Walt Disney The Little Mermaid Character Analysis

Walt Disney Pictures films have created dozens of both classic and contemporary films that have stood the test of time. Disney has taught with generations of people valuable life lessons by illustrating good and evil. Films are good ways to share both fictional and real stories that have antagonist, which causes conflict. In Disney films, the antagonist often represents societies view of what a monster is. Disney uses commonly known ‘monsters’ as characters to create stories while maintaining the fact that there are a variety of villains that differ from culture to culture. Commonly understood as being evil or wicked or ugly and deformed, but there is also another side to this common belief that monsters fall under that belief.

The Walt Disney

The kingdom is also home to the stories antagonist, Ursula, an evil Sea Witch that takes advantage of innocent Ariel’s dreams. The Farlex Dictionary describes a monster as “An imaginary or legendary creature that combines parts from various animal or human forms” Ursula’s character fits this because she is based off the Greek monster Medusa and is an animal that takes on some forms of a human. When Ariel becomes of age and falls in love with a price that is human and lives on dry land she goes to the Sea Witch Ursula in hopes of becoming human. Ursla sells young Ariel a potion that turns her mermaid tail into legs in exchange for her tongue, and with that she must kiss the prince in three days, among other terms. Ariel drinks the potion Ursla sold her and became a mute human. When Ariel gets to land she was getting too close to fulfilling the terms of the agreement, upset Ursula intervenes by becoming a beautiful woman that “magically hypnotizes Eric into marrying” her. As the prince finds out the truth it is too late for Ariel as the sunsets she returns to the ocean because the deal is broken. Ursula gains much power from this situation and becomes the ruler of the undersea kingdom. A fight breaks out between Ursula, Ariel, and the prince resulting in Ursula death. With the death of Ursula the people she

Another definition of the word monster from the Oxford English Dictionary is “an ugly or deformed person, animal, or thing”. Disney takes this definition and teaches its audience that just because someone is ugly or deformed it doesn’t mean that are evil or monstrous. Contrary to the common understanding that deformities are evil Disney creates a story of a deformed man that gets judged by his outside instead of inside. In the 1996 film, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Quasimodo (the hunchback) lives isolated in a bell tower by his adoptive father in fear his son will be shunned because of his deformity. Quasimodo looks different from the normal human as he is a hunchback and also has prematurely aged so he looks much older than he is. By definition he is a monster, but The Hunchback is nothing like the perception people have of him. Ronald Britton writes of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, stating in a journal that being “rejected as an infant and to feel regarded as a monster” creates a monster, which is how Quasimodo felt growing up isolated in the confines of his room (Britton). This supports the theory that monsters are cultural because it is a mentality; when you are perceived as a monster the chances of believe it are much higher. Although Quasimodo is deformed he is very compassionate and loving. In this film, Disney is attempting to illustrate to people that just because