Tag Archives: Gavin

ECL 305 Final: A Foam Between Two Worlds

Posted on by
Reply

https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/pyle-mermaid

In this unfinished 1910 painting by Howard Pyle called The Mermaid, a glowing mermaid is pictured holding onto a limp, young sailor with tight grip, on sharp, moonlit rocks, while green and blue waves come crashing down around them and white sea foam moving everywhere. This beautiful picture encapsulates the soul of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” –that deep, heartbreaking wish she has to leave her life below sea and join the human world; Trading her tail and beautiful voice for a pair of legs and the opportunity to have an eternal soul. Her pale arms are wrapped around the sailor’s sharp face, and the top of his head where a Phrygian liberty cap sits. This represents a symbol for freedom that makes viewers of this painting relate back to the prince the little mermaid pulls from the shipwreck in Andersen’s tale. This whole scene freezes this extremely tense, and emotional moment where she is stretching out from her world below, toward the sailor’s land life; Almost like she is between two worlds already. Pyle’s painting perfectly shows the Little Mermaid’s intense desire to join the human world. In the Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen, the Little Mermaid says, “I would willingly give all the hundreds of years I may have to live, to be a human being but for one day, and to have the hope of sharing in the joys of the heavenly world” (Andersen 116). Through this artwork, Pyle shows through this intense boundary between sea and land, that this kind of longing can break down natural walls, just like how humans impact the environment today.

Through the use of light, Pyle allows viewers to emphasize with the Little Mermaid’s yearning. The light of the moon illuminates her upper body against the waters below, comparable to Andersen’s imagery of her rising from under the deep water, “blue as the petals of the loveliest cornflower” (Andersen 107). The shimmering light also surrounds her and creates an illusion of the “soul” she is yearning for. As the Little Mermaid’s grandmother said, When humans die, they “Ascend through the clear, pure air beyond the glittering stars”, but when a mermaid dies, she is “Dissolved like green seaweed. Once cut down it never grows again” (Andersen 117). The Little Mermaid and the sailor’s eyes meet while they are starting at each other. Hers in the sky looking up with great longing for his world, and his blank eyes staring down at her. This gaze represents her fixation on unreachable human vitality. According to a scholarly article written by Nancy Easterlin titled Hans Christian Andersen’s Fish Out of Water, Easterlin captures these opposing energies within the image and states that it is “the mermaid’s inwardness, isolation, and longing for a different kind of life than what is ‘natural’ to her” and she does not have the luxury of being an ocean playground, but rather an imprisoned ocean storm (Easterlin 252). The blues transition from the placid deep sea to the turbulent white foam showing how the union of body and soul is a disruption to the Little Mermaid.

When taking a closer look at their embrace, one can see the pain that comes with crossing over into a new world. The Little Mermaid’s arms are holding the sailor gently but still possessively, with fingers gripping as if drawing his warmth into her cold, scaly foam. This echoes the sea witch’s major warning: “Once you obtain a human form, you can never be a mermaid again! You will never be able to drive down into the water to your sisters or return to your father’s palace” (Andersen 119). Some of the sketch lines under the paint–wild webbed foam and shaky hand grips–show her sea nature fighting back, just like the sharp knife pain of her new legs on land. The freedom cap on the head of the sailor mocks the Little mermaid’s almost-human look (with just faint scales), making their embrace a risky doorway. She drags him into the sea even as she most desires his freedom from the land above. In another scholarly article written by Angel Tampus titled, Comparative Analysis of Hans Christian Andersen’s and Walt Disney’s The Little Mermaid, Tampus calls this the Little Mermaid’s “strong motivation to be a part of the world above,” which is tied to the story’s Christian idea that love is able to win a soul (Tampus 18). The rocks depicted in the image look hard and difficult to climb, while the foam rushes forward almost like a sense of impending doom closing in– or a small change to escape.

Pyle’s composition puts the mermaid and sailor at the center of the artwork, where the rugged rocks serve as a symbolic and literal divide. These sharp edges cut through the scene, showcasing the truly difficult transformation the mermaid is enduring. Each step she takes on land will feel like knives, mirroring the harsh stone beneath her. The rocks ground her tail while her upper body leans forward. This creates visual tension that represents here split identity between sea and land.

The color palette of the painting further invokes this theme of longing and disruption. The cool blues and greens dominate the waves, which evoke the mermaid’s natural underwater home. However, they still churn violently toward warmer highlights on her skin and the sailor’s face. This blending of temperatures represents the mermaid’s desire to replace her current cold oceanic isolation for now human warmth and connection, while the sea foam hints at dissolution, which is her ultimate fate if love fails.

Another thing that is important to notice is that the sailor’s posture and how it is contrasted with the mermaid’s active embrace. The tilted hat of the sailor suggests freedom slipping away as she draws him downward. This essentially changes the power dynamic. This reversal shows the little mermaid’s desperate agency. Instead of passively yearning, she is attempting to bridge worlds, even with the risk of pulling humanity into her destructive element.

In Pyle’s painting, the broader seascape portrays nature’s destruction. Waves are seen crashing against the rocks like invading ships, and Pyle’s rough white and blue brushstrokes make the ocean feel chaotic and broken around the Little Mermaid’s longing. The faint shapes in the foam suggest growths or sea creatures, which links sailors to the objects that they bring or lose–things that feed her desire for the human world but also dirty her home.

Going back to Easterlin’s article, her idea of a “mixed ontology” (being both nature and human) fits here: The Little Mermaid’s smooth body, going from human torso to tail, expresses how people often may see wild places as traps to escape in order to “move up in life (Easterlin 261). Seeing the moonlight shining only on the mermaid and sailor essentially makes both of them look small and alone in comparison to the vast blue sea. This illustrates the Little Mermaid’s isolation even though she is still in the presence of a human.

Because Pyle never finished this painting, this adds layers to this isolation. Visible brushstrokes and sketch lines reveal the progress that Pyle made. This in turn mirrors the mermaid’s incomplete transformation; How there is no smooth resolution, but only true, raw struggle. This imperfection parallels her in-between existence. She is neither fully mermaid nor human. She is suspended between the foam-like uncertainty.

The messy strokes of Pyle’s incomplete painting, with removed waves, expresses an undeniably raw and unrefined sense of longing without a perfect resolution to one’s struggle. Andersen’s end of his fairytale also provides similar imagery; However, foaming due to betrayal, the mermaid’s redemption comes from the “daughters of the air”, offering soul through deeds (Andersen 129). Looking back at the article by Tampus, Tampus describes this as”transcending one being to another,” enduring pain for transformation (Tampus 21). The sea form suggests the possibility of the mermaid’s ascension into the air, while the grandmother’s image of a “seaweed blanket “stays above the waves of the ocean.

As one’s gaze follows the turbulent waves outward to the horizon, the hazy outline of an uncharted human world is revealed above them. The radiant skin of desire juxtaposed with the darker sea tones that compose the sea emphasizes how deeply rooted desire can blind human to their inherent connection to nature. The sea foam created by the waves separates them from the potion that gave life to this body of water, creating a bridge between two worlds.

In this painting, texture invites closeness. The thick paint suggests spray and chill rocks; Writhing waves grip like the story’s living sea turned isolating. The colors showcase emotion, inviting deep blues turn to panicked whites, capturing longing’s thrill and danger. The mermaid’s warm skin provides the sole heat in the cold sea. Shapes help blend her curves into the sailor’s limp form, blurring hybrid boundaries. The sailor’s cap’s floppy liberty contrasts rigid sea constraints.

Through his painting, Pyle is showing the mermaid’s yearning as an echo of humanity’s desire to extend beyond its physical limitations, resulting in the destruction of the planet that sustains it by cutting down trees used for developing oxygen; taking more fish from the oceans than can be replaced; polluting the oceans with discarded plastic while seeking power, wealth, and progress, and treating wild lands and oceans as limitations. The mermaid’s sacrifice of her tail to experience the warmth of human embrace is similar to humanity’s sacrifice of nature for personal gain. All of this creates debris from ships and extraction rigs and ultimately depletes both the ocean and the shipwrecked treasures the shipwrecks leave behind. As Easterlin points out, the desire for what cannot be attained destroys the relationship between humans and nature (Easterlin 265), while also disconnecting humans from themselves and others through the process of creating these connections. In the end, because both Pyle and Andersen illustrate how longing can be found in all places, to truly belong, one most share a commitment to nurture, rather than destroy, nature, or they will otherwise float away as foam–cast adrift on the sea of their own making.

Works Cited

Easterlin, Nancy. “Hans Christian Andersen’s Fish out of Water.” ScholarWorks@UNO, 2011, https://scholarworks.uno.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1035&context=engl_facpubs Accessed 12 Dec. 2025.

Tampus, Angel, et al. “Comparative Analysis of Hans Christian Andersen’s and Walt Disney’s The Little Mermaid.” International Journal of Multidisciplinary Development and Educational Studies, https://journal.ijmdes.com/ijmdes/article/download/91/90/91Accessed 12 Dec. 2025.

https://platform.virdocs.com/read/616251/45/#/4[x9780525505570_EPUB-43]/2/2[_idParaDest-46]/2,/3:0,/3:0

ECL 305 Final Takeaway

Posted on by
1

Throughout our class there have been several things that have stuck out to me through the readings and in class discussions. However, what stood out to me most and what I learned how to become better at as a result of this class ,was close reading and how to critically analyze the most important information from what I was reading. Close reading allows for me to find the deeper meaning behind what the author is trying to say, it allows for good class discussions, and it will help me in my future as someone who wants to work in public relations (PR).

First, close reading allows for me to find the deeper meaning behind what the author is trying to say. Often times when I read a text, I do not fully understand everything I read initially. By re reading and also close reading, this allows for me to break down and dissect what the author is trying to say. Close reading also helps improve my critical thinking skills, because it forces me to pay additional attention to details in order to figure out what is being conveyed by the author.

Second, close reading allows for strong and thought-provoking in-class discussions. By close reading as a class, I was able to not only share my own perspectives on what I understood from the text, but I was also able to listen and hear from other students and what their own perspectives were on the reading. I strongly believe in-class discussions were beneficial to my success in this class because they challenged me to converse with others and understand different viewpoints that were all interconnected in someway.

Last, I believe that through continuing to practice close reading, this will help me in my future as someone who wants to work in public relations. This is true, because working in public relations requires only keeping the most relevant information apart of press releases, while still being concise and accurate with the information that is being presented to the public. Close reading will ultimately improve my writing skills, and creativity, which will help me be successful in my near future.

Final Essay Idea

Posted on by
Reply

For my final essay, I am considering mainly focusing on The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen; more specifically on the recurring theme of the mermaid longing to be a part of another world, and how that ties into our class theme of literature and the environment. I am hoping to be able to close read and analyze text deeply as well as incorporate scholarly articles and information that can help aid in me crafting a strong argument for my final essay.

Week 13: The Myth of Aganju and Yemaja

Posted on by
2

The myth of Yemaja and Aganju demonstrates the lithe way Yoruba people link forces of nature and human emotions in divine narratives. One excerpt that specifically stands out is Yemaja bursting open after being assaulted by her son, Orungan. The text states: “Two streams of water gushed from her breasts… and from her gaping body came the birth of many gods…” This passage epitomizes the horror but also the sacredness of creation – the a painful healing giving rise to creation, energy, and the other biological aspects of the universe. The swelling of her body and the releasing of deities such as Shango, Oya, and Oshun suggest that in Yoruba cosmology, creation occurs not from divine perfection, but from rupture and transformation. Her pain then becomes the source of rivers, mountains, fertility, and the planets.. the sun and moon. In the myth of Yemaja, creation is not an act made in order by godly places, it emerges violently and emotionally from and for human beings suggesting that in Yoruba cosmology, sacredness and the chaos of life are seamlessly wed.

This instance in the narrative illustrates how Yoruba mythology rejects the idea of untainted, remote generation, and instead, relies on divinity being situated in an embodied experience and emotion. The body of Yemaja–the female, the mortal, and the divine–becomes the actual foundation of the world. When she bursts from her abdomen, it becomes a moment of both tragedy and generation, making her both the source of the generation and also the mother of every god subsequently across the generations. In many Western traditions, the creation comes from some word or will (e.g. God speaking the universe into creation), the body and therefore, motherhood and labor pains, become the foundational metaphor of creation. The conquest of the sacred becomes physically anchored, not despite physicality. Yemaja’s pain then becomes rivers and fertility, her milk becomes water that sustains life. This fluid image reinforces that the Yoruba universe is alive, reciprocal, and sensuous.

Moreover, the myth obscures distinctions among destruction and creation, purity, and pollution. Orungan’s violent act- sympathetic in his longing yet irredeemable in his act- initiates cosmic change. His yearning and Yemaja’s resistance generate violent, transformational energy. From human violation, divine order emerges. Ife, which means “distention” or “swelling up” symbolizes that out of rupture, there is both physical and spiritual growth. This places creation inextricably at loss, as it resonates to the repeated acts of birth, death, and regeneration that characterize nature and society. This tension between pain and renewal illustrates how Yoruba cosmology understands the world to be imperfect from the outset and constantly born out of struggle and emotion.

The Yoruba imagination suggests, through the myth of Yemaja, that suffering becomes a new birth, meaningless pain, divine power, and godliness resides in the body and emotion and raw movement of nature, not outside of these elements. In this story, the sacred can bleed, swell, and transform rather than issue commands from above. The suffering, and ultimately fertile body of Yemaja, represents how the Yoruba worldview understands creation as a continuous act of emotional and physical metamorphosis and being as part of life, where beauty and chaos coexist as equally powerful forces of life.

Discovery #2

Posted on by
Reply

https://blog.vonwong.com/mermaidplastic

When first seeing the mermaid depicted in the center of the piece, along with it is a simultaneously visual ambiguity and a sense of wonder. On the one hand, the figure evokes ancient myth about a mermaid. But, the mermaid has also become lost in an artificial landscape made up of plastic bottles as waves, merging the mythical beauty of the ocean and the pollution that is inescapable today in the ocean. The details, colors and artistry invite viewers in closer, not only is there the twist of the deformed plastic, and glimmers of blue and green, the visual imaging creates a sea fantasy and displacement, however it is made of plastic. It raises the questions, is the mermaid only marooned in this landscape, or is it a challenge to the viewers ignorant, complacent body, and signifies the truth of ecological annihilation. The space itself, is a thoughtful, staged space distinct and separate from the public beach, or wild ocean landscape; it is distorted and blurs the lines of the beach, and open water, inviting all to remember pollution is not just a faraway, public issue, it arrives right into our most intimate, personal and private places. Looking Carefully at this image, we can see how the modern mermaid functions as a powerful icon for environmental crisis in the context of certain private spaces–both on land and in the sea that are also polluted. Yet, the polluted places can become a source of activism, change, and challenging the concept of a relationship to nature.

The mermaid depiction both subverts its viewers’ expectations, and employs the aesthetic language of the genre of myth in order to make an explicit commentary about our own complicity in environmental harm. By organizing the plastics so that it appears as though one is viewing the ocean, the artist not only presents the viewer with the staggering amount of waste, but intentionally makes the “waves” seem enticing – even beautiful – from a distance. Upon closer inspection, however, the truth is inescapable: this is not water, it is the pollution that threatens marine life. The mermaid’s iridescent tail, which was created to move gracefully in rhythm with the synthetic ‘waives’, serves as a visual focal point to describe nature’s relationship with the human world’s careless consumption. Instead of simple depicting the mermaid as another victim, her stance between the act of swimming and reaching conveys resistance and hope amidst peril.

In, Emelia Škarnulytė’s short film “Sirenomelia,” relates to the image because it serves as a call for reclamation. When a magic figure such as the mermaid occupies sites of conflict, whether a legacy of an active military base or garbage in a sea, she urges us to think about ways to engage in the traumatic past and creates possibilities for the future. The sea covered in plastic becomes not just a representation of our collective, failure, but an invitation to find energy and material for activism and creative revisioning. In both circumstances, as the mermaid rewrites the narrative of loss and hopelessness, she balances room to locate adaptation, resilience, and not simply belief, but opportunities for renewal even in the most abandoned and hurtful spaces.

The setting of the image is critical. The intimacy of an interior private space collapses the perceived distance between environmental destruction and “safe” culture (or consumer) space; it implicates everyone, including the viewer, into the environmental crisis. Unlike more public, environmental awareness campaigns the situate litter in remote parts of nature, the image insists that the living room, as a place and living routine, is both part of the problem and the solution. The mermaid, as an outsider and intermediary, produces a public witness to private waste. As an activist presence, the mermaid reframes individual responsibility to include activism that starts at home.

Further examination of the visual details reveals further depth. Even though the plastic bottles are commonplace, polluting out oceans, and responsible for much of the cultural mythology, they are all, in new formations, ordered in a particular fashion that creates an unsettling beauty. This is the same capacity of art itself– to display unsettling truths in a manner that can affect viewers emotionally and intellectually. The image of the mermaid uses that capacity to persuade viewers to explore how they relate to the environment and also how they relate to cultural mythology.

Additionally, mermaids have been a part of a larger trend in environmental activism. Recently, in contemporary art, and in activist campaigns, mermaids have made a comeback to link, especially, young audiences (visually or literally) to the ocean crisis regarding plastics debris, rising sea levels, and species at risk. So the image you share indicates a movement seeking to make myth a relevant and relatable vehicle for eco-centrism. The presenting of the mermaid in a polluted, restricted context emphasizes the nuance of the mermaid’s positioning, as she represents both disruption from human interaction and a motivation to address environmental injustice.

This piece not only laments a relationship lost with nature through these artistic decisions but also encourages viewers to re-conceptualize places that are polluted into sites of activism and change. The mermaid- a figure of both beauty and warning in mythology- becomes an advocate for change suggesting to viewers that they must act not only from a place of fear but also from a place of hope. When viewed from the perspective of myth, plastic pollution is daunting, yet feels less overwhelming. This myth becomes a call to action to reimagine the boundaries between destruction and renewal, especially in the private and daily spaces that we often overlook.

In summary, the contemporary mermaid, as seen in this image, goes beyond merely a passive symbol and instead compels engagement. By careful analysis of each formal and thematic element, we come to a reading in which the mermaid’s polluted, private environments can inspire activism and allow us to imaginatively re-create a different relationship to the environment. This reading turns the image into only a critique, but a call to action, and an argument that even the most polluted worlds can be a catalyst for change.

Week 12: The Sea is History

Posted on by
1

In Derek Walcott’s poem, “The Sea Is History”, one statement that stood out to me was: “The sea is History.” This short statement explains the deepness of the challenge to conventional perspectives of history and encourages readers to continuously rethink what composes history. This statement puts forth Walcott’s larger argument that real Caribbean history does not exist in official monuments or texts, but lies beneath the ocean, as the depths of the ocean represent buried memories that resist colonial suppression and seek reclamation.

At its most basic meaning, “The sea is history,” suggests the sea to be a vibrant archive, a store of pasts, saturated with the memories, stories, and traumas of people in the Caribbean. This statement invites consideration of the writings of history in any sense of monumentalism, written records, and even grand narratives that the poem suggests are either absent or erased from the Caribbean experience. Walcott’s positioning makes the sea more than a natural landscape and draws our attention to the sea as an agent of archiving memory through history. The sea is home to the bones of enslaved ancestors as Walcott notes, “soldered by coral,” that reference history that is physically and metaphorically submerged, under colonial amnesia.

The statement further signals that history is fluid and not just found in a book-it is changing and therefore, should be studied as we do water for its depth. The fluidity of the sea and its hanging tides and depths also resonates with the endless, fragile return to claim identity and histories in the Caribbean. The assertion also invokes thoughts that undermine simple/accepted stories of history through implying that history should be studied below the surface, and consequences of proximity to loss, silence and fragmentation (often the narratives that govern postcolonial memory) can be accepted if not embraced.

In addition, Walcott, through his juxtaposition of sea and history, attempts to link the Caribbean experience with other human experiences. The sea–the actual spatial/geographic site of the transatlantic slave trade–connects many histories of individual and collective exile, suffering, and triumph to experiences similar with, and within, a global context. The sea is a site of trauma; yet it is also a site of resurrection of restored, reclaimed stories that have been willfully erased and forgotten. The sea seemingly encapsulates both trauma and restoration. The sea has both a traumatic and redemptive significance, bestowed with theological and cultural significance, and most especially with respect to the connections made to the belief that, like the sea, history is both grave and womb of life.

In short, “The sea is history,” is a succinct statement that asserts a claim for history to be re-conceived as a contested living organism that exists within a collective remembrance beyond an existence that is simply written. It asserts and acknowledges some of the histories that have fallen out of the collective Caribbean consciousness and have contributed to Caribbean identity, and it also provides a strong engagement and relationship to Caribbean historiography that honors the past and provides a space for Caribbean people to engage with history now.

The Mermaid and the Base

Posted on by
1

In Emelijia Škarnulytė’s short film “Sirenomelia,” around minute four and a half, there is an incredibly evocative moment when a mermaid is sen very quietly moving through the long, deserted passage within an unused NATO submarine base. The juxtaposition of the fluid and organic form of the mermaid with cold, mechanical environment generates such a compelling image of form, vulnerability, and strength all at once. This challenging moment converts a space that was designed to uphold military strength into a space of positive beauty that one does not expect. This important moment encapsulates the film’s central message; that new forms of life (even if mythical) or historically based realities can reclaim and reimagine spaces that have been socially and culturally shaped by conflict and human history. Furthermore, “Sirenomelia” argues that spaces clearly marked by human violence and power need not remain stagnant, but can be reimagined by beings with adaptive capabilities as species of newfound meaning, intersectionality, resilience, and hope.

The film engages audiences in exploring how spaces devoid of human action might not remain empty but could contain possibilities for other forms of life–with ecological adaptation and mythological re-enchantment in mind. Škarnulytė makes use of the mermaid–a reference to both the rare congenital condition of sirenomelia and also myth–as a symbol of transformation and survival that extends beyond notions of the human. By situating this character, the mermaid, in an abandons Cold War military base, the film proposes a challenge to the prior human power of the past, raising the possibility of surpassing internecine conflict and the potential for coexistence and meaning beyond the human.

For different moments in the film, the absence of human actors compels the audience to reflect on anthropocentric narratives, stating alternate futures in which the human and nonhuman worlds cohere. The wordless mermaid drifting through this antagonistic, masculine landscape signifies the influence of flexible, creative beings (in this case–a mermaid) to mend the wrecked worlds–turning violent spaces in trauma zones to places of stillness and hopeful transformation. The films cinematic techniques with lighting and sound are appropriated and employed within there stagings to amplify the transformation. For example, the harsh shadows and resonating silence emphasize the desolation in the spaces; the gentle gestures of the mermaid’s movement operate as a contrast and bring some humanity back to the old spatial base it passes through.

Additionally, the movie also employs symbols and setting to express how human legacy has the capacity to be both devastating and a source of potential for new life. The retired submarine base, a symbol of Cold War militarism, stands in as a monument to the remains of human warfare and a biocultural imperialism of technology. The mermaid’s representation, however, offers a promise of regeneration and transformation–a future where myth and the natural milieu can exist alongside remnants of human history. This scene at 4:30 especially serves as a metaphor for the larger theme of “Sirenomelia”: that remnants of human conflict can be reimagined anew, through more complex stories, and imaging of life beyond binaries of power and dominance, with a vision of the future based on adaptation and interrelation.

Week 10: The Ocean Reader

Posted on by
2

One of the most crucial remarks in the introduction of The Ocean Reader: History, Culture, and Politics is: “The Ocean has appeared to us constant because the Ocean cannot be plowed, paved or otherwise shaped in the visible ways land is formed…the land has undergone tremendous changes through the centuries… In an apparent contrast, the fish populations of the Ocean and and the marine mammals that occupy it have appeared to us to be constant, inexhaustible, and impervious to onslaught of harvesters. This appears not to be the case. As this anthology suggests, the Ocean is changeable. Moreover, it has a history” (Roorda 1).

This quote challenges the common belief that the ocean is a fixed and infinite resource. The introduction positions the Ocean not as a dead stage for human activity but as a dynamic, historically contingent process that both shapes and is shaped by human action. The author highlights the fallacy of “terracentrism,” or the human habit of thinking about the world through land- bound experiences. The author suggests that this tendency has disregarded the Ocean’s significance and concealed urgent crises that are emerging in the oceans. The introduction of “aquacentric” as a perspective discusses a shift in our cultural and scholarly imaginations away from a terrestrial focus toward an oceanic orientation, and makes the point that human destinies are inextricably linked to the sea.

The passage describes the enormity of the Ocean—covering 71 percent of the earth’s surface and bigger than any continent–and its intricacy in outlining the interconnectedness of its waters, creating global implications from disturbances in Ocean systems. The text is an anthology, rather than a singular discipline or country, and varies in sources from global and diverse perspectives of maritime history, existing scientific knowledge and so on to show how we are all connected to Ocean loss. The introduction suggests the thematic structure of the text which culminates in a stern warning about the current environmental crises of overfishing, pollution and neglect to say: “The most important part is the last. It has to do with the compounding environmental disasters that are currently happening in the Ocean, and that are most often ignored. Everyone should understand this: it is important for everyone, because we are all, in one way or another, dependent on the Ocean. In short, the Ocean is in trouble” (Roorda 4).

In conclusion, the first chapter of this book contends that information about Ocean and its rich yet neglected past is important for understanding our relationship with both the past and the uncertain future. Rather, the introduction insists that in order to respond to the environmental crises of today and tomorrow, it requires humans to not just shift perspectives from a land-based worldview to an ocean-centered one, which means to see the Ocean as one of the foremost participants in world history, recognizing that it, along with its heterogeneous condition, determines all of our fates—our own future.

Discovery #1

Posted on by
Reply

In “Freakshows and Fantasies” Chapter 4, Vaughn Scribner writes, “Just as Eades’s and Barnum’s mermaids brought the Western merpeople craze to fever pitch ( in London and America respectively), so did they implode it.” The moment when a widely accepted belief and a communal sense of wonder turn into disbelief and ridicule represents a pivotal point in society’s ongoing negotiation between truth, spectacle, and cultural imagination. This observation captures a central paradox of the nineteenth century: Even though science progressed and skepticism evolved, the public’s desire for mystery and spectacle only grew greater. The mermaid craze is a perfect example of how the elements of modernity’s fascination with the marvelous and its faith in reason and progress intersected. The reveal of mermaid belief showcases how easily fascination can turn into cynicism when confronted by modernity’s competing demands for both reason and wonder. The change of mermaids from potential objects of wonder to objects of fraud and satire depicts a larger trend in nineteenth-century Western culture. It shows how the same forces that wanted to encourage science, media, truth, and capitalism, also perpetuated they very myths they tried to disprove.

The Western fascination with mermaids did not spring up in a vacuum. It grew, as did empire and exploration, and the age’s desire to know more about the unknown. While sea expeditions reached more new land, and new discovered species were being documented such as the platypus and kangaroo, the line between possible and impossible started to become faint. The global awareness of these curiosities developed fertile ground for hybrid creatures such as the mermaid to possibly seem real. Spectacle and science continued to grow in tandem with the other and both continued to feed off each other’s inspiration. The public was deeply fond of this tension, and they began to blur the boundaries between true knowledge and myth.

The ultimate demise of this mermaid craze, especially after the Fejee Mermaid by Barnum, revealed contradictions around modernity during the nineteenth century. Society celebrated rationality but still adored spectacle and emotionality. Barnum’s mermaid captured that tension. While his mermaid was fully described as fact and real, it was ultimately taken as entertainment. Audiences were enraptured based on the confusion between real or fake. The mermaid was never scientific; it was about the joy of deception but a joy felt in the moment of believing, however temporary.

Barnum perfected a technique he called “humbuggery,” an intricate process of conjuring belief without the not-so-simple act of demanding it. He prompted spectators to enjoy their own indecision–to be both skeptic and believer. This typified a cultural moment where a promise of the grand truth would no longer be held as a situated, ideal way of understanding the world but instead exhibited, called into question, and eventually turned into profit. Barnum’s mermaid was representative of the contradictory affection for wonder in modernity: A culture prideful of rational progress, but eager for amazement. That audiences were drawn in to this event demonstrated that even in a supposed age of enlightenment, people still longed for the delight of mystery–especially when wearing the clothing of science.

While this was happening, the media that had stimulated the public’s curiosity was also engaged in dismantling it. As scientists examined the material and newspapers began exposing hoaxes, the idea of mermaids shifted from legitimate curiosity to ironic amusement. What had been touted as a mystery of nature had become a story of gullibility. Nonetheless, debunking did not erase mermaids from the cultural landscape, it only adjusted their form. The belief underwent a transformation from a possible reality to a sign of deceit and mass credulity. The unveiling of the Fejee Mermaid demonstrates how the mass media, on the one hand could manufacture excitement, yet, on the other, could destroy it, profiting from the very wonder it later disparaged. The same presses the printed enthusiastic accounts of discovery sold issues by ridiculing the credulous. Disbelief, it seems, became entertaining in its own right.

This change in tone demonstrates the broader media logic of the nineteenth century. Newspapers and periodicals put curiosity into commerce. Reports of mermaids sightings made appearances before 1845, sometimes with semi-serious musings that relied on natural history or comparative anatomy. After hoaxes were revealed, journalists took on a more cynical tone, using mermaid reports to ridicule ignorance and the human desire to believe. This represented the professionalization of journalism, and however simplistic, the skepticism became an indicator of modern intelligence. But it also demonstrated how capitalism and and mediation had mechanisms by which they can carry on impressions while emoting them wrecked them. By retrievably printing, ridiculing and mentioning mermaids, the media had ‘realized’ a cultural presence, even without consideration for belief.

The enduring popularity of the mermaid myth highlights something basic about spectatorship in the nineteenth century. Modern viewers were not merely duped; they engaged in a performance for credulity. To attend a freak show, or to read about a peculiar specimen, involved a social experience where wonder was shared as a form of collective wonder, where curiosity was counterbalanced with irony. This shared disbelief went on to become a characteristic of modern culture and continues to inform out enjoyment of mass media and spectacle today. Thus, Barnum’s presentations anticipated the cultural patters of modern entertainment, where disbelief and fascination are enjoyed together.

The shift of mermaids from potential objects of wonder to objects of fraud and satire represents a larger trend in nineteenth-century Western culture. As science allegedly “banished” superstition, the same social processes – capitalism, mass media, and the hunger for spectacle – ensured the survival of the very figures they mocked. The mermaid, then, persists not as an object of belief but as a cultural icon that reminds us that even in a so-called age of reason, the distinctions between knowledge, entertainment, and belief are not clearly distinguished.

Overall, the similarities among science, media, and myth in the nineteenth century captured a deeper dissonance in modernity: disbelief and belief are not oppositional; they are rather alike. Although the true reveal of the Fejee Mermaid did not stop the fascination of the Mermaid, it did transform it. Myth continued as satire, while the truth became yet another performance. The mermaid swims in the Western cultural memory because she encapsulated that which modern life cannot fully abandon – a yearning for wonder amid an obsession with proof.

The Warning of the Sea Witch in The Little Mermaid

Posted on by
2

In the Little Mermaid, the sea witch’s caution to the little mermaid- “If you obtain a human form, you can never be a mermaid again! Your heart will break, and you will dissolve into the foam of the waves”- is one of the most important parts of Andersen’s story (Andersen 121). This quote is not just some magical deal: it showcases how difficult it genuinely is for the mermaid to alter her life. The witch says so the mermaid that desiring a human soul requires her to make a large sacrifice. Even though she desires to be happy, there is still a possibility she could lose everything she has. In Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, the sea witch’s caution shows how the journey of the mermaid is all about sacrifice and the price that comes with longing to be part of another world. This adjusts the idea of happy endings that most fiction tales promise and makes readers think about how difficult it can sometimes be to chase our dreams.

The witch’s statements are very straightforward and direct. They show exactly what the little mermaid would give up if she were to take the witch’s offer. As a result of this, the story starts to become much deeper than the typical loving and happy fairy tale we are used to seeing. The witch uses strong words such as “never,” ‘cannot”, and “break” to explain how if the mermaid accepts the deal it is final and cannot be changed.

This part of the story puts several ideas together, such as leaving home behind, suffering, and not knowing if eternal happiness will ever be possible. When the witch tells the mermaid that she will be unable to return to her family and her home, the sea. This truly shows how much the little mermaid is giving up. In the human sense, this would be like leaving home and never seeing the people you grew up with again. Also, when the witch says that the mermaid will “turn into foam”, this means she will vanish forever if she fails to win the prince’s love and marry him.

This shows the uncertainty involved that comes with having to depend on another person for personal happiness. If the mermaid gives up everything, despite this, the prince could still not feel the same way. This shows how that love does not always promise a happy ending, which makes this story more lifelike and also sad.

Overall, this warning is a crucial part of the story because it shows how altering one’s life and chasing dreams is often very hard to consistently deal with. The mermaid is risking all she has, such as her family, voice, future, and body. Andersen’s tale is truly wonderful, but also sorrowful because life requires sacrifices of our past and present to inherent what we desire most for our future. This story teaches how love and change is a very difficult process that requires bravery even when we may not know what the end product will be. Last, this story is not just about receiving what we want most, but it is about learning how to deal with the decisions we make.