The Little Mermaid Explained
A Mythological Analysis
The Little Mermaid is a Disney movie from 1989, which has been based on the fairy tale by Danish author Hans Christian Anderson from 1837. It’s a mythological story that symbolises the initiation of females into the world of men when the father is absent. Mythological stories are maps of the brain and teaches how one should behave in life in order to get what one wants. In The Little Mermaid it is the quest for true love. There’s real truth in this story as told by the (half blind?) sailor:
But it ain’t nonsense, it is the truth. I’m telling you down in the depths of the ocean they live. Heave-ho.
General Symbolism: The Sea, Wreckages and the Surface
One could look at this movie as an insight into the brain. All characters and objects shown are present inside of you and resonate within you. That’s why children can understand these motion pictures when they do not yet master the language. Psychoanalyst Carl Jung describes these entities as archetypes, innate neurological behavioral patterns. They are social archaic evolutionary conserved parts that have helped us to survive and reproduce. They are part of the so-called collective unconscious, a shared unconsciousness between all human beings.
Ariel, the Little Mermaid, resides under the surface of the ocean. In other words, she’s in the unconscious and wants to come up to the surface into the conscious. Water, sea or oceans are often symbols for the unconsciousness and you can find this back in many mythological stories and even in your dreams. For example, we find the same theme in Pinocchio where he goes down into the ocean to rescue his father from the belly of a whale. Also in Christianity we find similar instances where Christ is ICHTUS, the fish, and the apostles are all fishermen that reel things up from the deep.
The Sea can also be described as the unknown that requires exploring. The unknown is a dangerous place where sharks live, but also a place where treasures can be found. This is similar to the idea that dragons hoard gold. One needs to confront the unknown in order to find things that are valuable.
The Wreckages on the ocean floor represent old historical structures of the brain that have been lingering in the depths for ages. In a way similar to the Mines of Moria in The Lord of the Rings, or perhaps the elephant graveyard in the Lion King. They make up the underworld.
Father and Daughter
King Triton is the father or Ariel and ruler of the sea. The father represents order and culture. Though his intentions are good, his rule is too tight and suffocating, therefore Ariel is escaping his kingdom in order to explore beyond. What is beyond? The world of males, sexuality and love, but also of danger, pain and abuse. Triton is afraid of his daughter falling into the hands of these malevolent elements and therefore is overprotective and a dictator. He’s afraid because he doesn’t know how to prepare his daughter into adulthood and is not ready to let her go. He’s a silly man, with no good knowledge on women. And it makes him unconscious about Ariel’s desire to go to the surface and fall in love. It’s a pathological relationship between the father and daughter, as his job is to prepare Ariel for finding a mate and not protect her from it. The father is the first male contact for a daughter and he should show her how to navigate the world of men. The father’s a precursor to the ultimate male counterpart of the daughter and one day he should make place for the real prince. That’s why in ceremonial marriage it is the father who gives away the daughter to the groom. It is more than symbolism, it is the role a father should take up for his daughter and in the marriage he plays his final part. It has become an empty ritual or is not even present at all at marriages these days.
This distorted relationship between father and daughter is a common mythological theme and therefore probably also in life. In the Lord of the Rings (The Two Towers) it is at the darkest point when Lord Elrond tries to protect his daughter Arwen from falling in love with a man who is not yet king and wants to send her off to the never-dying lands.
The father’s repressive behavior makes Ariel create a hidden collection where she can dream of a life on land. When he finds out about the hidden cave he destroys her collection and in a sense tries to destroy her dream. The motion pictures portrays this malevolent act of the father beautifully and hides him in darkness. He exposes how he thinks of the world of men and literally says:
Know him? I don’t have to know him. They’re all the same. Spineless, savage, harpooning fish-eaters. Incapable of any feelings.
He shows how he’s not connected with his feminine side and his emotional world and his words are just a reflection of how he sees men (including himself).
But Ariel’s desire and commitment are stronger than the repression. She breaks out and now falls into the tentacles of the malevolent mother, Ursula. She will have free reign over the terms how Ariel will come to surface. They are not pleasant.
Ursula: The Malevolent Mother
The sea witch Ursula initiates Ariel into the life of men, but at a cost for the little mermaid. She has to give up her voice in order to have legs and walk on land. The voice is symbol for the inner or the soul, Ariel’s true part.
When entering the cave, Ursula says:
We mustn’t lurk in doorways. It is rude. One might question your upbringing.
Which of course is true as Triton failed on his part. Because of that, Ariel’s naive and uncultured, and her awkward behavior will display itself more later.
Now, Ursula is truly evil. She’s a jealous and superficial woman who lost the opportunity at true love when she was young. That has made her resentful. To cope she has to destroy it in her surroundings. She thinks that a woman is just a body and neglects the inner. She’s a false good doer and is only interested in eradicating true love. Her ambition’s actually rise further as her ultimate goal is to dominate the male and destroy Triton’s kingship. Ursula also has a disturbed view of men and can only connect with them at the bodily level. In her song it’s depicted as she explains what to do without a voice:
You have your looks, your pretty face, and don’t underestimate the importance of body language.
Not that those are bad things. But to find true love, one has to speak and show the inner as well. The song continues with:
The men up there don’t like a lot of blabber
They think a girl who gossips is a bore
Yet on land it’s much preferred for ladies not to say a word
And after all dear, what is idle babble for?
Come on, they’re not all that impressed with conversation
True gentlemen avoid it when they can
But they dote and swoon and fawn
On a lady who’s withdrawn
It’s she who holds her tongue who gets a man
An indication of how Ursula sees men as superficial who are not interested in women with soul. It’s bad and dangerous advise, because if you don’t speak up you’ll get (ab)used.
But she accepts the deal at the cost of her voice and is being initiated into adulthood. Ariel remarks:
If I become human… I’ll never be with my father or sisters again.
Yep, baby! You’re leaving the nest. The mermaid gets 3 days in order to find true love. This probably is an indication for women that time is ticking and your window of fertility is time bound (where as men can possibly have children all their life). And you wouldn’t want to have babies when you don’t find a true love to be your partner. That will lead to unstable family situations and divorce, a dreadful outcome for mother and child.
I haven’t seen all Disney movies, but this one is by far the most sexual one I’ve seen. We humans have to survive and reproduce. Becoming an adult means you’re getting fertile and ready to mate. This Disney story is about what the right mate is and how to find it. The sexual is being displayed constantly throughout the motion picture. I was watching it and I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Ursula’s hideout looks like the inside of a body and she’s actually sitting in a giant vulva including clitoris. Maybe you could even see the crystal ball as an ovulating egg…! And kids watch this. Yikes!
On the Surface: The Quest for True Love
On the surface, Prince Eric discovers Ariel dressed in cloth and unable to speak. The Prince replies directly:
You can’t speak?! Then you couldn’t be who I thought.
He has heard her sing before when he was rescued by her, but now he’s not recognizing her. That rescue scene by the way was I think a symbol for Ariel trying to save her male side from unconsciousness as the prince was drowning. This counterpart in Jungian psychology is called the anima/animus. So, men have an anima and women have an animus. The role of this archetype is to reflect back on the hero and show them they are not living up to their potential. In the Lord of the Rings it is Arwen who’s the anima of Aragorn, who tells him what path to walk. In the Lion King, Nala is the anima who points out to Simba that he’s a king and should return to pride rock. And here it’s Prince Eric who tells Ariel that she’s not her true self and not using her voice. It is the incorporation of the anima/animus in order to become whole and dispel all evil. And why not? The anima is a biological evolutionary machine that enables high reproduction and survival chances. It should be inside you for the sake of human proliferation.
So she’s wearing a piece of sail. Which is funnily being washed by gossiping women who think they know better what a princess is. It’s perhaps one of the true things Ursula said about men… that they don’t like gossiping women.
Anyways, the rags are an indication that there’s something off with her. She’s uncultured, unsocialized and cannot behave properly. This is a result of the poor role her father played. It makes her awkward and weird with men. She takes a fork through her hair, she blows through the pipe, her horse is out of control. Fortunately, she has some other virtues to make up for it and the prince is not too much bothered about it.
But she’s not using her voice and the prince is not convinced. When Ursula uses Ariel’s voice in order to obstruct the little mermaid, the prince is under her control. Note the minor differences in arrival by the two women; Ariel arrives in daylight, Ursula at night. Watch also how the scenes shift from the voice-shell into moon and later the voice-shell into the sun. A comparison between the light and the soul. You also see this in the Lion King with the fruit and the sun.
She literally misses the boat because she has no voice and her opportunity at finding true love is slipping away. Knowledge on the malevolent plans of Ursula makes her act and grasp her last chance. She gets back her voice and BAM there she finally is and is recognized by the animus immediately. Though she was too late and she turns back into a mermaid, the male side of her has awoken. It is now that part that saves her from drowning into unconsciousness. Under the sea now, king Triton is dethroned as he sacrifices himself for his daughter. The malevolent mother now surfaces as a monster and is determined to continue to destroy true love.
It is difficult for me to explain the ending of the film, but I’ll speculate on some of its meaning. So in finding true love also the parts that have been trying to inhibit it grow in strength. Almost as a final attempt to stop you from doing it. As I mentioned before, they’re all behavioral neurological entities inside of you, and as is clearly depicted in The Lord of the Rings: the parts fight in wars of gaining dominance and control. I guess when some parts are ready to lose, they puff up and try to survive one last time in all their strength. If you give up, they assert dominance again. If you stay on the path of true love and don’t give in, then they will subside again into the unconsciousness, into the sea. That’s what finally happens when Ursula is penetrated by an old wreck steered by Prince Eric. She deflates and disappears into the ocean.
Though it is probably more than that, as her ashes liberate some things that were stuck inside the sea. It also re-institutes Triton as the king. But he has changed in the process and now lets Ariel have legs and be on land. Something that lay all the time in his power, but he was not ready before to let her go. His final words are:
There’s only one problem left. And that is how much I’ll miss her.
And they liberate each other from their pathological relationship. He steps down as her male part and lets the prince take his rightful place. Healed.
All in all, a beautiful and timeless story. Furthermore, a map and guide for us all: father, mother, daughter, man and woman.
Ok that’s all folks. If you have comments or questions about this article, then please let me know. With time passing I’ll probably understand this movie better and will update and expand on it. Thanks for reading and hope you learned something.
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