"The Little Mermaid", A3, Watercolours Acrylics
"The Little Mermaid" is a well-known fairy tale by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen about a
young mermaid willing to give up her life in the sea and her identity as a mermaid to gain a human soul and
the love of a human prince.
young mermaid willing to give up her life in the sea and her identity as a mermaid to gain a human soul and
the love of a human prince.
gave to the Little Mermaid.
"In Maria Tatar's The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, the transformation of the little mermaid from sea
creature to mermaid in human form to a creature of the air is believed to reflect Andersen's constant
engagement with mutability and changes in identity.
Tatar also suggests that the Little Mermaid did not give up everything for love alone. The tale presents a rare
heroine with investigative curiosity because she is fascinated by the unknown, the forbidden, and is
intent on broadening her horizons from the beginning. Even before she saw the prince, she displayed an intense longing to visit the world above the sea by arranging the flowers in her garden into the shape of the
sun, listening to her grandmother and sisters' stories of the surface, and peeking in through the window of the prince's cabin during his birthday celebrations.
She wants, above all, to explore the world and discover things that are beyond what she already knows.
The world above seems larger than her own and holds a greater range of possibilities to exercise her
adventurous spirit. This is demonstrated in some versions of the story when the prince has a page
boy's costume made for her so that she may ride on horseback and explore the land with him.
Her willingness to cross-dress implies a willingness to transgress gender boundaries and take risks to
be able to see the world. Tatar feels this also comments on Andersen's interests in changes in
identity.
Rictor Norton, in My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries, theorizes that The Little
Mermaid was written as a love letter by Hans Christian Andersen to Edvard Collin. This is based on a letter Andersen wrote to Collin, upon hearing of Collin’s engagement to a young woman, around the same
time that the Little Mermaid was written. Andersen wrote ”I languish for you as for a pretty Calabrian
wench... my sentiments for you are those of a woman. The femininity of my nature and our friendship must
remain a mystery.”
Norton interprets this as a declaration of Andersen's homosexual love for Collin."
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