Analytical Essay About the Little Mermaid and the Wild Swans

The Affection of bureau behind the scenes of The petty(a) Mermaid and The angry Swans I opine that the stories The Little Mermaid and The unsubdued Swans atomic number 18 fundament e very(prenominal)y ab come out of the closet self-confidence and the crave for self-complacency by master(prenominal) casefuls in individu in ally apologue. Hans Christian Andersen was born on the 2nd of April, 1805, in the city of Odense extraneous of Copenhagen in Denmark. He was a danish author who wrote lyrical poems, fairy tales and novels. He was kn cause as H. C. Andersen end-to-end the orbit breakce he preferred using his commencement ceremony twain initials instead of indicateing his unit of measurement name.He defy aftered in report everyplace twain hundred fairy tales and 1000 poems during his b aim and preciselytertime and his stories and song collect been translated into to a majusculeer extent than 150 languages shake contrastive plays, ballets and movies. H. C Andersen passed a sort on the 4th of August 1875. People s trough, evening after H. C Andersens death, approximate a cleartha virtually how he lit up the world with his amusing boorrens stories and undreamt fairy tales, such(prenominal) as for go The Little Mermaid and The unhinged Swans. The principal(prenominal) characters choices in separately novel is an action of vanity and these atomic number 18 the ideas from which my yield exit emanate and give me the surmisal of laying the fundamental proofs of my thesis disputation by indicating the patterns of vanity by dint ofout two stories. The Little Mermaid is oecumenically round a young mermaid whose de atomic number 18st wish is to suit a human organismness so she could occur in love to a higher place the waters with a prince. She is even spontaneous to precede her identity as a mermaid and leave her invigoration and her family behind, at the darkest bottoms of the maritime for the sake of put to working this dream into reality. The Wild Swans is on the some other hand a degree about the sacrifice which champion princess gravels in the hope of rescuing her xi brothers who digest been cast under a spell. These two stories do not differ so some(prenominal) from apiece other since the main character in The Little Mermaid is spontaneous to give up her bread and butter and wreak bodily sacrifices for the sake of love, period the princess in The Little Swans believes that she is fitted to save her brothers by pull in headway bodily sacrifices as wholesome and all of this for the sake of her own love, believe they be fitted nettle it on their own by their abilities. actors assistant is the excessive trustfulness on 1s might to impress others, either by accosts or abilities. According to many, vanity is a no-account characteristic and empennage be cogitate to egotism and arrogance. Vanity is lots envisi one and only(a)d as a peacock in the artistic world, eject for in the Bible, where it is delineate by the Whore of Babylon according to The surrender Encyclopedia. (Section The symbolism of vanity. http//en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Vanity). Vanity falls unneurotic with arrogance and presumption into the context of compliment as one of the seven devilishly sins.There be divers(prenominal) references to this theory in the Bible where the classical example for this sin is shown in the legend of the Tower of Babel which deal be put together in multiplication 115-8 in The Holy Bible. The characters in The Little Mermaid pack in general been self-centered by means ofout the whole cock-and-bull business relationship by questioning their abilities of smash and possibilities. They have kept on battling the chase of viewer by trying to glamourize themselves. The siz fitgest chemical element which leads me into making these kinds of assumptions about the Mer- stack was the situation that their leave behind to be vario us was removed to a greater extent important than demonstrate compassion for each other.Evidence smoke be found in on paginate 136 of the folder where H. C. Andersen is describing the Mer-Kings mother as an old and exemplary posh lady which has settled in the big palace and adapted her instruction of hold to the submits provided by the function of the house. Andersen has also given her the characteristics of believing that she is far-off better than the rest of the inhabitants of the ocean and to constitute it she is depict wearing twelve oysters on her tail, speckle the rest of the mermaids in the marine are save allowed to wear six.I believe that this is what influences the petite mermaid into committing these superficial decisions such as takeing to live on polish be mother of love, later on by dint ofout the romance by being influenced by factors of her milieu such as for an example, her theme. The palace where the Mer-Kings family lives has walls out of c oral, high pointed windows of amber, and roofs make out of mussel-shells which are described as glittering pearls. This is what causes the atomic mermaid to feel eccentric and full of herself by believing that no one is as favourable as her since no one has a house as delightful as hers.This is a psychological state of the mind of the mermaid, since she is affected by the milieu around her she is bound into developing as a person theoriseing that she deserves no occasion only if the best. This behavior is obviously caused by the fact that she is described as the virtually bonnie child out the 6 children and as the loveliest one. When living in such an environment as the detailed mermaid is she is understandably affected by the fact of living in a place as gorgeous as the palace is. Their home is described as the most lovely building at the bottom of the sea.I call back that the house was a compensation for the want of the Mer-kings wife since he made it this big and re markable. This story has its resemblance to the story of the Taj Mahal, when the grand Turk built the building in pureness of his late wife. Since her father had been a widowman for many years and the tiny mermaid had no mother-figure to look up to and to rely on, so her grandma had to take that role upon herself and evoke the piffling mermaid and her 5 sisters. It is marked passim the whole story how the superficial mermaids lovingness for her grannie is absurd since she endlessly asks for the tales off the world higher up waters.The grandmother is her only source of knowledge of the upper berth world and she is always asking her about the set down above and how it is like. The junior-grade mermaid had a special love for dry rural area and could not wait to turn xv since that was the age when a mermaid was considered mature luxuriant to rise to the surface of the world above. By having such a classy grandmother and by gro file name extension up at a home such as the palace, H. C Andersen had no choice but to create the character the pocketable mermaid as rather a alone child and very high-thinking of herself.This high standard of flavour and the high expectations of life drove the little mermaid into believing that she was able to do infeasible things, such as suffer a life on dry land and being able to win over the princes heart by set down him to love her much than than he love his mother and father. The little mermaids interpretive program is mentioned multiple times as an implausibly bonny voice with with(predicate) with(predicate)out the story. She thinks of her voice as the best attribute. Another say of the mermaids high expectations of herself and her de implication look upon the mermaid people is shown on rascal cxlv of the booklet, where it says .She wished that she were one of them. Their world seemed to her much big than that of the Mer-people. I interpreted this as meaning that she once again doubted her pla ce in life and felt as she deserved more than just being an put away of the ocean. Her hopes for her abilities of becoming something better were once again display her own lust of the adhesion for the bigger world. She believed, she wanted and she felt as she deserved something better than the life she had under the surface and was ashore that she could change it on her own.The little mermaid is once again showing signs of vanity by craving self-satisfaction which is in this case the love and life above waters. She was willing risking her own life for the sake of getting an immortal in markigence so she could live in felicitousness for the rest of her life by proving to the prince that she was more deserving of his love than his parents were. It is clearly give tongue to in the story, on varlet 149, that she is find to go to the beldam whom she has feared so much before for the slightly chance of making her dream come true. even up grammegh the curb to the siren was dange rous and f accountabilityening, she was still positive(p) comme il faut to rely on her abilities of last the solemn way to the capture in the hope of finding a way to spend her life with prince. wiz of the prohibitions on the path were the whirlpools which the little mermaid was bold equal to believe that she could survive, the description of this horrible obstacle can be found on page 149 as headspring, she had to traverse an extent of austere grey send till she reached the whirlpool, whose waters were eddying and whizzing like millwheels, tearing everything they could acquire along with them into the abyss below. This proves the trust which the little mermaid had in herself by being able to get to the enchantress on her own. compensate metergh few mermaids had made it through to the witch, the little mermaid forced herself into believing that she could make it. Not once did she stop to think if the prince would return her love with blessings of his own, she just fa ux that he was going to love her as much as she love him. That she was beautiful adequate for to make him fall in love with her.The theme of vanity within the story The Little Mermaid is greatly rivet on the abilities of the little mermaid, if she is bold rich to behave the pains for which she has to go through in the hope of being love by the prince. Her plan was to find a way of spending the rest of her life on dry land with the prince and this is what caused her to go to the enchantress tone for make outs. She hoped that the enchantress of the sea would have a way of allow her spend her life above waters, which turn up to be right.The witch had a potion which would enable the little mermaid to grow legs and to be able to walk but she warned her that the transformation would be very painful. The witch described it as permit a knife cut through your body. On page 151 the enchantress is telling the little mermaid that it will even hurt when walking, the description of this so called lucrative solution was described as it will seem to hurt you as though you were walking on the knowing edges of swords, and your snag will flow. nevertheless when being warned, the little mermaid did not get scared of the fact that she had o endure such pain. She would not abandon her dreams. The witch mentioned as well that if she does not succeed in making the prince fall in love with her, the little mermaid would be sullen into foam and vanish. When the witch mentioned a repayment for the potion, the little mermaid became stunned. She then bared the panorama of asking what the enchantress wanted from her. grand hast the sweetest voice of all the dwellers in the sea, and thou thinkest by its means to appealingness the prince, this voice, however, I demand recompense. The best thing thou possesses I require in sub for my magic drink. The little mermaid agreed to these demands and be that she still believed that she was beautiful enough to charm the prince even w ithout her rattling(prenominal) voice. This is the mental spirit of vanity, the little mermaid was still bold enough to believe that her sweetheart and body would make the prince fall in love with her. This off-key out to be true, since she amazed the prince with her wonderful eyes. The evidence of this is on page 155, If I were obliged to choose, I should prefer thee, my wordless foundling, with the speaking eyes. This was what the prince told the little mermaid after she glanced upon him with her beautiful eyes. composition the prince was enchanted by the little mermaids eyes he was indirectly arming her bad characteristic by making her believe that she was pretty enough and able to make him fall in love with her, even though she was not able to speak. The little mermaid did unfortunately not succeed into being loved by the prince, since he married other princess from other kingdom. The little mermaid had to face the destiny from which the enchantress warned her about.The enchantress told the little mermaid that if she did not touch to be loved by the prince, she would turn into foam and die. Since this unavoidable outcome was appoint to occur, the little mermaid got a take in from a transparent figure, probably an angle. It appeared in motility line of her and told her that the blessing of an immortal soul was not necessary to obtain from the love of the prince but from the execrable of a soul and the acutance of their dependable deeds. The signification right before the little mermaid was about to die, her sisters swam up to the surface to tell her that there was a way to produce a mermaid again and survive.They went to the enchantress and she told them that the only way of saving the little mermaid, was if she stabbed the prince right in the heart and waited for his red blood to touch her feet and as repayment of for the enchantress answer the sisters had to cut off all of their hair. The little mermaid refused to do so because she loved the prince far more than she loved herself and would not let him die instead of her. She waited for the cheerfulness to rise, for it was when the first rays of light would hit her that she would die. So, the little mermaid sacrificed allot with in the hope of achieving her biggest dream.She managed to effectuate half of it by being able to live a life on land, but she failed to make the prince fall in love with her. She was able to suffer through everything for the sake of love and with the help of vanity. Vanity is referred to as something negative but the choices she made due to this sin, resulted into benefiting her in the end since she changed her destiny. The Wild Swans had a similar beginning as the story The Little Mermaid, since they twain explained which types of characters we were being introduced to. The Wild Swans crush outed right at the beginning of the story that both Elise and her xi brothers were far incompatible from the other people and citizens of their ki ngdom. H. C Andersen had done a great job of getting this point across by describing that the eleven brothers went to school with stars on their breasts and swords on their sides. Feeling pride while they wrote on booming tables with diamond pens and could read fluently. By letting the elven brothers differ from the standard folk H. C Andersen created barriers between the different characteristics associated with this situation.By showing them acknowledgment you are proving to the princes that they are better than others. I think that this is the pattern that H. C. Andersen wanted to convey. This incident is related to The Little Mermaid where the principals of the scenario are identical. The grandmother had put 12 oysters on her tail to show stead and differ from the rest while the eleven brothers are distinguished by their star, sword, golden tables and diamond pens. Elise is separated from the people in a different way, H.C Andersen did this by letting her have a picture-boo k which was worth as much as half the kingdom. By letting a child have an expensive possession like this for her enjoyment of playing with it, one is clearly stain the fact that she is something special and I think that by this cause that H. C. Andersen, as in the The Little Mermaid did not have another choice than to give Elise and her brothers the flaw of vanity. While letting them believe that they are far more different than the rest of the citizens with their possessions they are mad e into believing that they are of a bigger mportance. One thing which shows the affection of Elises beauty is seen page 14 of the booklet with The Wild Swans story, where she asks the roses Who is more beautiful than you? and receiving the answer Elise. This evidence is showing Elises obsession for her beauty by going around asking these questions. One similar scenario can be found as well on page 14 of the booklet where she asks the hymn-book Who is more pietistical than thou? and receiving t he like answer back as before Elise. While the alike problem is repeating itself throughout H.C Andersens stories we can draw the similarities between the little mermaid and Elise. The little mermaid was betrayed into a sort of vanity where she was blinded for all the possible outcomes except for when it came to the love of the prince. While the little mermaid was pursuance around getting approval of her beauty by singing with her beautiful voice, or succeeding in making persons fall in love with her she could strengthen the fact that she was beautiful while Elise on the other side is striving for the acknowledgment for her beauty by being more direct and asking things and people about her appearance.Something that is noticeable throughout this story is that it is very religiously affected and implied to influence someone on spiritual level by repeatedly referring to the powers of perfection, and that the good inside of someone can overtake the evil. Since H. C Andersen was a ve ry religious man who had a unassailable intuitive feeling in Christianity it was not so surprising to find these kinds of references to the holy powers above us but the thing which did make me think was that the fairytale of the little mermaid had no religious or faithful statements throughout the story.The only explanation I can have for this is because the Mer-people were not humans and could not possess a soul, but after the little mermaid became a human and was about to die, the transparent figure appeared itself in front of her and explained that the soul of a human and a mermaid were not dependent on if they had legs or fish fins, it was dependent on the good deeds preformed during a lifetime and the suffering experience for a loved one. , but there was still no mentioning of God nor heaven as in this story.Elise distinguishable as the story went on to research for her brothers which her evil step-mother had casted a spell on and turned them into eleven swans. The obstacle s which Elise had to go through resemblance the obstacles which the little mermaid had to go through for the sake of reaching the enchantress house. The little mermaid had a more selfish cause for going through these big obstacles such as the whirlpool. She did it just to get an answer to how she would be able to fulfill her dream, while Elise went through the darkness of the woods and being sent out into the world all alone.The cause of her searching for her brothers and enabling herself to surviving these obstacles was the fact that she was searching for her eleven disordered swan brothers. She was risking her own life for the benefit of her brothers while the little mermaid risked hers for her own good. They both believed that their own abilities were enough to survive and take them selfs through these horrible obstacles when being driven by love. To express Elises beauty H. C Andersen has let the animals in the woods show it symbolically by letting the sunbeams play upon her an d make a golden veil.The birds preached as well on Elises shoulders. These moments just strengthen her both spiritually and in the belief of that she could make it by her own. Andersen has described her moments as that God would never forsake her. I think that H. C. Andersen focused on compose about God and because of this resulted into making this story a little more thinkable since a human being often turns to God in though times. It says on page number 17 of the booklet that she saw the Angel of God looking down upon her with gentle aspect, and a gm little cherubs all around him. I assume that by this sentence it is described that Elise is meant to get some faithful management and as a sign to show her that God is on her side. By this it is meant that she should be strengthen and believe more in herself since she has the help of God on her side. This scenario whitethorn refer to the similarities of the little mermaid where she got a visit from a translucent figure, probably a n angle. Even though this scenario occurs at a different place in each story I am still arrest that it has some resemblance to one and each other.When Elise finally meets her brothers they start to talk, she is informed that they need to allocate to another site in two days, because they are not allowed to be in this side of the world for more than eleven days a year. So, they start to discuss what to do since Elise does not want to leave them and her brothers want to bring her with them. We can see on page 21, the sign of vanity, when her eldest brother is in a discussion concerning the topic of carrying Elise on their wing by their own strength. My arm I besotted enough to bear thee though the forest shall we not have fitted strength in our wings to beam thee over he sea? This is referred to in the belief of that the eldest brother is strong enough to carry her by his prune strength and ability. Elise risked as well her brothers lives for her own satisfaction by agreeing to let them strike down her over the open ocean for two days, when she knew the that the consequences would be big. The little mermaid experienced the akin things as Elise even though sometimes throughout the story the actions taken by Elise were the opposite behavior of the little mermaid. The different choices resulted into experiencing different kinds of pain.Elise had to go through a lot of mental problems in the story by being told in one of her dreams that to save her brothers she needed to pick sting-needles by hand and trample on nettles with her bare feet to get the yearn from which she was going to waver eleven shirts for each brother. But from the moment of when Elise begun her work till the day she destroyed it, she was not allowed to speak, not even a word. If so much as a syllable came out of her moth daggers would fall right through the hearts of her brothers.So Elise had to give up her voice, the same sacrifice the little mermaid had to give up and they both did it for the sake of love. These actions which were taken resulted into each character reaching self-satisfaction by the help of vanity throughout the story and the pattern of vanity can be clearly shown throughout both stories. When the stories are analytically picked apart it is easier to notice these kinds of causes, which are common in H. C Andersons writing, since he involves Christianity and God into his work.He wrote much about the different sins which fall into the category of religious writing along with his talk about the church building and life beyond death. Analyzing the writing of H. C Andersen based on these two stories I can claim that his personal accentuate had a huge impact on the outcome of these stories and that his affection of religion resulted into the affection of vanity in each main character. Sources Andersen, H. C The Little Mermaid (Hempstead Purnell 1977) Andersen, H. C The Wild Swans (Hempstead Purnell 1977) http//en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Vanity The Bible