By becoming an aerial, a daughter of the air, is the little mermaid saved or sentenced to 300 years of suffering? Either way, she has attained a soul at the end of her sentence, a soul that is not tied to a man who treated her like an animal.
Like most, I grew up watching and loving Disney’s The Little Mermaid, and Prince Eric was the sweetest and most handsome to me. I’m sure you can imagine my surprise when I read how he treated her like a pet, and gave her “leave to sleep on a velvet cushion before his door (124).” It was heart-wrenching to read of her dehumanization by the prince and the way he expected her to be happy at his marriage.
I can see how Han’s Christian Anderson wrote this story as insight into life as a queer man in a society that punished it through moral and religious doctrine encoded into rule and law. Living a queer existence meant living a life in hiding, and even if love found a way to flourish, it would not be socially accepted. The little mermaid must make constant sacrifices to appeal to the prince and the people of his kingdom, and she is often warned: “Your fish’s tail, which is a beauty amongst us sea-folk, is thought a deformity on earth, because they know no better.” However, I appreciated this clarification and assurance by her grandmother; that humans’ lack of knowledge was not the fault of the little mermaid, and how this was Anderson’s way of commenting on queerness as something beautiful and misunderstood due to the fault of society, not the individual.
Nonetheless, I can not excuse the actions of the prince in this tale, because he was completely in power, and never under the spell of the sea witch (although I’m not 100% sure what happened with the bride being mistaken as his savior). He had complete autonomy and flaunted it in the face of The Little Mermaid, whom he took advantage of because she could not speak for herself. He paraded her around, essentially kept her as his pet, and likely intended to keep her as his mistress if she had not become a daughter of the air. He was despicable, and I’m glad she got the soul that she wanted without any help from him, but despite him.
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Yesss I can’t believe I forgot about this story being connected to HCA’s sexuality!!! Rereading as an adult, I can relate first hand to the experience of sacrificing everything for a man who is going to marry a woman, completely unaware of the pain he is causing you! 😀
I also was unsure about him mistaking her for his savior. My best guess is that the convent girl actually just looked really similar to the little mermaid, since he was unconscious the whole time she was saving his life and would never have seen her face anyway.
Also that you pointed out the fact that the ending is not completely tragic. If, indeed, the little mermaid wanted a soul only so she could continue to see the beauty of life on earth- “to hear the music of the waves, and to see the beautiful flowers, and the red sun”(118) then she was gifted, not only by being given back her mermaid lifespan, but a potential eternal life after that!
Hi Angelina! I loved your insights on the reading especially regarding the significance of being a queer person in this society. I especially thought your last paragraph was interesting, about how the prince was not a good person. He would parade the mermaid around like a trophy and take advantage of the fact that she could not speak for herself. This definitely has modern resonance as in a male-dominated society this tends to happen, especially with men who are in privileged positions, like the prince, but modern day politicians and celebrities tend to treat women like trophies.
Hi Angelina, I like how you pointed out the prince’s dehumanizing actions on the mermaid. The mermaid had just become human, but she is incapacitated by her lack of speech and the pains from having two legs. And what does the prince refer to her as, as a result of her painful existence? A “dumb foundling,” a “dumb child.” It makes me think that this privileged prince treats the mermaid as nothing more than a pet, like you said, since she doesn’t have a tongue to speak out of.
Also, have you noticed that the name of Disney’s Little Mermaid, Ariel, is a play on the word “aerial?”