Author Archives: Sophia Raya

Final Essay

Posted on by
5

Sophia Raya

ECL 305

Professor Pressman

May 9th, 2024

The Verticality of the Little Mermaid

In The Little Mermaid (1837), written by Hans Christain Andersen, the high and low design of the story’s landscape maps onto the vertical ascension of Christianity associated with hell, earth, and heaven. Each ascension correlates to its respective vertical plane and leads the mermaid closer to a heavenly life. The little mermaid first appears within the ocean, a place located furthest away from the heavens which she seeks. As she moves upwards and makes her way onto land, she gains legs and can move through the realm of humanity where both God and earthly desires reside. By sacrificing her life, the little mermaid’s body transforms into an air spirit and resides in the aerial plane where she has the possibility of entering heaven in 300 years. This transition from plane to plane involves sacrifice and encompasses the Christian tenet that the body may die but the soul lives on. Within the frame of Christianity and the religious sentiments of the little mermaid, sacrificing one’s own life in the name of a higher power is noble, and elevates your position in the spiritual world.  

In The Little Mermaid, the setting of ocean sets the story up for the vertical journey that the little mermaid is about to embark on. The kingdom is far out at sea and located at an unimaginable depth, where not even a rope could fathom it; and many church steeples need to be piled on top of each other to breach the surface (Andersen 108). The exclusion of rope as a unit of measurement is deliberate. Rope is a common tool used by sea farers and others who regularly traverse the ocean. Church steeples, on the other hand, are not commonly found within the ocean but instead are largely found on land. This addition of steeples reinforces verticality within the narrative as they are located on top of a church’s physical foundation, and serve as a focal point for the gaze of a worshipper. Their height fills the viewer with a sense of awe towards the Church as a religious institution and as a source of spiritual power. By placing these steeples beneath the waves, the texts illuminates the spiritual defiency of the ocean and by extension its inhabitants. The direction of the placement of these steeples also implies a direct upwards  movement away from the ocean which weaves in the importance of verticality within the narrative. If these steeples had descended instead of ascended, this would have implied a movement away from the Church and mimicked a descent into hell. 

Within Christian theology, hell is a place where God’s light does not reach and where souls go to die, which denies them a heavenly afterlife. Even though hell is never explicitly mentioned within the little mermaid, heaven as a place can only exist as a reward if there is a location that opposes it. On the vertical scale, hell is the lowest spiritual realm while earth and heaven are located directly above it. This also maps onto the vertical scale of the mermaid’s physical world with the ocean on the lowest level while the land and air are above it. Because the mermaid seeks a heavenly life, she needs to ascend onto land in order to fulfill this goal. 

This change from the aquatic realm to the terrestrial realm also requires a change in form. Her tail, which distinctly marks her as a mermaid, would be viewed as demonic and unholy by the Church. In order to be accepted onto land, she would have to give up her tail and obtain two legs to fit into human society. This rejection of her initial form mimics the spiritual sacrifices that Christians must enagage in to enter the kingdom of heaven. Splitting her legs into a tail involves both a physical sacrifice and a cultural sacrifice, without a tail the little mermaid will never be able to fully inhabit the ocean and its realm. Before this can even occur, the little mermaid seeks out the sea witch for a spell to transform her into a human. Besides the physical splitting of her tail, the mermaid’s voice and tongue are physically cut out of her. In the essay, “The Merciless Tragedy of Desire: An Interpretation of H.C. Andersen’s “Den lille Havfrue’” by Jørgen Dines Johansen, Johansen points out that by cutting off the little mermaid’s tongue, she is unable to emotionally live through and act out inner conflicts (Johansen pg. 211). As soon as she cuts off her tongue, she cuts herself off from the rest of the mermaid and obtains the status of other despite her outwards appearance as a mermaid. Although she never runs into another mermaid who can categorize her as other, her body is in the midst of a change. 

The little mermaid’s second act of bodily transformation occurs on the marble steps where the ocean and land meet. These steps help to connect these lower and higher levels to each other, bridging this vertical distance in an upward manner. By taking the potion on the marble steps after she crawls out of the water, she is separating herself from the oceanic and by extension the demonic realm. This second transformation continues to emphasizes the element of bodily sacrifice as the little mermaid felt as if a double-edged sword was run through her (Andersen pg. 123). The inclusion of a double edged sword emphasizes the physical duality of the little mermaid as her more human top half remains unaffected while her bottom more demonic half splits into human legs. This taxing physical agony that the little mermaid endures for a soul is also found within the bible. Philippians 1:29 states that in order to follow God, an individual is required to both believe in him and suffer on his behalf (Philippians 1:29, BibleHub). Although the little mermaid suffers physically from this transformation, she does not suffer emotionally nor spiritually. Instead, once she’s found by the prince, she bears this pain willingly and glides as she walks, making both the prince and others around her marvel at her gate (Andersen pg. 124). This bodily sacrifice isn’t just a one time feeling but instead it’s a constant reminder of what she has lost and what she stands to gain. 

On the terrestrial plane, the little mermaid’s transformations continue to be an obstacle in her path towards a soul.  Although the mermaid possess human legs instead of a tail, she is unable to verbalize her desires towards the prince and can only communicate through movement and facial expressions. When the little mermaid and the prince journey up the mountain, the pain that she experiences is physically seen by both the readers and other agents in the story by having her feet bleed (Andersen pg. 124). Despite this outward injury, she ignores the sensation and enters a physical space where she is high enough to reach the heavens but not holy enough to enter them. This physical space captures the crux of her current predicament: she longs for a soul but she experiences limitations that are imposed on her because of her initial sacrifice towards said soul. The pain that she experiences on a day to day basis from this transformation continues to serve as a test her desire for a soul through marriage. 

When the prince marries the princess, her marriage pathway and her route towards directly obtaining a soul is lost. This leaves the little mermaid with two choices: either kill the prince and save herself or sacrifice herself and save the prince (Andersen pg. 129). Had the little mermaid decided to save herself, she would have been able to reverse her transformation and live out her natural lifespan as a mermaid. However, as a mermaid and therefore a non-human creature, she would have to descend from the terrestrial plane into the aquatic realm, sliding down on the vertical scale back into hell. However, the mermaid would arrive at the same fate if she sacrificed herself, but at a much quicker rate. Because of her love for the prince, she prioritizes his life over hers and throws herself overboard, her human body dissolving into foam and transforming for a third time (Andersen pg. 129). The little mermaid’s path follows the biblical verse of Mark 8:35 where whoever decides to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for Christ shall also save it (Mark 8:35, BibleHub). Even though her human body dies, her form develops into that of an air spirit because of her good deeds and sacrifices made in the name of obtaining an eternal soul. As an air spirit, the little mermaid’s form is no longer bound to the terrestrial plane and rises into the aerial realm, which mimics the upwards movement of a Christian soul after death. This transformation from human to air spirit also undoes her first sacrifice as she is able to speak in a sweet and ethereal voice after an extended period of muteness (Andersen pg. 129). This conveys a sort of mercy and reward from God because the little mermaid had a very real possibility of experiencing a permanent death from her actions, but was instead saved and spiritually elevated for the choices she made. 

 The Little Mermaid is a story where religious themes of biblical sacrifice and obtaining a soul bleeds into each section of the text including the topographical settings, which directly correlate to the vertical arrangement of hell, earth, and heaven. Each terrain that the mermaid resides in requires a sacrifice in the form of transformation in order to exit and enter another terrain. These sacrifices comes at the cost of her physical wellbeing which reinforces the biblical influence through the form of bodily sacrifice. Because of the stories overt religious themes, self-sacrifice and pain endured in the name of a religious power will be rewarded. 

Works Cited 

Andersen, Hans Christian. “The Little Mermaid.” The Penguin Book of Mermaids, edited by Christina Bacchilega and Marie Alohalani Brown, Penguin Books, 2019, pp 107-130.

“Colossians 3:2-4.” Bible.Com, www.bible.com/bible/114/COL.3.2-4. 

Johansen, Jørgen Dines. “The Merciless Tragedy of Desire: An Interpretation of H.C. Andersen’s ‘Den Lille Havfrue.’” Scandinavian Studies, vol. 68, no. 2, 1996, pp. 203–41. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40919857. Accessed 14 Apr. 2024.

“Mark 8:35.” Bible.Com, www.bible.com/bible/1/MRK.8.35.KJV. 

“Philippians 1:29.” BibleHub, biblehub.com/philippians/1-29.htm. 

Final Essay Thesis Statement

Posted on by
Reply

In The Little Mermaid by Hans Christain Andersen, the high and low design of the stories landscape maps onto the vertical ascension of Christianity associated with hell, purgatory, and heaven. Each ascension correlates to it’s respective vertical plane and leads the mermaid closer towards a heavenly life. This transition from plane to plane involves sacrifice and encompasses the Christian tenet of the body may die but the soul lives on. Within the frame of Christianity and religious life (?) of the little mermaid, sacrificing ones own life in the name of a higher power is noble and elevates your position in the spiritual world. (connect back to religious propoganda)

Conclusion/reflection:

Posted on by
4

ECL 305 has been one the most transformative classes that I’ve ever taken. The first day of class I shared that I wanted to improve my close reading and analysis skills when it comes to interacting with the texts. With each blog post, in person discussion, and essay, I do believe that I’ve been able to meet this goal. Although it will take a lot more dedication on my part to continue to refine my skills, I think this class has given me the tools I need to continue this journey. Literature, just like the ocean, is incredibly vast and I feel like I’m still on a surface level of understanding everything that it has to offer. Other than honing my own understanding, simply being exposed to a variety of ocean centric literature has helped to open my mind and be more receptive to different forms of texts and the past and present histories behind them.

We Are Mermaids

Posted on by
4

In the poem, “We Are Mermaids” by Stephanie Burt, different sets of pronouns in the form of ‘we, us, they, you,’ weave throughout the poem to involve the speaker, the audience, and others outside the stage of the text to invite them as a collective into the world of mermaids, a symbol for multitudes, and allows the collective to exist as they are. In the title of the poem ‘We Are Mermaids,’ those who fall under ‘we’ are gathered under the mermaid umbrella with ‘are’ emphasizing the action of simply being. Being a mermaid, like more oceanic ways of thinking, is not constrained to rigid structures that have been imposed on them by society and other terracentric ways of thinking. Instead, mermaids and any other aquatic creatures can occupy any space or even become a part of that space where fluidity and water is found. Whether this is at the bottom of the ocean where benthic water is found, or at the esturaries, where salty sea water and fresh water come together to create a brackish mix, a mermaid can come take up this space. The ‘you’ portions of this poem are particularly powerful and connect back to mermaids as an agent outside of the realm of humanity. The poem tells the reader that ‘you don’t have to be useful, you are not required to come up with something to say.’ In a terracentric world, a humans value originates from what they are able to perform and communicate to the rest of the world. This can be through labor, gender, and other social expectations and norms that make up daily life. However, the second half of the stanza negates and outright rejects this belief. Instead of a grueling day-to-day performance, which many people of marginalized lgbtq+ identities experience, as a mermaid, an individual can simply exist within the solitude and comfort of the sea.

The Deep

Posted on by
Reply

In River Solomon’s “The Deep,” the concept of memory and the stories associated with it can take on a life of it’s own. Depending on the context of these memories, they can ground the person experiencing them and give them context that informs their identity as wajinru. However, these same memories can also leave wajinru untethered and hollow, like a pried open clam shell who’s meat has been scooped out by a predator. In Yetu’s case, she is the actual vessel for these memories. Both her sense of self and the remembrances fight for control over her body. In a way, these memories are almost parasitic as Yetu has to fight to keep herself from slipping into them, and at times gives in until she can break free from their grasp.  On page 69, Yetu states that she left the Wajinru to endure the full weight of their history, and that for the first time in many years her body felt weightless. The history and the memories associated with this history have a living dimension to it, they are physical agents that can press or interact with the bodies of the Wajinru. As a historian, the memories need Yetu’s body to be physically alive in order to carry them. However, this doesn’t account for both the mental and physical anguish the Rememberances have on her as she states that “it’s killing me (p.94),” when referring to the memories. Because memories themselves are alive, they encompass the duality of suffering and understanding and can cause a palpable effect on the people experiencing them.

Ti Jeanne

Posted on by
Reply

In many of our previous readings about bodily transformations in Western societies, it’s usually the mermaid/aquatic creature that gets transformed into a human not the other way around. In the tale of Ti Jeanne, this assumption gets turned on its head when Ti Jeanne, a human, turns into an aquatic creature and leaves the human world behind. Ti Jeanne’s body adopts more monstrous qualities like a fishtail and serves as Maman Dlo’s servant for eternity as a punishment for her vanity (p.276). Even though she is not outright killed like other people would be for disrespecting the sanctity of the forest, she now can only reside in the aquatic domain, thereby cutting her contact with humanity. Although Ti Jeanne is punished for her vanity, Maman Dlo also acknowledges Ti Jeanne’s beauty which highlights the duality of gendered social expectations when it comes to beauty: it is something to be strived for but it’s also something to be rejected or controlled. As Maman Dlo’s eternal servant, her body and by extension her beauty are also in Maman Dlo’s possession and realm of control. 

Discovery Essay

Posted on by
Reply

Sophia Raya

Ecl 305

Professor Pressman

April 14th, 2024

The Nature of the Ocean in the Merciless Tragedy of Desire

In the “‘Merciless Tragedy of Desire; An Interpretation of H.C. Andersen’s ‘Den Lilly Havfrue,’” a psychoanalytic essay by Jorgen Dines Johansen, the location of the mermaid kingdom and the sea witch’s territory is a horizontal topographical division within the setting of the Little Mermaid and serves to represent two forms of nature: cultivated and demonic. These two spheres of the sea are in opposition to each other with the cultivated nature of the mermaid kingdom reflecting the land above it. On the other hand, the sea witch’s territory is unrestrained and unsettling to the mermaids and is a place furthest removed from Christian influence and control. In a story that also serves as overt religious propaganda for the time, the sea witches’ territory is a place that acts as a warning to the audience and the little mermaid. By entering this oceanic space or spaces like it, an individual is forfeiting their access to heaven and an eternal soul, which is something to be actively avoided. This serves as religious propaganda and encourages the reader to recognize these spaces and actively attempt to avoid them. 

Nature exists on both a physical scale and an ideological scale, each of which has been recalibrated to fit the current societal needs in a given place and period. In Johansen’s work, ‘nature’ includes both, and the specificity of ‘cultivated’ and ‘demonic’ carry certain connotations with it. The term ‘cultivated’ means to foster the growth of something, usually in the form of crops. However, when the phrase is applied to the underwater kingdom, a reflection of the religious human kingdom above it, it can emphasize similarities between the two worlds in terms of social structure. The two kingdoms both have a monarchy and the hierarchical order that comes with it. However, only one has a church and access to salvation. Although the underwater kingdom mimics the land, it reminds the reader that places like the ocean, where they have similar cultural norms but no Christian god, are a space for final destruction (Johaness pg. 206). Final destruction, for the participants of the story and the audience, is a very active threat that must be both recognized and avoided. The reader must be faithful to Christ and follow the Church’s teachings, never straying from the path of righteousness. This encourages the reader to not venture offshore as the physical and spiritual body of a human cannot exist within the ocean. This leads to terracentric ways of thinking and limits the reader by landlocking them. The other participant in this story is the mermaid who can physically exist within the ocean but lacks a soul. Although the possibility of obtaining a soul as a mermaid is incredibly low, it’s not completely impossible within the region of cultivated nature. However, in an area of ‘demonic’ nature, this possibility of obtaining a soul lowers even more. For something to be considered ‘demonic,’ there needs to be a total absence of Christian worship and instead must be dominated by pagan witchcraft. To engage and actively use magic means to outwardly reject Christian teachings and the possibility of salvation. If the audience’s spiritual interest lay elsewhere this would reflect going to the sea witch’s territory. 

The sea witch’s territory truly lives up to the ‘demonic sphere of nature’ as it is oppressive and unsettling to both the mermaid and the audience. In Johaness’s essay, the gigantic polyps that line the sea witch’s territory emphasize death and destructive sexuality and try to strangle anything they can get their hands on (Johaness p. 216). Whatever gets caught in their grasp will never be allowed to escape or be released, including mermaids and humans that are unlucky enough to be captured. A mermaid being caught and killed in the polyps differs from that of a human because of the mermaid’s ability to survive in water. Because the sea witch deals with magical transformations, one might assume that similarly to the little mermaid of this story, a previous mermaid might have gone to the sea witch in search of a potion or spell as it seems like mermaids don’t regularly venture out to this territory unless they need something. Unlike the little mermaid, this mermaid became trapped and died because of this desire, solidifying the notion that the sea leads to one’s eternal demise. This detail also shows that to have desires that fall out of the realm of Christianity can most often lead to falling into sin which can compromise a person’s soul and potential salvation. The ocean environment is made up of both living and nonliving objects which help to increase the offputting demonic sphere of nature. Aside from the slimy polyps, the description of mud characterizes the place as destructive sexuality as it “signifies a realm of faecality” (Johaness p.216-217). Although waste is not physically being produced within the story, it creates the image of the territory itself feasting on food through the form of mermaids and other beings that may have entered the territory to satiate their desires but were caught instead. Once these creatures have served their purpose as sustenance, they are discarded and set to rot on the sea floor with no opportunity for rebirth or salvation. In this instance, the sea witch’s territory largely mimics hell or eternal damnation because of its position on the vertical plane and because it causes total destruction of the body and soul of those who have been trapped in this area. 

In the ‘Merciless tragedy of Desire’ Johaness focuses on the oceanic plane and introduces the concepts of ‘cultivated nature’ and ‘demonic nature’ which relate to the two main oceanic locations in the Little mermaid. Although both the underwater kingdom and the sea witch’s territory are located beneath the waves, the sea witch’s territory lives up to Johaness title of ‘demonic’ and serves as a stand in for a physical hell within the tale. This stand in within the story aids in making The Little Mermaid an effective form of religious propaganda as it cements the belief that the ocean or places similar to it do not have the key to gaining a soul and eternal life. Instead a person must turn towards Christianity found on land and reject desire found in the ocean that falls out of favor with the church.

Works Cited: Johansen, Jørgen Dines. “The Merciless Tragedy of Desire: An Interpretation of H.C. Andersen’s ‘Den Lille Havfrue.’” Scandinavian Studies, vol. 68, no. 2, 1996, pp. 203–41. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40919857. Accessed 14 Apr. 2024.

The Water Will Carry us Home

Posted on by
2

In the stop motion animation ‘The Water Will Carry us Home,’ the water serves as a tool to help transform the spirits of enslaved Africans in the Middle Passage into mermaids, and helps to transport them back by setting them on a path to find freedom within the ocean. The ocean in the context of transatlantic slavery and the Middle Passage is interesting because the concepts of ownership, specifically the ownership of human bodies, are terrestrial-based; you can’t physically own anything in the ocean. 

In the beginning of the stop motion animation, enslaved Africans are lined up and bound, their bodies confined in a way that maximizes the ship’s space instead of prioritizing the comfort of the people within it. The ship acts as a vessel for land and terrestrial based concepts as it carries out the act of enslavement by stealing people away from their homeland and taking them a new world where they would face terrible conditions. On the boat, the enslaved Africans cannot move but as mermaids, the spirits are able to move freely within the water as they are not chained or constricted. In the title of this animation, water and transportation are once again linked through the phrase ‘carry us home’. The water and the Yoruba Orisha associated with it help to guide the mermaids back to their homeland after being violently taken from it. 

Posted on by
1

One of the components of the Sirenomelia film project that really stood out to me was the way each section of audio helps to mentally transport the viewer into desolate landscapes displayed on screen. The first 15 seconds of the project are filled with white noise as the word ‘Nowness’ appears on a simple white background. The lack of sound feels strange and a bit jarring because of the lack of auditory input. This absence helps to center the viewers focus before the sound abruptly starts on the 16th second. The sound that begins to play is eerie and unsettling which adds to the desolate and isolating feeling that the vast snow covered island imparts on the viewer. The project states that the sounds being recorded come from quasars that come from a Norwegian Observatory. Quasars are not found within the deep ocean but are still found within another desolate and unsettling landscape, outer space. The sound feels almost otherworldly and inhuman, as if the audience is not supposed to hear it. This specific sound lasts for more than a minute before it reaches a crescendo that sounds like a far off cry being distorted, increasing the feeling of unease within the viewer. At around the two minute mark, you can slowly hear the sound of water rippling on the surface emerge from beneath the mechanical/unnatural sound before the sound of the water gets overpowered again. In less than 30 seconds, this distortion continues and it sounds like a human voice is being projected to the viewer rather than the sound of the quasar. Although the noise sounds vaguely human, it’s difficult to discern if there are any words being spoken at all or if it’s a trick being played by the viewers brain.

Week 10: Deterreiorializing Preface

Posted on by
2

In ‘Deterritorializing Preface,’ the text reveals how descriptors and common word associations with the land are a conscious act that centers land over the ocean. This reading offers precise language to recenter the ocean as a place with its own merit and agency outside of its proximity to land. Even before presenting these alternative definitions, the author states that ‘moving offshore reshapes our vocabulary (xv),’ which allows for the structure of the text itself to also deterritorialize as it provides a mental shift that moves the reader’s focus from the land to the ocean. In all seven alternative vocabularies, the author places the word ‘formerly’ next to the terrestrial-based vocabulary and is enclosed within a parenthesis. This confined position within the parenthesis minimizes the presence of the terrestrial vocabulary and highlights the aquatic/ocean-based vocabulary. This visual focus on the oceanic word continues to shift the gaze of the reader toward the ocean and further pushes them into the open waters of a new way of interacting with language. In the last section of the text, the author states that they nearly wrote down the phrase ‘change the world’ instead of ‘change the ocean.’ The phrase ‘change the world’ has been used as a call to action to inspire individuals to try to fix injustices or problems that Earth faces. However, the ‘world’ usually calls to mind images of land and solid ground and largely excludes the 70% world that’s covered in water. By changing this common phrase to ‘change the ocean,’ the text once again centers on the ocean as a physical place where an active change can occur, especially one that involves connotations that certain vocabularies can bring.  

Steve Mentz, Ocean (Bloomsbury, 2020): “Deterritorializing Preface” (pgs. xv-xviii)