Burn that Seashell Bra Little Mermaid!

The Little Mermaid, ah how is it that mermaids “stand”? How do you plant a weeping willow and flowers at the bottom of the ocean? How can a potion stay in a cauldron when you live underwater? What mysteries…but none compared to what it is the little mermaid really wants…feminism. That’s right, feminism and individuality. I could go on about half bestial things that don’t have immortal souls like uncultured people, barbarians, infidels, whatever you like, that lack souls before succumbing to Christianity, Judaism, Islam and other religions (though most likely Christianity considering Hans’ middle name), but there is another possibility.

The little mermaid, trapped in her underwater world in the confines of her family which serves as a womb-like world where she is kept in the safe confines of childhood. She dreams of her coming of age, planting her “garden.” Within it she tends the red flowers of her virginity. The color, often repeated in other imagery, and the shape of the garden refers to her desire for her period and the beginning of her change into womanhood. The male statue she has placed within it is stiff and idealistic or children’s fantasies of love. The little mermaid must wait for her fifteenth year in order to debut into womanhood, when she can leave the womb of the sea and come to the surface. Her sisters before her experience this in many symbolic ways. The first sees the society of men, their cities and marvels, much as a young debutant would when she would be presented to society as an eligible young woman. the second experience the large red sun and the red world, her menstrual cycle. The third witnesses children but is scared off by the dog, a possible connection to the new possibility of bearing children and the dangers that may come with that. The fifth sits on the tip of the ice berg, seeing on the top of it as the sailors do and not the whole picture of what it means to be a woman.

Becoming a woman is perceived to be a way to individuality to the mermaid, a way to separate herself from her family, able to wander as she pleases and not be a child at their sides. As “one must suffer to look pretty” the little mermaid experiences growing pains of a changing body. On her trip to the surface she experience the sharp spark of emotion, desire, as she looks upon the prince, just as bright and raucous as the fireworks. It leaves her reeling a storm of emotion that is all too keen for an angst-ridden teenager. She goes through her first sexual experiences with him, saving him from his little death. In the morning she kisses him and leaves him like a one-night-stand. She continues her vigilance of him, separating herself from her family, wearing a veil reminiscent of her wedding wishes.

Then, she is told that she may gain an immortal soul simply by marrying a human. This would truly make her an individual as the humans are and not a nymph of the sea. The witch then births the mermaid into the world of humans by giving her a concoction made from the blood of her own breast. For this the mermaid must suffer silence and pain in her feet and further embellishes the story that she must wed a man in order to have a soul. The punishments are similar to those that many women must face as they seek to fulfill themselves through men. Their voices, the ability to express themselves, his given over to the power of the man. As well they are forced into restrictions of society, such as the wearing of high heels. The pain that she feels is “like walking on a sharp knife so that your blood flows” as it must when girls become women. As well, once she goes to this man she will be separate from her family. From there, Nightingale Syndrome comes into affect where the patient, the prince, becomes in love with his perceive rescuer, a priestess, and the savior, the mermaid, falls in love with her patient. She does all she can to follow him though it hurts her.

Finally she “dies” when the prince marries another and she refuses to kill him just in order to return to her family and the meaningless life there. However she becomes one of the sprites of the air who are able to earn a soul through their deeds. They grandly state that a mermaid’s “eternal life depends on the power of someone else.” And so the little unmermaid finds her individuality and coming of age through feminism.

PS: Also, I don’t really believe that the prince and his bride were “resting” in the tent.

Andersen, Hans Christian. Tales and Stories by Hans Christian Andersen. Trans. Patricia Couroy and Sven Rossel. UW Press: Seattle and London, 1980.