The Difference Between Two Tails Often times people forget that Walt Disney got many of his ideas for movies from previous fairy-tales and folklore. Since I was young my personal favorite Disney movie has been The Little Mermaid.. However, it scarcely crossed my mind as I grew older that there was a different story contradicting almost everything in the film. Despite bearing some similarities, the striking differences between Hans Christian Andersen’s and Walt Disney’s tales of The Little Mermaid have just furthered my love for Disney’s version. Andersen’s tale of “The Little Mermaid”, originally published in 1837, features a nameless mermaid who is referred to, simply, as the Little Mermaid. She is ten years old at the beginning of the story
In this adaptation, she is sixteen years old at the start of the film and the youngest of King Triton’s (The Sea King) seven daughters. In this film, Ariel is portrayed much different from how Andersen described his Little Mermaid. Ariel is a very joyful character who has an adventurous and vibrant personality. She has a mind of her own and does much of what she wants to, whether it’s against her father’s rules or not. Showing her independence, Ariel often says things along the lines of “I 'm not a child anymore!” to her father, the Sea King, and her mentor figure, Sebastian the
Readers know that he is sixteen years old and that the mermaid is infatuated with him (and much of humankind in general). The Prince does not know that he had been saved by the Little Mermaid, but instead thinks that the person who saved his life is the girl at the convent who found him on the shoreline. After finding the Little Mermaid he treats her much like a little girl. He says to the Little Mermaid “Yes, you are dear to me… for you have the best heart, and you are the most devoted to me… [but] she is the only one in the world whom I could love; but you are like her, and you have driven her image out of my mind.” (Andersen 10) By saying this to her, the Prince is expressing to the Little Mermaid that he has busied himself with her so much, since she is devoted to him, that he has nearly forgotten the girl he saw outside the convent. In this light, the Prince very much seems like he is just using the
The Prince is hoping to gain some crew to join him on his journey. He also wants the men to help him get rid of the suitors. The prince starts off by saying “My distinguished father is lost, who ruled among you once, mild as a father evil still: my house and all I have is being ruined” (2.49-52).
Throughout the years, the story of Cinderella has changed as different authors, including the Brothers Grimm and Walt Disney have weaved their perspectives, morals, and agendas into their retellings. Just as varying rhetors can ha...
Most women in their childhood had probably dreamt of being a princess and meeting their charming prince. As Walt Disney’s figures have been influential in this sense, the ideal portrayal of princesses still attracts young girls who imitate them, their lifestyle and their physical appearance. In Sleeping Beauty (1959) and in The Little Mermaid (1989) the narration is focused on the search for true love, personified by a prince, for self-accomplishment. It is crucial to differentiate the representation of femininity of the two protagonists in the two movies to better understand if the role of Princesses has changed over those last thirty years. The main figures in both movies
Under the sea, in an idyllic and beautiful garden, stands a statue of a young man cut out of cold stone – for the Little Mermaid who knows nothing but the sea, the statue stands as an emblem of the mysterious over-world, a stimulus for imagination and sexual desire, an incentive for expansion of experience, and most predominately, an indication that something great and all-encompassing is missing from her existence. Traces of curiosity and a vague indication of the complexities of adult desires mark the child mermaid; in such a stage of development, the statue will suffice. However, as the Little Mermaid reaches puberty, the statue must allegorically come alive in order to parallel the manifestation of her new-found adult desires – the statue must become a prince in his world of adulthood above the sea. Thus, powered by an insistent and ambiguous longing for self-completion, the Little Mermaid embarks on a journey of self-discovery, and, to her ultimate misfortune, prematurely abandons her child-like self as sexual lust and the lust for an adult life takes hold of her.
...aves Princess Jasmine multiple times and falling in love at first sight. They also live happily ever-after together, just as every other Disney prince and princess in every other Disney movie. Parents should be aware of the subliminal messages that their children view in the Disney movies they are watching, and grow up to believe that is how life goes. The children that are growing up watching Disney movies with such strong gender stereotypes are learning things they may factor into their own futures, and think that acting the way of the Disney roles is the only way for them to live their life in a happy manner. The way Disney animated films assign gender roles to their characters effect young children’s views of right and wrong in society. It is wrong, and they should not be exposed to such material growing up because it is harmful to their future expectations.
Trites, Roberta. "Disney's Sub / Version of Andersen's The Little Mermaid." Journal of Popular Film and Television 18.4 (1991): 145-52. Print.
Produced in 2009, The Frog Princess is a Disney animation inspired by the Grimm Brothers’ fairytale, The Frog Prince. Both The Frog Princess and The Frog Prince deal with a multiplicity of issues, all of which contribute to supporting positive messages and morals (Ceaser, 2009). However, though The Frog Princess is based on a classic fairytale, it is far from being the same. The writers at Disney have taken a classic fairytale and created a “Monster” (Prince, 2001). This essay will examine the evolution of the original Grimm Brothers’ fairytale, the messages both main characters represent, and how the adaptation to fit a modern child readership diminishes a classic fairytale. Through discussing these arguments, this paper will prove that Disney’s adaptation into The Princess and The Frog is counter-productive in representing the original story’s messages, morals, and values.
As stated in “Where Do The Mermaid’s Stand”, Ariel was fascinated in discovering the human world. Her fascination reached the point where she was scolded by her father to never go above water. Sadly her fascination ended when she sees Prince Eric and instantly falls in love with him. Her motive then becomes to marry him and eventually join him on land. “Her interest in the role of citizen becomes supplanted by her interest in the role of wife”.
...depicts human love as a product of maturity, whereas Disney depicts it as a cause of maturity” (Trites 4). This fundamental change of maturity in Disney’s version is where the problem rests, teaching audiences that seeking a mate is the path to maturity and independence for women, when in reality love is complicated and ever changing. The “disneyfication” of The Little Mermaid perpetuates negative aspects of American cultural ideals, losing the moral integrity and lessons intended to be taught from the original fairytale.
In both Hans Christian Andersons “The Little Mermaid,” and Disney’s version of the story, the main character— a young and beautiful mermaid— waits anxiously for her fifteenth birthday to venture from her father’s underwater castle to the world above the water. As the story carries on the mermaids priorities change; her modest and selfless nature is revealed towards the end in Andersen’s version. However, Disney’s version encompasses a rather shallow ending and plot throughout. The theme found in comparing the two versions reveal that Andersen’s substance trumps Disney’s entertainment factor in fairy tales.
No matter how much we try and do everything right, some things just are not meant to be and the mermaid was not meant for the prince (Ingwersen). Love can make people go crazy and they will do anything to receive that same love and passion back from them (Cravens). In this story, the little mermaid is madly in love with the prince and she does everything and anything to gain love back from him. “Stick out your little tongue, and let me cut it off in payment, and you shall have the potion." "Let it happen," whispered the little mermaid” (Andersen).
Even though fairy tales don’t always end the way we want them to, we usually expect them to end with prince charming saving a princess. However, according to the Grimms Brothers version, “The Frog King,” the princess actually saves the prince. An innocent naive princess comes across a frog that once was a prince. Therefore, the only way he can overcome this curse is to ask a princess to fully have her assurance into becoming his companion. The moral of this fairy tale is express how appearances are deceiving. We don’t fully have an understanding what true beauty looks like until it is standing in front of us. The three main symbols that emphasize the true beauty in this fairytale is the frog, the fountain, and the golden ball.
In many fairy tales, there is always a damsel in distress that is beautiful and the male character always falls in love with her. In Rapunzel the short story, Rapunzel is put into a tower and lives there most of her young life by her ‘mother’ before her prince comes to recuse her. The difference between Tangled and Rapunzel the short story is that, Rapunzel is the princess and her prince is actually a thief, which ends up falling in love with her. Tangled illustrates how a naïve and beautiful heroine, evil mother figure, and a shallow egotistical hero can make a fairy tale story end with love and marriage.
As the poem begins, Sexton starts with how the Prince and Cinderella are living happily ever after, but compromising the original naïve direction, she gives the poem a modern context bringing the reader back to reality. While it is obvious to the audience the discrepancies in Sexton’s version, it brings out many jealousies many of us struggle with, such as wealth and everlasting happiness. Sexton makes her audience notice early on many of the pre-conceived notions and expectations we bring to fairy tales. Sexton knows that real life gives no reason to be perceived as happiness, because why learn something that will never amount to use in reality? This tale is Sexton’s answer to her audiences of the “happ...
Over the years, fairytales have been distorted in order to make them more family friendly. Once these changes occur, the moral and purpose of the stories begin to disappear. The tales featured in the many Disney movies - beloved by so many - have much more malignant and meaningful origins that often served to scare children into obeying their parents or learning valuable life lessons.