I found this version
of the little mermaid story to much darker yet much more inspirational than the
Disney version to which I am accustomed. This version dealt with mortality
versus immortality and the power of love and sacrifice. Here is a look into
Andersen's life to help explain why:
Hans Christian
Andersen grew up in Odense, Denmark in a poor community. He desired to take his
inheritance and forge a new life for himself in the world of art. Lady inmates
at the Odense Hospital told Andersen folk-tales which became the starting point
for his later work.
"In this respect
Andersen also stands between two worlds: the popular old oral narrative
tradition and the modern world with its culture of books and focus on the role
of the author."
Andersen's poor
father did own several books - one of which was the Arabian Nights.
When Andersen left
his home in 1819 as a fourteen year old boy, he made an attempt to become
successful in the world of theater (Odense had been one of a few cities with a
theater). This attempt proved to be in vain and Andersen was sent to school to
see if something couldn't be mad out of him.
"Having left
Odense and opted for art, Andersen had only one option: to get up and get on.
However, this was exactly the point at which he experienced the suffering and
humiliation that follow from leaving one world without having quite been
accepted by another and higher one, an experience shared by the Little Mermaid
(1837)"
"Nevertheless,
after his school years in Slagelse and Elsinore, Copenhagen also came to mean
something positive in his development: here the proletarian Andersen acquired
the culture and education associated with bourgeois circles in the Golden Age
that encompassed the last years of absolute monarchy, and Andersen,
fundamentally sensitive and sentimental, learned to use the light and ironic
Copenhagen wit, particularly the lethal form he knew from the Collin family and
from the dominant circle around the dramatist and critic Johan Ludvig Heiberg.
Andersen's entire production of tales is, as it were, suspended between these
two poles, heart and wit, sensitivity and irony, nature and culture..."
Just like the little mermaid, Andersen ventures out on his own and fails in the world of theater which he loves. This could be considered a parallel to the little mermaid's loss of voice in order to become land bound. Andersen also grew up poor where material possessions were not of priority and during a time when their was no religious freedom. The little mermaid's desire to leave home and chase after an immortal soul reflects this lack of religious freedom as well as the trend in emigration to Denmark in a time of prosperity.
Just like the little mermaid, Andersen ventures out on his own and fails in the world of theater which he loves. This could be considered a parallel to the little mermaid's loss of voice in order to become land bound. Andersen also grew up poor where material possessions were not of priority and during a time when their was no religious freedom. The little mermaid's desire to leave home and chase after an immortal soul reflects this lack of religious freedom as well as the trend in emigration to Denmark in a time of prosperity.
http://www.andersen.sdu.dk/liv/minibio/index_e.html
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