How The Little Mermaid Informed My Voice By Losing Hers
Foam on the ocean and the foundations of a feminist identity
As a girl, I was captivated by the mythical realms presented in fairy tales.
Through them, I could escape the mundane and transport myself into a world of escape. And no tale held my attention quite the way that Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid did.
To briefly summarize the famous story: the Little Mermaid longs to be a part of the world beyond her ocean home and gain an immortal soul. On one of her visits to the surface, she saves a drowning prince and falls in love.
She seeks the aid of a Sea Witch who makes her a potion that gives her legs in return for giving up her voice and living a life of unending pain.
She can never return to the ocean, and if the prince marries someone else, the Little Mermaid will die of a broken heart at dawn and return to foam on the ocean.
When this marriage does happen, despite the prince declaring his love, the Little Mermaid’s sisters give her another option to death. If she kills the prince with a magical dagger, she can return to her life as a mermaid.
When it comes to it, she cannot take his life. Her body then dissolves into foam on the ocean, but…
