While reading Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, what stood out to me in this tale is just how different the underwater world is compared to the terrestrial world. Since the underwater world remains largely unexplored, we can only make of its supposed beauty through what we think lies below. That the depths of the ocean hides a world that is completely alien to the land above.
In the beginning, the narrator reminds us that the ocean is “so deep … that no rope can fathom it; and many church steeples need be piled upon the other to reach from the bottom to the surface.” (108) Just how deep is the ocean, and how much of it have we not explored? Humans are not capable of breathing underwater, so we have to rely on submarines and scuba tanks to explore only a part of it. Even then, the crushing depths make exploring the bottom of the ocean almost impossible. Even in reality, there are thresholds set in place by Nature that we literally cannot cross, even if we wanted to.
In the next paragraph, the narrator tells us that the ocean must not “be imagined that there is nothing but a bare, white, sandy ground below,” and proceeds to describe its environment: “The soil produces the most curious trees and flowers, whose leaves and stems are so flexible that the slightest motion of the water seems to fluster them as if they were living creatures.” (108) This exemplifies the alien nature of the ocean, and it also implies that even the depths are connected to terrestrial life. The “trees and flowers” can be made out as coral, but it is described in a way that makes them seem as though they are a part of a forest. The fish are likened to birds, further demonstrating the parallel between sea and land.
However, both of these worlds are separated by water as stated before; humans and aquatic beings are incompatible with water and land respectively. There are things in their world that we desire but cannot have due to the nature of their world, and vice versa. Alas, we can only describe what lies at the bottom of the ocean, and we have yet to see the beauty of it in the distant future.
Great focus on the ocean and how it is depicted is being so foreign but also only known through analogies to the terrestrial land (birds as fishes, e.g.). I think this is a very important focus, and I hope you will lead us a discussion of it tomorrow. Indeed, this blog post could serve as the foundation for a midterm essay.
You made a great point in class about how we rely on machines to know what happens in the deep ocean.
What stood out to me about this passage was how little the average person knew about underwater life in the early 19th century. Public fascination with the underwater world kind of exploded after the 1850s, but in ’34, when the story was published, Anderson probably had no idea what the diversity of underwater life was. All he knew was of animals that end up on the shore, like coral skeletons, fish, mussels. I’m fascinated by his description of the “polyp” creatures in the sea witch’s forest. Part animal part plant– sounds like he kind of understands cnidarians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_marine_biology
Great read> much to think about
Hi Jesmond!
I really like how you point out that our only frame of reference for what lies below the ocean are things that are found on land. As you stated, things like “trees” and “flowers” are not items that are traditionally used to describe the sea, but Andersen uses them as a way to paint the sea in terms that humans can understand. In turn, it allows humans to care for the sea because they understand it in terms that they can comprehend, giving them a reason to care for the sea and the creatures in it.