Reclaiming The Little Mermaid’s Voice
The Surface Breaks
by Louise O’Neill
Retellings of fairy tales add much needed female and modern perspectives to age-loved tales. One of my favourite anthologies is Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber. Young Adult fiction has also explored numerous tales from Beastly by Alex Flinn to Cinder by Marissa Meyer. Louise O’Neill, author of the YA book Asking for It and the adult book, Almost Love, lends her perspective to Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid.
Muirgen has grown up as the sixth daughter to the Sea King and his favourite. Being his favourite has its costs: she is expected to look beautiful, sing on demand and be agreeable to him on every occasion. She and her sisters grow up amidst a back drop of fear for their father and his powers. On her sixteenth birthday Muirgen is allowed to break the surface for the first time. Whilst she is there she falls in love with the human, Oliver, and rescues him from a shipwreck and the clutches of the Rusulka, risking the wrath of both her father and the sea witch.
The Surface Breaks is a version of The Little Mermaid that adds depth and nuance to a harrowing tale. It is easy to forget the darker aspects of the story when the film version omits the cutting out of the Little Mermaid’s tongue and her pain of walking on knives every time she takes a step. O’Neill doesn’t shy away from the darker aspects of the tale and we see Muirgen’s pain in gruesome detail. We are presented with a young woman willing to give up so much of herself in order to fall in love with a man, leading to the question of what tales like this suggested at the time, making this tale relevant to contemporary readers.
Muirgen’s loss of voice is fully explored. She was trying to escape a suffocating patriarchal sea kingdom where the female voice wasn’t heard, making Muirgen believe her voice wasn’t of value. Her escape comes in the form of Ceto, who offers her legs in exchange for her voice. She gives up her voice easily in a world where her voice is barely heard. This means she does so without considering the impact of her decision. It is heartbreaking to follow Muirgen’s journey, showing how little is required from Oliver and how much is asked of her, in order to marry and live the life she wants.
The development of the Sea Witch, Ceto is another brilliant aspect of the text. O’Neill addresses the use of an overweight villain in the film version to explore societies expectations of women being a certain shape and size. She builds Ceto’s backstory and makes the conversation between her and Muirgen more nuanced, highlighting Muirgen’s naivety when she gives up her voice. In this version Ceto is not cruel, but wise. The additional chapter at the end of the book gives a tantalising look at Ceto’s life before she became ‘The Sea Witch.’ Is this a hint that there will be a sequel?
O’Neill challenges the idea that a man can fall in love with a woman without the ability to communicate. In doing so the story emphasises the importance of female voice and personality, which the original tale doesn’t explore. Muirgen is more able to observe and understand Oliver: who he is to his mother, his friends and his true character, revealing a different side to Oliver from the person she first saw.
This book is great for those interested in fairy tale retellings, but also YA readers interested in relationship dynamics — both romantic and familial. Importantly, it is a tale that follows a girl discovering her own identity and becoming her own woman.
4.5/5 stars
‘We are sisters,’ Sophia says. ‘We need each other, Muirgen. We always have.’ p.272
‘I have sacrificed so much for this man; I have given up my family, my home, my identity. I have mutilated my body, carving it into something unrecognizable, just so he will find me beautiful. Not even beautiful, but acceptable.’ p.274
‘They warned us that our powers were too loud. Too shrill. And so women became quiet because we were promised we would be happier that way.’ p.288
‘I have a real choice, for the first time in my life. I can be whatever I want to be.’ p.309
