hans christian andersen quote at sfo terminal

So, taking all this into account, what does the story of the little mermaid actually mean? Should we analyse ‘The Little Mermaid’ as a tale about love, or about immortality, or about selflessness, or about religion (the little mermaid wants to ‘live’ forever through some spiritual or supernatural means)? It’s true that she loves him before this, and she saves his life before she knows he can be of practical value to her but once she learns that he may be her royal road (as it were) to souldom (to coin a word … or perhaps ‘soulhood’?), her focus seems to be on this, rather than on any happiness she will necessarily enjoy with the prince while she is still alive once she has joined the human world. And indeed, the little mermaid’s tears of happiness when she learns she has become a daughter of the air confirm what we have suspected all along: that what she really wants is a soul, and she sees the prince as her chance to gain one. On this note, it’s worth reflecting that Andersen initially ended the story with the mermaid’s dissolution on the surface of the waves he revised it to give it a more hopeful conclusion. Barrie’s mind when he came up with the idea of a fairy dropping down dead every time a child lies), and they seem an odd fit for the rest of the tale’s moral thrust (why should the ‘daughters of the air’ be blamed for other people’s children being naughty?), the conclusion to the story does manage to be both satisfying and unexpected. The best we can do is to act well towards them, and to the world at large.Īlthough modern readers in particular may blanch at the final sentences of the story (which, one wonders, may have been on J. Instead, the rather more bittersweet ending is more mature and realistic: we cannot make people love us if they do not, and we have to live with that fact. Andersen avoids the (perhaps expected) happy ending whereby the prince and the little mermaid are married and live happily ever after, with her gaining a soul and truly joining the world of humans. This is one of the aspects of ‘The Little Mermaid’ which make it such a rewarding tale (see the picture above for the popular statue in Copenhagen depicting the title character). Although the mermaid fails in her quest to gain the prince’s hand in marriage and thus a human soul, she does learn when she dies that there is ‘life’ after being a mermaid, and that her kind actions in her life (saving the prince’s life, and then letting him live even though it will mean her own death) carry some (long-term) reward. ‘The Little Mermaid’ is that rare and paradoxical thing: a tragic tale with a happy ending. And that is how the story of the little mermaid ends. But if they travel into a house where a bad child is bringing shame to its parents, a year is added onto their time in this ‘limbo’.

Each house they travel into on the breeze, if they find a good child who is a credit to its parents, one year is taken off their three hundred. Her spirit floats up into the air and she is informed by other mermaid spirits or ‘daughters of the air’ that, whilst they cannot gain a soul, they have a chance to do so if they provide a useful service to the world by bringing cooling breezes to the hot winds in warmer parts of the globe.Īt the end of their three centuries of service, they can create their own everlasting soul – and they can shorten the period of time it takes to earn one. The mermaid sinks back under the water, with the prince entirely unaware of her existence, or that she has saved his life. The little mermaid is initially delighted when she sees the prince sinking beneath the water – as it means he can join her – but then she remembers that humans cannot survive underwater, so she rescues him and takes him to shore at a temple, where some novice girls appear and one of them restores the prince to consciousness. The little mermaid is instantly attracted to him. The people on board are celebrating the birthday of a handsome prince. When it’s finally the turn of the little mermaid, she notices a ship, which contains royalty.

In turn, each of the sisters reaches that age and goes up to the surface, returning below the sea to tell her sisters what she has seen. The sisters are looked after by their grandmother, who tells them that when a mermaid reaches the age of fifteen, she can rise to the surface of the water and explore the world above the surface.

Hans christian andersen quote at sfo terminal