Carina Virto

ECL 305

Professor Pressman

03, March 2024

How to get into Heaven: Womens’ Edition 

Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid is a religious, Christian,  how-to in terms of being accepted in the kingdom of Heaven. The story centers on a young mermaid, at the coming of age, who sacrifices everything, including her life, in order to win the affections of a mortal man, and consequently a soul. In Christian norms, it is traditional for a woman to marry a man, become a mother, and serve her husband and family to the fullest extent. Religion plays a substantial role in how those who follow its faith behave in society. In The Little Mermaid the emphasis placed on a woman marrying a man, or devoting her life to God, serves as a Chrstian allegory for the low value women possess on their own, further perpetuating harmful gender roles and overall treatment of women in society.

The little mermaid gives up her princess life, natural form, and family and chooses to undergo mutilation to her natural form, risking her life, and the loss of her voice for the chance to gain the affections of her male interest and an immortal soul. At the age of 15, the little mermaid was able to swim up to the surface of the ocean and view the human world above. One of her many visits to the surface sparked a deep, romantic, interest in a prince whose ship sank and that she had saved. Ultimately, her love interest furthered her fascination with the human world, inclining her to ask her grandmother about the life cycle of humans. Through this conversation, the little mermaid learns that humans possess an immortal soul that grants them ascension into “… favored regions, that [merpeople] shall never be privileged to see. (Anderson, 118)” These supposed regions are a direct reference to the Kingdom of Heaven in Christianity. In the Christian religion it is humans who may ascend into Heaven, not animals, spirits of nature, sinners, or non-believers. In this case, the little mermaid is still in the form not of man, therefore it is vital that she does something in order to change herself to gain the opportunity to ascend in her afterlife. Her grandmother then goes on to detail how the only way to acquire an immortal soul is to be loved by a human “so dearly that you were more to him than either father or mother–”. This caveat is an obvious ode to the idea that if a Christian woman wishes to gain access to the kingdom of heaven, she must follow through with her expected role as a woman in this society: to be wed to a man. If she fails to do so, her duties will have not been fulfilled as God intended. This ideology screams the notion that women are second class citizens to men, and were simply put on this earth to appease a man. This type of theme has been spun many times, especially in Genesis 2:18 which reads, “The LORD God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’” Eve was then created from one of the ribs of Adam, made solely for his benefit. Eve was not created when Adam was, but instead she was created to perfectly suit Adam’s needs and along with his own personal timeline, and for no other reason. Therefore it would seem that a woman’s sole purpose is to find their own Adams and contort themselves by whatever means possible to be able to serve him, as it was why she was created in the first place. To fail at this duty is to defy God’s intentions and to be denied access to Heaven.  With these ideologies in mind, the little mermaid eventually finds herself making a trade with a sea witch. The sea witch agrees to help the little mermaid for the price of  “the best of all [she] possesses in exchange for [the] valuable potion. (122)” These attributes include her tail, which shall be split into two and will condemn her to excruciating pain every time she walks, but not when she dances, and her voice. After learning the price of her desire to become human, the little mermaid asks, “But if you take away my voice– what have I left?” To which the sea witch replies, “Your lovely form– your buoyant carriage, and your expressive eyes.” The entire exchange not only expresses to the reader the sacrifices women are expected to make in order to be loved by a man and appease God’s intention for her, but it degrades her to simply a vessel of a person. The little mermaid will be a dancing monkey with no voice or value, just her body and beauty to give to her potential husband. She will not be able to express herself through words, because womens’ emotions cease to matter, she will not be able to feel comfortable unless entertaining her male counterpart as she has no other duty, and she will not be able to continue on physically living if she is denied by him. This degradation of women further reinforces the hierarchical gender roles perpetuated in Christianity, which is highly damaging to the perceived female value among society. 

Although the little mermaid is ultimately rejected by her love interest, all is not lost as there will always be another man to be devoted to– God. After the little mermaid turns into seafoam, having failed to capture the unrequited love of her love interest, Anderson writes an extension of the story to explain what other option a woman has if she is to fail her Christian duty of marrying a man: devoting your life to God. As the little mermaid floats as seafoam she then transforms and her body begins to rise out of the foam and high into the sky. When she inquires those around her where she may be they respond, “Amongst the daughters of the air!” (129). The daughters of the air also lacked an immortal soul but could “obtain one by their good deeds.” The little mermaid learns that after three hundred years of good deeds she may obtain an immortal soul after all. The daughters of the air are essentially aerial spirits, in which no human being can see. In Christianity there are a group of women who devote themselves to the Lord, abstain from sin, and are hardly seen by the public: Nuns. It would seem that Anderson is telling his readers that if you pursue your duty of deviating yourself to a man in holy matrimony and come out unsuccessful, after one try of course, you may then switch your course to instead serve God himself for the rest of your lifetime. The spirits then go on to confirm that indeed “[they] shall glide into the Kingdom of Heaven, after the lapse of three hundred years.” It is customary that Christains act in good deeds and abstain from sinning in order to be deemed worthy of a Heavenly afterlife, therefore it would make sense that this route was the next best thing for the little mermaid to pursue. Despite the idea that the little mermaid is still getting her immortal soul after all, the idea that she herself still needs to endure three hundred years as a daughter of the air in order to be granted access into heaven whereas men simply have to abstain from sin, is a clear representation of the pedestal men stand on in which women reside below. It is important to note that there are no “sons of the air” but that they are daughters, women. This sort of path is not necessary for the man, just as it was not necessary for Adam to require a purpose to be created. 

Men were created by God as a representation of his love and to spread love, whereas women were created as an afterthought, so that men would not live alone. It is clear, through the depiction of the little mermaid’s life, that according to Christainty, the widest followed religion in the world, that women lack value if she is not to be serving a man or serving the Lord. Notions of this substance attack the value of a woman and her importance as a human being, and give society an excuse to treat them as less than. Moreover, it is imperative to dissect texts like these to avoid being misled into thinking that if you are a woman then you’re insubordinate or that if you are a man that you may treat her as such. Literature is powerful in its ability to spread ideologies and influence society, therefore stories like these need not be blindly accepted as truths, but rather critically analyzed to understand societal biases against women and unveiling the absurdity gender roles confine them to in their pursuit for happiness.  

Works Cited

Anderson, Hans Christian. “The Little Mermaid.” The Penguin Book of Mermaids, ‎Penguin Classics , Westminster, London, 2019, pp. 107–129. 

“God Made Eve and Ordained Marriage .” The Elegant Farmer, www.elegantfarmer.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/God-Made-Eve-and-Ordained-Marriage.pdf. Accessed 4 Mar. 2024.