When reading this story I saw different themes tied to the environment, religion, power, and women as demonic and as beautiful. I may be wrong or childish to interpret such a deep story with such deep meaning in an immature way but I see correlations to Dreamworks Shrek and “The Legend of Melusina” story.
To summarize, Shrek is a story of an ogre who rescues a supposed damsel in distress due to the command of a wretched king who desires the prince. However, the most beautiful princess Fiona, possessed a secret that no one knew and no one could figure out, for the sake of her safety. The story goes on and it is revealed that when the sun sets, the beautiful princess turns into an ogre from dusk to dawn. The curse followed that once Fiona found true love and received a true love’s kiss she would be able to take the form of her true love. The story goes on but those details are not as relevant as the ones I have previously discussed.
When reading this summary I hope that you also make the connections that I made to the Melusina story. After researching I was not able to find a definite explanation for these connections but I believe it is important to understand, that there is a possibility for adaptations and interpretations. Here are the connections I found:
- Like Fiona, Melusina was cursed to possess “monster-like” qualities. These qualities earn them titles of fearful, horrific, etc.
- Melusina is cursed to reveal a half-snake and half-human body every Saturday and Fiona is cursed to transform into an ogre after every sundown.
- Both females struggle with their curses and fail to conceal them from their lovers.
- The revelation of their bodies of duality stunts the relationship between Melusina and her love as well as Fiona and her lover. This is due to both of the woman’s concealment of their curse.
- Both females derive from places of power, as Fiona is a princess and Melusina derives her power from her faery ties.
- The story of Melusina can go two ways, with her husband being sad by her appearance or being disgusted by it. In the Shrek story, Shrek accepts Fiona for her appearance yet is saddened that she concealed the truth, and Lord Farquad ( her other possible husband) is disgusted by her and her appearance.
This may seem like a far reach but I found it interesting to investigate both of these stories and attempt to find their connections to one another.
Hi Mikena! This is such a cool way to connect the medieval story of Melusine to a more contemporary story like Shrek. I can definitely see the correlations between the two stories. Melusine and Fiona are definitely inhibit the two worlds of monster and human, and their presentation as only human affects the relationship they have with their lovers.
Hi Mikena, connecting Shrek to Melusine never came to my mind, but I can see why you made correlations between these two. Now it is as if another mermaid/siren story is adapted into a children’s movie. There definitely are similarities! Maybe we should watch out for Disney movies etc. which adapted the stories of other myths.
What an interesting observation, Mikena! I never would have drawn the connection between Melusine and Princess Fiona! And the bullet pointed evidence you provided really strengthened your point! I wonder if there are other popular stories in historical or modern literature that were also derived from this myth. Thank you for sharing!