ipl-logo

The Little Mermaid Character Analysis

1321 Words6 Pages

Whether she is singing "Part of Your World" from within a cavern filled with knick-knacks or watching longingly as her sisters partake in the wonders of age old traditions on the surface, the Little Mermaid is a fairytale character which countless children have enjoyed encountering throughout the nearly two centuries that she has existed. In the time between The Little Mermaid 's conception and the present, this tale about a young sea-princess longing for a life out of the ocean has been adapted into multiple stories, plays, musicals, and films; yet, with each adaptation comes a different set of artistic liberties taken by the creators which meld the mermaid into a form which vastly contrasts with the original text. The original Little Mermaid …show more content…

Despite the fact that The Little Mermaid is an iconic story with memorable characters and is beloved by millions of people, it is still evident that the premise is problematic, especially when its target audience is young, impressionable children (primarily females) who are themselves still trying to form their own identities. Her change from mermaid to human denotes a huge shift in who she is as a character, as she is literally being changed from one being to another, and in doing so she must do away with everything that made her who she was before she met the prince: a mermaid, a princess, a daughter, a sister, a beautiful singer, and more. This may have been considered collateral damage by both Andersen and Disney, but it does not excuse the reality of the impact of the message the story promotes. In the Disney film, Ariel considers what the cost of being human would be as she negotiates with the sea witch, "If I become a human, that means I 'll never be with my father or sisters again" (Clements and Musker), to which the Sea-Witch Ursula replies, "That 's right...But--you 'll have your man. 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

Show More
Related
1469 Words | 6 Pages

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.

Read More
722 Words | 3 Pages

Rhetorical Analysis Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and many other Disney movies all have one thing in common, they feature a female lead who need a male figure to save them. However, things started to change after the release of Mulan 1988. It changed from only having those female leads who always needed to rely on someone, to females who were able to show off their more masculine side. In the article “Post-Princess Models of Gender: The New Man in Pixar/Disney,” Ken Gillam and Shannon R. Wooden explored the idea that Pixar movies were starting to show male characters who weren 't afraid to show their emotions and feminine attributes, to promote the “New Man” model.

Read More
952 Words | 4 Pages

After reading “Mermaid Fever,” the statement that I think this essay makes about societal attitudes is that people will react and behave very strangely to anything that is out of the ordinary. The narrator bases his essay on a public beach, located in a small town in Connecticut, and out of the blue, this teenage girl’s body was washed up under the tide line one summer night. After extensive scientific tests and examinations on the body, the news finally broke out that the girl was a mermaid. The girl was soon transferred to a local museum in town where she would be put on a glass display that will be open to the public. This news brought the whole city together, and people waited in line for hours just to observe this fond discovery.

Read More
378 Words | 2 Pages

In Peggy Orenstein’s book, she effectively argues that a princess-like society immersed in America's culture is damaging to young girls through her interviews, evidence, personal experience, and humorous tone. Starting towards the beginning of her book, Orenstein exposes to the audience that she too liked Disney. She says that "God knows I was a Disney kid. I still have my bona fide mouse ears" (Orenstein 13). By doing this, Orenstein conveys her knowledge of the two sides of her argument: Disney is damaging to young kids or vice versa.

Read More
394 Words | 2 Pages

“Ariel” from the Little Mermaid envisions a life with two legs as a walking human. There is a comparison between the two characters and it all comes down to their nature of conformity. In the scene of Adventure Time, Marceline is tied up and about to be dazed by the light of the rising sun. As the sunlight hits her, flashbacks becomes present. It shows Marceline eager to play outside, but her mother tells her it is nap time.

Read More
1343 Words | 6 Pages

However, the later Disney films have gradually attempted to break away from this stereotype resulting in stronger female characters like Ariel, Mulan, and Elsa among others. Keeping this transition in mind, this paper uses semiotic analysis of four popular Disney films, namely, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), The Little Mermaid (1989) and Mulan (1998) to depict the influence of societies ' changing perceptions of women on the portrayal of Disney princesses. These films taking into account the earliest film and certain popular characters that have represented a shift from being the coy damsel in distress to a woman who plays an active role in determining her own destiny. The portrayal of the Disney princess has changed in accordance with the development of women in society over time (1937 to 2013) from demure and traditional to

Read More
1393 Words | 6 Pages

The Little Mermaid: Hegemonic Femininity The transition from a girl to a woman is created by the socially constructed ideals of femininity often depicted in commercials, books, and mainly films. One of the famous animated princess Disney films, The Little Mermaid can be easily added to yet another Disney film portraying hegemonic femininity. In the 1989 film The Little Mermaid, (Ron Clements, John Musker) a beautiful, young mermaid is willing to make a risky deal with an evil sea-witch because she yearns to walk on land and fall in love with a Prince, while secretly the sea-witch wishes for the mermaid to lose the deal. Ultimately, mermaid ends up achieving her dream of marrying the Prince, although the evil sea-witch tries to destroy the plan.

Read More
569 Words | 3 Pages

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.

Read More
1427 Words | 6 Pages

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.

Read More
1512 Words | 7 Pages

Across cultures and civilizations, the sea has always been an important figure both in the benefits it provides in daily life and its presence in storytelling. In consequence, sea monsters have been important figures in myths and stories whether it be in 1000 BCE Babylonian culture, or in 20th century America. The Babylonian Enuma Elish and Disney’s 1989 The Little Mermaid both feature a powerful female antagonist, Tiamat and Ursula, respectively, and these two figures bear many similarities. In both stories, the female antagonist holds strong relationship to the sea, and has supernatural abilities that aid her in her quest to defeat the heroic characters in the story.

Read More
327 Words | 2 Pages

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.

Read More
1304 Words | 6 Pages

Ariel is portrayed as a feisty young woman who defies her father, saves prince Eric from drowning drown and battles killer sharks while looking for sunken treasures. She is s the all-time brave, beautiful feisty heroine. However, her waist is to tiny for the human body, and her only goal in the movie is to marry prince Eric at the age of sixteen. Sadly, the antagonist is an overweight woman who wears too much makeup. So, Ariel still being this positive image to girls still fits right into the stereotype that all girls want to be is married especially to the hot prince Eric. ,

Read More
597 Words | 3 Pages

The movie “The Princess and the Frog” is not your typical “boy saves girl” movie. Instead, this Disney movie presents us with a strong female lead who doesn’t need a man to achieve her goals. In many previous Disney movies, it is demonstrated that a girl needs a man in order to get her happily ever after. Without a prince, she is nothing. In “The Princess and the Frog” the gender roles are presented to us as equal, even reverse at times.

Read More
1690 Words | 7 Pages

The Little Mermaid which was produced in 1989, was the first Disney movie to challenge the traditional gender roles, for the fact that Ariel wanted to explore, and was more independent and assertive in her desires than the earlier princesses of the 1930’s and 50s films. Also the prince in The Little Mermaid went against traditional gender roles as well, simply because he was more affectionate and loving than his prince counterparts in other Disney films. “Both the male and female roles have changed over time, but overall the male characters evinced less change then the female characters and were more androgynous throughout.” (Descartes & England, pg.566). Disney movies have been for a long time a strong media target for children, and can serve as a way to address stereotypical gender roles (Leaper, 2000).

Read More
1785 Words | 8 Pages

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.

Read More

More about The Little Mermaid Character Analysis

Open Document