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Marxism In The Little Mermaid

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Numerous schools of criticisms have attempted to find the meaning behind most of our favorite childhood stories. From Marxist who pursue the idea of social classes portrayed in literary works, to Psychoanalysts who depict the sexual tensions and desires that are subconsciously embedded behind characters’ motives and actions, to Historicists who try to show the preservation of tradition in stories, many different concepts exist for each fairy tale. The Feminist school of criticism greatly focuses on unveiling the patriarchal system and sexist roles that are displayed in stories, and more specifically, fairytales. Four versions of the well-known fairytale of The Little Mermaid will be compared and discussed while focusing on many distinctive …show more content…

Taking into consideration the first and main version of The Little Mermaid, author Han Christian Andersen’s, Little Mermaid, written in 1837, has different characters than the 2006 interpretation of the short story, Aquamarine. From an addition of two new female characters to the subtraction of the royal titles that each character possessed, Aquamarine is based on a twenty first century setting. The plots between the two also greatly differ and even lead up to different endings. Similarly, both mermaids are searching for love and both mermaids asked to be human. Both mermaids have a due date that forces them back into the ocean if they do not find love. While Anderson’s mermaid’s failure would lead her to her ultimate death, Aquamarine’s would lead her to go back to the ocean and marry whomever her father desires. The ending greatly differs for, in Anderson’s original tale, The Little Mermaid fails to find love and sacrifices herself for the Prince. She is then required to live off her life as a spirit, doing good deeds to humans for her to regain her soul back. Similarly, Aquamarine does not find love with the lifeguard, Raymond, which causes a huge ocean storm due to her father’s rage. Her two best friends, Claire and Hailey jump into the water to save her, and it is their

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Throughout the entirety of literature, mermaids are depicted to be extremely beautiful, living the perfect life, and finding their other half in the form of a prince. Timothy Schaffert may be widely recognized for doing the exact opposite in “Mermaid in the Tree”. In Schaffert’s “Mermaid in the Tree”, the author portrays the mermaid’s life as a pitiful one, filled with heart break and deceit. Timothy Schaffert brings this to light through a character named Axel. Axel is recognized as an evil character due to his greediness and his detrimental behavior towards others, especially the Mermaid.

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Most women and teenage girls loved the idea of the mermaid that it grew into a new trend of fashion. Their obsession over this new trend even encouraged them to walk on beaches with mermaid suits and their breast exposed to male voyeurs. Millhauser wanted to justify to his readers that this societal attitude the people had on the creature can get out of hand and lead to madness and instability within the town. For example, a fourteen-year-old girl was assaulted at a party by some high school girls, painted her hips down a green, bound at the ankles and tossed into her into a stream.

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INTRODUCTION This research will handle the topic of the sexual signs of the Disney film "The Little Mermaid", and the effect of this film on children 's culture. First of all, we will give the facts about this film, and then lighting on the sexual signs. In addition, to that we will state the effect of the film, and these signs on childhood on their physical and mental behaviors. Walt Disney belonged to an Alluminati family who was in fact a sexual pervert and pedophile which is now obvious in all his activities and projects .Although Disney Cartoons have always being the most famous and watchable all over the world, the wonderful world of Disney has long been suspected of hiding subliminal sexual messages in its animated films.

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Disney’s villain of destruction Did you know ? It took 700 animators, artists, and technicians to complete the movie Mulan. The Little Mermaid and Mulan are examples of two Disney movies. They both have villains, but Shan Yu is more evil than Ursula , because he is merciless, he is obsessed by power and he is ruthless. The Movie Mulan was released on 19 June 1998 in Canada and The Little Mermaid was released November 17, 1989 in Canada and they both have villains.

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The central idea of Symbolic interactionism is symbols are the key to understanding how we view the world and communicate with one another (page 13). In The Little Mermaid, the human artifacts that Ariel collects are symbols of how she views their world. Scuttle is symbol of how she communicates with the world above her. The Disney movie also helps children establish an explanation about relationships. This guides kids to discover how society defines relationships.

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These songs include “Part of Your World,” “Under the Sea,” “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” and “Kiss the Girl.” “Part of Your World” is sung by Ariel to express her desire to change from a mermaid to a human, and despite the fact that “she’s got everything” her mermaid “world” and all its materialistic “treasures” is not as fulfilling as the humans’ appears to be. The song explicitly describes of a longing for female independence and proof that their degradation by the males is detrimentally affecting their happiness. “Betcha' on land, they'd understand, bet they don't reprimand their daughters, bright young women, sick of swimming ready to stand,” Ariel sings of the unfair and unjust treatment she and the other women of the sea experience and their need to stand against their suppressive dictators and “explore the shore above” to seek a better life. She sings this song in a secret cove that contains all her treasures, emphasizing the need for women to be private with the part of their lives that society deems as “unacceptable” and that does not align with their gender roles and expectations.

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The Little Mermaid is all about coming of age. In other words Ariel the main character of the story believes that she is old enough to do as she pleases. Ariel loves going to the surface. On the other hand her dad didn’t want any humans to lay eyes on her, as a result of him thinking that they are barbarians. All Ariel wants is to do what she wants when she wants.

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Justyna Deszcz wrote an article based on Zipes’ political and socio-historical approach and added a variety of facts she had collected from many other authors and articles. Deszcz believes that the reason we have shifted into the submissive and “family-friendly” theme of fairy tales is because “the fairytale has been reduced to a mass-produced commodity, to be purchased and owned, and to bring in considerable profit. What is more, the fairytale is being used as a source and a vehicle of powerful self-mirroring images affirming the existing value system, and thus lulling audiences into passivity and compliance.” This point proves that the original thought of harsh realities needing to be exposed in story telling has converted to just being a profitable way to tell simple-minded children’s

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She searches for eternal life through good deeds and sacrificing herself. “The Shadow” is a story about a learned man who tells his shadow to go snoop on another balcony and the shadow returns years later, wealthy and powerful. The man returns home and tries to write stories about good, truth, and beauty. These stories are culturally significant because they provide universal lessons to many different cultures, especially Danish culture. “The Little Mermaid” shows the trials of the youngest mermaid of a Sea King who has six daughters.

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These well-known characters purposely stand on opposite ends of the pole, together with all they represent. On one end, there is the virginal and almost childlike heroine, and on the other, the mature and sexually threatening stepmother. Jerilyn Fisher and Ellen S. Silber, the authors of the article: “Good and Bad Beyond Belief: Teaching Gender Lessons through Fairy Tales and Feminist Theory,” claim that in the absence of the heroine’s true and righteous mother, her pathological stepmother is “the only available, living ‘model’ of feminine maturity” (124). However, since the stepmother is put under harsh social criticism, the heroine is likely to associate herself with “the passive, feminine identity of the first queen, avoiding any identification with the active principle embodied in the characterization of the bad mother/witch” (Fisher and Silber 124). Such is the case of the tale of “Snow-white,” in which we only see the good queen when working on her embroidery, (considered a typical female activity) and wishing for a child (Grimm 215).

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1351 Words | 6 Pages

“Beauty and the Beast” is an original fairy tale and over time have incorporated social, religious and cultural themes. An analysis of the Disney version of “Beauty and the Beast” exemplifies the stereotypes of the more subtle forms of social manipulation that fairytales undergo to employ. The question of whether these stories are made for entertainment or send a much larger picture, depicting to children their gender roles within a society. In this paper gender roles will be represented showing the typical female and male character within a society. Historian Sylvia D. Hoffert defines a gender ideal as “the cluster of characteristics, behavior patterns, and values that members of a group think a man or a woman should have, a set of cultural expectations.”

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The other daughters air explain that due to her friendliness. She is has become one of them rather than to turn into sea foam. As a spirit of the air, she gets an immortal soul, so she can go to heaven in 300 years. But each time she visits the house of a good child, that time is reduced.

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The lonely sailors were attracted to the strange woman out at sea, they would sail their ship toward them and even some men would exit the ship to get to them. Once in arms reach of the mermaids, their facade would fall and the men would see an ugly woman but could not get away before they would drag them to the inky-depths of the

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The existence of fairy tales have been around for years, throughout the years there have been many interpretations and retells of the stories, an example is Little Red Riding Hood, this traditional fairy tale is one known in different forms. Overall Little Red Riding Hood’s topic in most of the retells is to listen to parents, since they know best. In Grimm’s version, “Little Red Cap”, the theme is about the loss of childhood innocence, obeying parents, as well as being cautious with one 's surroundings. Meanwhile, Angela Carter’s feminist version of the film “The Company of Wolves”, is about the loss of sexual innocence. Although there are many details within both the film and the story that are relatively the same, there are also aspects that show the difference in both female protagonists.

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Life 's full of tough choices, innit?" (Clements and Musker). This issue of surrendering feminine individuality in pursuit of the approval of men transcends both versions of the story, and plays into who the mermaid is, what she stands for, and what she thinks of her

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