of a real-life woman, the unnamed artist in Andersen’s “Psyche” transforms a marble stone into her likeness. He falls madly in love with the statue, which is as “perfect as God’s own image of the young girl.” The little mermaid, by contrast, seeks the human incarnation of the marble statue that she has enshrined in her garden.
12. a crimson weeping willow. Note that the undersea world lacks green and that red and blue are the colors used for all living things. A traditional symbol of mourning that is refigured by Andersen in sentimental terms (the roots and the crown are always “trying to kiss each other”), the presence of the tree nonetheless hints at a tragic ending. The little mermaid’s garden contains elements that prefigure her future: the sun-shaped flower bed that stands for the light of the human world and for redemption, the statue that is a double of the prince, and the weeping willow that anticipates her pain and sorrow in the world above.
13. learning about the human world up above. It is through stories, told by one generation to the next, that the little mermaid first hears about the world of humans. The grandmother’s descriptions of beauty are what attract the attention of her granddaughter. The aroma of the flowers, the green of the trees, and the song of the birds together create olfactory, visual, and acoustic pleasures. One feminist critic points out that “the sea world is rendered either invisible or mythic while the land world is endowed with cultural validity” (Sells, 178).
14. “When you turn fifteen.” Andersen himself was just fourteen years old when he left Odense in 1819 to seek his fortune in Copenhagen. Fifteen marks the transition from childhood to adulthood, to a state of physical and emotional maturity. At that age, the mermaids are viewed as sensible enough to take a look at the upper world without being seduced by the temptation to see more. The grandmother emphasizes that they can see the world of humans only by moonlight, presumably because the sunlit upper world would be too tantalizing. It is only the “bolder” of the sisters who goes to the world of humans in daylight. Although the little mermaid is fifteen and undergoes a rite of passage from child to woman, she remains childlike even after her birthday.
15. No one longed to go up more than the youngest sister. Curiosity is once again emphasized as the defining feature of the little mermaid and as the trait that singles her out from others. A hybrid creature to begin with, she longs with all her being—mind as well as body (think of those outstretched arms as she watches ships sailing above her)—to attain a higher state even while she lives underwater.
16. a pretty little mermaid was waiting below. The term “little mermaid” is used for the first time in the story. Here, the term “little” is linked with beauty and youth. But with such phrases as “you poor little mermaid,” the diminutive stature soon comes to be associated with unhappiness, longing, and suffering.
17. You could hear the sounds of music. The sisters, unable to communicate with humans through their song, turn into spectators and listeners who are eager to take in sights and sounds from the world above. They become “voyeurs who gleefully consume the ephemeral sights and sounds of human life as spectacles of the first rank” (Alter and Koepnick, 7). The eldest of the six sisters finds the main appeal of that domain in sound. For her, music, the sounds of everyday life, and the ringing of church bells are “wondrous things” that produce a desire to inhabit the human world.
The church bells, more than any other sound, tellingly serve as the most powerful lure to enter the world of humans for this sister. The many distractions of urban life—artificial lights, swift carriages, hectic activity—form a stark contrast to the tranquillity of the mermaid’s garden and to the serenity of the churches in which the bells are ringing. The city nonetheless remains a site of fascination, with sonic and visual attractions that are a source of deep longing.
18. she even fancied that she could hear the church bells. Oddly, the little mermaid longs for the sound of the church bells, even though she has never heard them and has no understanding of their symbolic function.
19. She reached the surface just as the sun was setting. The powerful allure of the sun becomes evident upon the second sister’s visit. She swims in the direction of the sunset, only to find that the orb has disappeared. This sister visits the earth at a time of transition from day to night, and it is no accident that she sees a flock of white swans during her expedition. For Andersen, swans are creatures that have transcended a state of gawky awkwardness to become, as in “The Ugly Duckling,” incarnations of majestic splendor. Like butterflies, the romantic symbol par excellence for transformation, swans are able to metamorphose into a more noble physical state. The transformation of the little mermaid from sea creature to mermaid in human form to a creature of the air reflects Andersen’s constant engagement with mutability and changes in identity.
20. beautiful green hills covered with grapevines. Andersen’s landscapes are filled with vivid sights, sounds, and aromas. The third sister sees nature’s beauty and also discovers how humans have entered it to cultivate it (with grapevines), build residences (castles and manors), and produce children. The mutual animosity (based on fear driven by lack of familiarity) between the two worlds becomes evident when the mermaid terrifies the children and the dog terrifies the mermaid.
21. they were larger than the church steeples built by humans. Again church steeples are invoked, even in the icy landscape visited by the fifth sister. The green ocean, icebergs that glitter like diamonds, black waves, and red and blue lightning create a colorful spectacle of sublime delights. Here again, the conflicts between humans and merfolk are deepened, for it becomes clear that what the mermaid perceives as a source of visual pleasure is a real danger to the sailors. Humans and merfolk cannot coexist under conditions in which what is beautiful for one group is lethal for the other.
22. It was such a comfort to be at home. All but the little mermaid remain homebodies. Only she will find that familiarity does not breed contempt and that the world above offers more than the visual and acoustic attractions so appealing to her sisters.
23. they had lovely voices. The sisters have powerful vocal talents, but their “enchanting” song cannot accomplish its aim of drawing the attention of humans sailing by. No matter how beautifully the mermaids sing, the sailors cannot be seduced by them, for they hear nothing but the sounds of a storm. Andersen intensifies the divide between merfolk and humans by showing that song and storm coexist, but what is (beautiful) song to merfolk is (fatal) storm to humans.
Having a voice and the ability to display its artistry figure importantly in a tale that celebrates spectacle and sound. That the little mermaid later loses her voice reveals the drawbacks of the exchange made with the Sea Witch. While the mermaid’s voice has emotive strength, it is linked above all with artistic expression. It is what makes her appealing to both merfolk and humans.
24. “Yes, beauty has its price.” The costuming scene with grandmother and mermaid prefigures the later scene of mutilation with Sea Witch and mermaid. The grandmother, oddly, dresses the little mermaid up for a voyage that is not intended for exhibitionistic purposes—the little mermaid is rising
up in order to look at others. Even in these preliminary preparations, the little mermaid learns that beauty and the power to attract exact a toll.
25. There was music and singing on board. The sound of music and the light of lanterns draw the little mermaid to the activity on board the ship. Like her sisters, she is attracted to the music of humans, which does not seem to have the seductive, treacherous overtones of the songs sung by the sisters. The songs and merriment on board inspire her wish to join the human throng.
26. It was his birthday. Note that the little mermaid and the Prince share a birthday, suggesting that they could be soul mates. The Prince is most likely either exactly her own age or a year older, since he could not have been more than sixteen years old.
27. bobbing up and down so that she could look into the cabin. The little mermaid’s curiosity about human beings draws her to the world of the prince. Fascinated by what is above the surface, by the unknown, and by the forbidden, she shows an investigative curiosity lacking in many fairy-tale heroines but shared with biblical figures like Eve and Lot’s wife.
28. the ship dove like a swan. The comparison suggests that the vessel is a graceful ship, with a nobility and beauty resembling that of a creature that Andersen repeatedly frames as aristocratic. The mountains in the prince’s domain are also described as having the appearance of “nestling swans.” The little mermaid will perform the same graceful movements as the swanlike ship when she rescues the prince, diving into the waves and darting through the ship’s wreckage. Andersen himself has been described as a “water fanatic” who loved to “throw himself into the waves so he could then rise up again—as he said—with a feeling of being reborn and see the world from a whole different perspective” (Jens Andersen, 197).