This week, we finally read an all-time classic, “The Little Mermaid” by Hans Christian Anderson. Some of the main themes I wanted to focus on in this blog post are the ideas of pain being normalized in feminism and also the idea of belonging to a group or place.
The little mermaid is told by an older, wiser mermaid that “pain must suffer pride” because she was wearing uncomfortable clothing. The little mermaid, being youngest of her sisters, grew up watching her siblings enter womanhood feeling equally uncomfortable. This is something that I feel a lot of young women see growing up, which in a way could be conditioning them to accept a life of pain because it’s “normal”. But why is it normal? The little mermaid feels immense pain in her legs every time she takes a step. It is almost as if she is being punished for being curious, in the same way Raymondin was. I’ve noticed that in a lot of the stories we have read in class, people who are curious tend to be punished.
Another interesting thing from the reading is the idea that Mermaids do not have souls while humans do, and they are aware of this. Mermaids are only given souls if “a priest lay his right hand” (pg 144) on them in order to officiate a marriage. This idea taps into the subconscious beliefs that Christianity has planted in both men and women that marriage is a necessity to have a completed life. But there is really nothing natural about marriage, it is a man-made concept. I love this idea because if souls exist, they have absolutely nothing to do with man-made concepts, they’d be natural and work in natural ways. Meanwhile, people are reading these popular stories, and while they may not necessarily believe they need matrimony in order to have a soul, they could potentially unintentionally develop the need to find a partner for marriage in order to truly feel complete.
This reading caught me off guard. I did not expect to enjoy this chapter as much as I did, and I feel that the reason for this is because the ideas of feminism and the symbolism are extremely telling of how society was at the time. It’s interesting to see how much yet how little has changed since then.
You make some good points here, and I would like to see you pursue them. You are very right to notice, “that in a lot of the stories we have read in class, people who are curious tend to be punished”; I would prompt you to consider Why? Also, you smartly note “pain being normalized in feminism”; first, it is not feminism– as feminism would fight to stop pain from being normalized for women– but your point is important and, again, I would push you to consider why? Keep going!