Analysis of Andersen's fairy tale "The Little Mermaid" (School essays). "The central theme of Andersen's fairy tale "The Little Mermaid Self-sacrificing love of the Little Mermaid

The little mermaid is the daughter of the sea king. She's just like a person. Since childhood, the Little Mermaid has been striving for the world of people and idolizes the marble statue of a boy, brought to the seabed during a shipwreck. Having fallen in love with the prince, she dreams of becoming a man herself. The little mermaid sacrifices her beautiful voice, gives the sea witch her mermaid tail to be close to her lover. She becomes the first beauty in the prince's court.

The Little Mermaid has a father - a sea king, sisters, an old grandmother. Mermaids can gossip like humans. The king's mother is proud of her pedigree and therefore always carries a dozen oysters on her tail, while others are allowed to carry only six. With all the nobility, the grandmother does not shun work and runs the entire palace economy. Her little mermaid granddaughters plant flowers in the flowerbeds themselves.

The little mermaid aspires to the wonders of the earth, to the sun's rays, to the singing of birds, the life of the seabed depresses her with everyday monotony - it's only for us that underwater trees and shells seem to be something unusual!

The little mermaid's love for the prince is the main, central theme of the tale. This is not a theme of ordinary human love, but romantic, doomed love, love - self-sacrifice, love that did not make the heroine of the fairy tale happy, but which did not disappear without a trace for her, because it did not make her completely unhappy. In mythology, a mermaid, having lost her immortal soul as a result of the evil done to her as a person, can gain this soul if she makes a person love herself. The love of a mermaid and a person does not have to be mutual. A mermaid may not answer a person and destroy him, falling in love with herself. But a person's love for her is the main step towards gaining an immortal soul by a mermaid. Therefore, she must provoke a person, evoke this love in him by any means and ways.

In Andersen, this theme is both preserved and rethought. The little mermaid wants to achieve the love of a person, wants to gain an immortal soul. Why don't we have an immortal soul? - the little mermaid asked sadly, - I would give all my hundreds of years for one day of human life, so that later I would also rise to heaven ... How I love it! More than father and mother! I belong to him with all my heart, with all my thoughts, I would willingly hand over the happiness of my whole life to him! I would do anything - if only I could be with him and find an immortal soul! .. ". The immortal soul is necessary for the Little Mermaid, because she has been given only three hundred years, this is a great life, but this is the only possibility of existence, and the immortal soul makes it possible to live forever.

Andersen's fairy tale includes Christian motifs. Andersen rethinks ancient pagan mythology from the point of view of Christian mythology: ideas about the soul, about the afterlife, about life after death.

On the combination of two motifs, the story of the little mermaid and the prince is born. The little mermaid saves the prince, she does good for a man who is dying in the waves. Often, by the way, according to mythological ideas, women who died in the water became mermaids. A person cannot live in an element that is not characteristic of his habitat. On the one hand, the little mermaid saves the prince, and on the other hand, she would like him to be in her father's palace. “At first, the little mermaid was very happy that he would now fall to the bottom of them, but then she remembered that people cannot live in water and that he can only sail to her father’s palace dead. No, no, he must not die! .. He would have died if the little mermaid had not come to his aid ... It seemed to her that the prince looked like a marble boy standing in her garden; she kissed him and wished him to live"

For saving the prince, the little mermaid, of course, has the right to expect gratitude, but the fact is that the prince does not see her. He sees a girl standing above him on the shore and thinks that she saved his life. The prince liked this girl, but she turns out to be out of reach for him, since at that time she was in a monastery.

If the task of the mythological mermaid is to make a person love herself, then the little mermaid cannot force anyone; her desire is to be close to the prince, to become his wife. The little mermaid wants to please the prince, she loves him and is ready to sacrifice everything for their happiness. For the sake of her love, she renounces her home, her beautiful voice, she renounces her essence, herself. The Little Mermaid completely surrenders herself to the power of fate in the name of her love.

But the prince sees in her “a dear, kind child, it never crossed his mind to make her his wife and queen, but meanwhile she had to become his wife, otherwise she could not, after all, find an immortal soul and had to in case of his marriage on the other, turn into sea foam "

The mermaid's dream is a dream of happiness, an ordinary, human dream, she wants love, warmth, affection. “And he laid his head on her chest, where her heart beat, longing for human happiness and an immortal soul.” Love for the little mermaid is a constant overcoming of physical and moral torments. Physical - because "every step caused her such pain, as if she were stepping on sharp knives", moral - because she sees that the prince finds his love; but it does not harden her. Love should not overshadow a person's true vision of things and the world. “The little mermaid looked eagerly at her (the prince’s bride) and could not help but admit that she had never seen a sweeter and more beautiful face.” The little mermaid lost her voice, but gained sharpness of vision and perception of the world, because a loving heart sees sharper. She knew that the prince was happy with his bride, she kissed his hand and it seemed to her that “her heart was about to burst with pain: his wedding should kill her, turn her into sea foam!” .

But Andersen gives the little mermaid a chance to return to her family, to the palace of the sea king, and live for three hundred years. The little mermaid understands that all her sacrifices were in vain, she loses everything, including life.

Love is a sacrifice, and this theme runs through Andersen throughout the tale. The little mermaid sacrifices her life for the happiness of the prince, her sisters donate their beautiful long hair to the sea witch to save the little mermaid. “We gave our hair to a witch to help us save you from death! And she gave us this knife - see how sharp it is? Before the sun sets, you must plunge it into the heart of the prince, and when his warm blood splashes on your feet, they will again grow together into a fishtail and you will again become a mermaid, come down to us in the sea and live your three hundred years. But hurry! Either he or you - one of you must die before sunrise!" Here Andersen brings us back to the mythological theme. The mermaid must destroy a person, sacrifice him. The theme of shed blood is reminiscent of pagan rituals and sacrifices, but in Andersen's fairy tales, paganism is overcome by Christianity, its ideas and moral values.

For Andersen, love makes irreversible changes with a person. Love always does good, it cannot be evil. And so the little mermaid, holding a knife in her hand, still sacrifices her life, and not someone else's, chooses her death, giving the prince life and happiness. "The little mermaid lifted the purple curtain of the tent and saw that the head of the lovely newlywed was resting on the chest of the prince."

The first thing the little mermaid sees is the prince's happiness and love. It would seem that this picture should cause jealousy in her, and jealousy is unpredictable, jealousy is the power of evil. “The Little Mermaid leaned over and kissed him on his beautiful forehead, looked at the sky, where the morning dawn flared up, then looked at the sharp knife and again fixed her eyes on the prince, who in a dream said the name of his wife. She was the only one in his mind! The world of people for the little mermaid is beautiful. He so beckoned her underwater, so enchanted on the day of his coming of age; she feels sorry for this world, she is afraid to lose it, but she sees the prince, who at this time pronounces the name of his wife. “The knife trembled in the hands of the little mermaid” Love cannot kill another love - such is Andersen's thought. “Another minute - and she (the little mermaid) threw it (the knife) into the waves, which turned red, as if stained with blood, in the place where he fell. Once again she looked at the prince with a half-faded look, rushed from the ship into the sea and felt her body melt into foam. The little mermaid abandoned herself entirely, but she had one more dream - to find a human soul. This dream has come true and it hasn't. By itself, love already gives a person a soul. It is no coincidence that the little mermaid does not turn into sea foam, love gave her the opportunity to move into a different state, she becomes one of the daughters of the air.

Ancient mythological beliefs, having lost their power over human consciousness, are preserved in the folklore and artistic images of writers from different countries. In our work, we turned to only one such image and saw how complex and individual the writer's relationship with mythology and the mythological image is. Interpreting the image of the mythological mermaid, turning it into the mermaid heroine of his fairy tale, Andersen partially preserves its mythological features and possibilities. But at the same time, the mythological image under the writer's pen acquires a human essence, human character, human destiny. The little mermaid, with the help of the witch's witchcraft, turns into a man, she selflessly loves the prince, this love turns out to be unrequited and even tragic, she sacrifices her life for the sake of the prince's happiness.

Starting from pagan mythology, Andersen affirms the values ​​and ideas of Christianity, affirms the power of human love as the greatest moral force in the whole world, regardless of whether this world is real or fantastic. And such metamorphoses in Andersen's fairy tales occur not only with one little mermaid. Any mythological characters, whether they are gnomes, the snow queen, the ice maiden, acquire individual characters and destinies under the writer's pen, become like people, endowed with human dreams and desires. Mythological fairy-tale images are reinterpreted by the writer, used by him for the artistic transformation of such important moral ideas for him as the ideas of humanism, spiritual purity and selfless and devoted love.

We will make a special emphasis on the path that the mermaids had to go through in order to receive an immortal soul: “Let only one of the people love you so that you become dearer to him than his father and mother, let him give himself to you with all his heart and all thoughts and orders the priest to join your hands ... ". Why, apart from human love, was a priest also needed? For Andersen, his presence is absolutely natural. Man's love must be sanctified. There must be God's love-blessing, which is transmitted through the priest.

When did the Little Mermaid decide to go to the people? Then, when she confessed to herself: “How I love him! More than father and mother! .. ". But the Little Mermaid was not only drawn to the prince, she also had another goal on earth: “If only I could be with him and find an immortal soul.” That is, the love for the prince and the desire to have an immortal soul in the Little Mermaid stand side by side.

What was the path of the Little Mermaid to people? First, she went for advice and maybe help to the sea witch. Andersen describes the Little Mermaid's path to the witch, and thanks to precise epithets and comparisons, we can easily imagine it - seething whirlpools, peat bogs, "disgusting polyps", "similar to hundred-headed snakes", "white skeletons of sunken ships", "animal bones". Why does the writer recreate in such detail the path to the witch that the Little Mermaid had to overcome? In order to show how difficult it was and, most importantly, terrible - “her heart beat with fear”, “it was the worst of all”. And yet, the Little Mermaid did not turn back, although she had such impulses, but then she “remembered the prince, the immortal soul and gathered her courage.” It is again emphasized that not only the prince pulled the Little Mermaid to the ground, but also the immortality of the soul. The far-sighted sea witch confirms this - “if you want the young prince to love you, and you would receive an immortal soul!” .

To get to people, the Little Mermaid had to change her tail to human legs - "it will hurt so much, as if you were pierced with a sharp sword." She will have to give up her native environment, her father's house, her sisters, lose the opportunity to ever become a mermaid again. The Little Mermaid also had to give the witch her "wonderful voice" as a payment for her help. Note that the “voice” is what determines the image of a mermaid, her essence. That is, the Little Mermaid gave the witch a part of herself.

What was the condition of the Little Mermaid during her visit to the witch? She was scared. She answered the witch's terrible warnings with a "trembling voice", "turned white as death". Even the comparison itself is scary. What made the Little Mermaid endure all the fears? Only thoughts of a prince and an immortal soul.

The victims of the Little Mermaid are enormous, both physical (voice, legs) and psychological (refuses her native environment and herself). But true love always involves sacrifice.

The Little Mermaid could not tell the prince about her love. But the prince did not doubt her love at all, because "her eyes spoke more to the heart." “You love me so much,” the prince claimed. Andersen is also convinced that true love does not need words.

But how did the prince treat the Little Mermaid? “Yes, I love you,” said the prince. - You have a good heart, you are devoted to me more than anyone else...”, “You will rejoice at my happiness. You love me so much!” . It is easy to see that the words "me", "me" dominate here. The Prince loved the Little Mermaid above all for his love for himself. But he also had love-gratitude towards the Little Mermaid. After all, he told her: “You look like a young girl whom I saw once.” He thought that this girl saved him when he was drowning.

The prince also loved the Little Mermaid "like a sweet child." What does it mean? The fact that the prince treated the Little Mermaid as a funny toy that touched and entertained him. We find confirmation of this in the text. Let's remember how the Little Mermaid was dressed in the palace, what she usually did. “The little mermaid was dressed in silk and muslin”, the prince “ordered her to sew a men's costume” to participate in his walks, she danced beautifully, they admired her dances. And to sleep "she was allowed ... on a velvet pillow in front of the doors of his room." If we select the dominant verbs, we will see that they always express the will of the prince, and not the Little Mermaid. She is loved, but only as a beautiful expensive toy.

Did the Little Mermaid need such love? No, because in order to gain an immortal soul, she only had to become the wife of a prince, and he “didn’t even think of making ... her his wife and queen.” The Prince did not love the Little Mermaid the way she needed to. It turns out that even great love - and the Little Mermaid carried just such - is not always capable of evoking a reciprocal feeling.

Why did the mutual love of the Little Mermaid and the Prince turn out to be impossible? Sometimes they say: “He is a prince, and she is just a “foundling” girl.” At the same time, they forget that the Little Mermaid is also a princess, although a sea one. That is, the Prince and the Little Mermaid are socially equal, but another inequality separates them. The fact is that the Little Mermaid and the prince belonged to different worlds. She is the sea, he is the earth. And they lived different lives. She is spiritual (remember her hobbies, interests, aspirations, especially in comparison with her sisters). And the prince lived in the literal and figurative sense of earthly life (we meet him on the ship, celebrating his birthday, on walks, worries about marriage and other similar matters).

The Little Mermaid loved, but was she happy? How does Andersen answer this question? Love and happiness, according to Andersen, are not synonymous at all. Moreover, they are not compatible. The reverse side of love is not happiness, but suffering, as was the case with the Little Mermaid. We will find evidence of this in the text: “her legs were cut like knives, but she did not feel this pain - her heart was even more painful”; her "heart, longing for human happiness and immortal love"; "The little mermaid laughed and danced with mortal anguish in her heart"; “it seemed to her that her heart was about to burst from pain: his wedding should kill her.” In relation to the Little Mermaid, the words "heart" and "pain" are inseparable unity - "heart pain" with the word "happiness" does not fit in any way.

The little mermaid, despite the strength of her love, did not achieve reciprocal love from the prince and, according to the witch's prediction, had to die. But why didn't this happen? Who turned her death sentence away from her? This was done by her sisters. To save the Little Mermaid, they gave the witch their beautiful hair. Note that the hair, like the voice, is the figurative elements of mermaids. Mermaids are incomplete without hair. But the sisters made this sacrifice to save the Little Mermaid.

"The Little Mermaid" is also a fairy tale about the great power of kindred (sisterly) love - one that does not even spare itself for the sake of a loved one.

To save herself, the Little Mermaid had to plunge a knife into the prince's heart. His death is her life. Why didn't she do what was required of her? Why "the knife trembled in the hands of the Little Mermaid"? She heard how in a dream he said the name of his wife - "she alone was in his thoughts." The author does not use the word "love", but it was the prince's love for his wife that stopped the hand of the Little Mermaid. True love always respects the feelings of the other.

The little mermaid was unable to kill the prince and threw the knife into the waves, "which turned red, as if stained with blood." How to understand this metaphor? Together with the knife, the Little Mermaid threw her life into the sea. Blood here is a symbol of life. Again, the Little Mermaid sacrifices for the sake of the prince. Is there a difference between the first victims and the last? Yes, and it's huge. At the beginning of her journey to people, the Little Mermaid made unheard-of sacrifices - torments, but then she still gave only part of her body and soul and hoped for good luck. At the end of her earthly journey, the Little Mermaid sacrificed her entire life, and she had no hope left. Why does Andersen build the Little Mermaid's love story in such a way that it begins and ends with her victims? Has the Little Mermaid changed over the earthly period of her life? Yes, she changed, because she understood the main thing - the prince did not love her. So the Little Mermaid had to die. "She thought about her death hour and what she was losing with her life." What did she lose? An opportunity to receive an immortal soul through the prince's love for her.

The little mermaid has changed in understanding her position, but has remained the same in her love for the prince. The composition of the tale is precisely intended to emphasize the inviolability of this love. The Little Mermaid did not regret anything - in her love she remained the same.

The little mermaid did not achieve the love of the prince, but she retained the opportunity to gain an immortal soul. What is the difference between the first and second paths to the immortality of the soul? She received an answer from the daughters of the air, to whom she came after she threw away the knife: “Now you yourself can earn an immortal soul with good deeds and find it in three hundred years.” Why is it necessary to work for so long - as many as three hundred years? Is this number random? There is nothing accidental in Andersen's text - every detail works for the main idea. Mermaids live for three hundred years, and then they turn into sea foam. The little mermaid, after three hundred years, can receive "as a reward an immortal soul and ... taste the eternal bliss available to people."

The little mermaid's love for the prince is the main, central theme of the tale. This is not a theme of ordinary human love, but romantic, doomed love, love - self-sacrifice, love that did not make the heroine of the fairy tale happy, but which did not disappear without a trace for her, because it did not make her completely unhappy. In mythology, a mermaid, having lost her immortal soul as a result of the evil done to her as a person, can gain this soul if she makes a person love herself. The love of a mermaid and a person does not have to be mutual. A mermaid may not answer a person and destroy him, falling in love with herself. But a person's love for her is the main step towards gaining an immortal soul by a mermaid. Therefore, she must provoke a person, evoke this love in him by any means and ways.

In Andersen, this theme is both preserved and rethought. The little mermaid wants to achieve the love of a person, wants to gain an immortal soul. “Why don’t we have an immortal soul? - the little mermaid asked sadly, - I would give all my hundreds of years for one day of human life, so that later I would also rise to heaven ... How I love it! More than father and mother! I belong to him with all my heart, with all my thoughts, I would willingly hand over the happiness of my whole life to him! I would do anything - if only I could be with him and find an immortal soul! .. “The mermaid needs an immortal soul, because she has only been given three hundred years, this is a great life, but this is the only possibility of existence, and an immortal soul makes it possible to live forever .

Andersen's fairy tale includes Christian motifs. Andersen rethinks ancient pagan mythology from the point of view of Christian mythology: ideas about the soul, about the afterlife, about life after death.

On the combination of two motifs, the story of the little mermaid and the prince is born. The little mermaid saves the prince, she does good for a man who is dying in the waves. Often, by the way, according to mythological ideas, women who died in the water became mermaids. A person cannot live in an element that is not characteristic of his habitat. On the one hand, the little mermaid saves the prince, and on the other hand, she would like him to be in her father's palace. “At first, the little mermaid was very happy that he would now fall to the bottom of them, but then she remembered that people cannot live in water and that he can only swim to her father’s palace dead. No, no, he must not die!... He would have died if the little mermaid had not come to his aid... It seemed to her that the prince looked like a marble boy standing in her garden; she kissed him and wished him to live.”

For saving the prince, the little mermaid, of course, has the right to expect gratitude, but the fact is that the prince does not see her. He sees a girl standing above him on the shore and thinks that she saved his life. The prince liked this girl, but she turns out to be out of reach for him, since at that time she was in a monastery.

If the task of the mythological mermaid is to make a person love herself, then the little mermaid cannot force anyone; her desire is to be close to the prince, to become his wife. The little mermaid wants to please the prince, she loves him and is ready to sacrifice everything for their happiness. For the sake of her love, she renounces her home, her beautiful voice, she renounces her essence, herself. The Little Mermaid completely surrenders herself to the power of fate in the name of her love.

But the prince sees in her “a dear, kind child, it didn’t occur to him to make her his wife and queen, but meanwhile she had to become his wife, otherwise she couldn’t find an immortal soul and had to if he married on the other, turn into sea foam.”

The mermaid's dream is a dream of happiness, an ordinary, human dream, she wants love, warmth, affection. “And he laid his head on her chest, where her heart beat, longing for human happiness and an immortal soul.” Love for the little mermaid is a constant overcoming of physical and moral torments. Physical - because “each step caused her such pain, as if she were stepping on sharp knives”, moral - because she sees that the prince finds his love; but it does not harden her. Love should not overshadow a person's true vision of things and the world. “The little mermaid looked at her eagerly and could not help admitting that she had never seen a sweeter and more beautiful face.” The little mermaid lost her voice, but gained sharpness of vision and perception of the world, because a loving heart sees sharper. She knew that the prince was happy with his “blushing bride”, she kissed his hand and it seemed to her “that her heart was about to burst with pain: his wedding should kill her, turn her into sea foam!”

But Andersen gives the little mermaid a chance to return to her family, to the palace of the sea king, and live for three hundred years. The little mermaid understands that all her sacrifices were in vain, she loses everything, including life.

Love is a sacrifice, and this theme runs through Andersen throughout the tale. The little mermaid sacrifices her life for the happiness of the prince, her sisters donate their beautiful long hair to the sea witch to save the little mermaid. “We gave our hair to a witch to help us save you from death! And she gave us this knife - see how sharp it is? Before the sun sets, you must plunge it into the heart of the prince, and when his warm blood splashes on your feet, they will again grow together into a fishtail and you will again become a mermaid, come down to us in the sea and live your three hundred years. But hurry! Either he or you - one of you must die before sunrise!” Here Andersen brings us back to the mythological theme. The mermaid must destroy a person, sacrifice him. The theme of shed blood is reminiscent of pagan rituals and sacrifices, but in Andersen's fairy tales, paganism is overcome by Christianity, its ideas and moral values.

For Andersen, love makes irreversible changes with a person. Love always does good, it cannot be evil. And so the little mermaid, holding a knife in her hand, still sacrifices her life, and not someone else's, chooses her death, giving the prince life and happiness. “The little mermaid lifted the purple curtain of the tent and saw that the head of the lovely newlywed was resting on the chest of the prince.”

The first thing the little mermaid sees is the prince's happiness and love. It would seem that this picture should cause jealousy in her, and jealousy is unpredictable, jealousy is the power of evil. “The little mermaid bent down and kissed him on his beautiful forehead, looked at the sky, where the morning dawn flared up, then looked at the sharp knife and again fixed her eyes on the prince, who in a dream said the name of his wife. She was the only one in his mind!” The world of people for the little mermaid is beautiful. He so beckoned her underwater, so enchanted on the day of his coming of age; she feels sorry for this world, she is afraid to lose it, but she sees the prince, who at this time pronounces the name of his wife. “The knife trembled in the hands of the little mermaid.” Love cannot kill another love - this is Andersen's thought. “Another minute - and she (the little mermaid) threw it (the knife) into the waves, which turned red, as if stained with blood, in the place where he fell. Once again she looked at the prince with a half-faded look, rushed from the ship into the sea and felt her body melt into foam. The little mermaid abandoned herself entirely, but she had another dream - to find a human soul. This dream has come true and it hasn't. By itself, love already gives a person a soul. It is no coincidence that the little mermaid does not turn into sea foam, love gave her the opportunity to move into a different state, she becomes one of the daughters of the air.

The little mermaid again has a chance to find what she deliberately renounced. Her love and good deeds give her the right to gain an immortal soul. “Three hundred years will pass, during which we, the daughters of the air, will do good to the best of our ability, and we will receive an immortal soul as a reward ... You, poor little mermaid, with all your heart strove for the same thing that we did, you loved and suffered, rise same with us in the transcendental world. Now you yourself can earn an immortal soul by good deeds and gain it in three hundred years!” Andersen ends the tale with this theme.

Ancient mythological beliefs, having lost their power over human consciousness, are preserved in the folklore and artistic images of writers from different countries. In our work, we turned to only one such image and saw how complex and individual the writer's relationship with mythology and the mythological image is. Interpreting the image of the mythological mermaid, turning it into the mermaid heroine of his fairy tale, Andersen partially preserves its mythological features and possibilities. But at the same time, the mythological image under the writer's pen acquires a human essence, human character, human destiny. The little mermaid, with the help of the witch's witchcraft, turns into a man, she selflessly loves the prince, this love turns out to be unrequited and even tragic, she sacrifices her life for the sake of the prince's happiness.

Starting from pagan mythology, Andersen affirms the values ​​and ideas of Christianity, affirms the power of human love as the greatest moral force in the whole world, regardless of whether this world is real or fantastic. And such metamorphoses in Andersen's fairy tales occur not only with one little mermaid. Any mythological characters, whether they are gnomes, the snow queen, the ice maiden, acquire individual characters and destinies under the writer's pen, become like people, endowed with human dreams and desires. Mythological fairy-tale images are reinterpreted by the writer, used by him for the artistic transformation of such important moral ideas for him as the ideas of humanism, spiritual purity and selfless and devoted love.

The writing

The little mermaid's love for the prince is the main, central theme of the tale. This is not a theme of ordinary human love, but romantic, doomed love, love - self-sacrifice, love that did not make the heroine of the fairy tale happy, but which did not disappear without a trace for her, because it did not make her completely unhappy. In mythology, a mermaid, having lost her immortal soul as a result of the evil done to her as a person, can gain this soul if she makes a person love herself. The love of a mermaid and a person does not have to be mutual. A mermaid may not answer a person and destroy him, falling in love with herself. But a person's love for her is the main step towards gaining an immortal soul by a mermaid. Therefore, she must provoke a person, evoke this love in him by any means and ways.

In Andersen, this theme is both preserved and rethought. The little mermaid wants to achieve the love of a person, wants to gain an immortal soul. “Why don’t we have an immortal soul? - the little mermaid asked sadly, - I would give all my hundreds of years for one day of human life, so that later I could also ascend to heaven ... How I love it! More than father and mother! I belong to him with all my heart, with all my thoughts, I would willingly hand over the happiness of my whole life to him! I would do anything – if only I could be with him and find an immortal soul! .

Andersen's fairy tale includes Christian motifs. Andersen rethinks ancient pagan mythology from the point of view of Christian mythology: ideas about the soul, about the afterlife, about life after death.

On the combination of two motifs, the story of the little mermaid and the prince is born. The little mermaid saves the prince, she does good for a man who is dying in the waves. Often, by the way, according to mythological ideas, women who died in the water became mermaids. A person cannot live in an element that is not characteristic of his habitat. On the one hand, the little mermaid saves the prince, and on the other hand, she would like him to be in her father's palace. “At first, the little mermaid was very happy that he would now fall to the bottom of them, but then she remembered that people cannot live in water and that he can only swim to her father’s palace dead. No, no, he must not die! .. He would have died if the little mermaid had not come to his aid ... It seemed to her that the prince looked like a marble boy standing in her garden; she kissed him and wished him to live.”

For saving the prince, the little mermaid, of course, has the right to expect gratitude, but the fact is that the prince does not see her. He sees a girl standing above him on the shore and thinks that she saved his life. The prince liked this girl, but she turns out to be out of reach for him, since at that time she was in a monastery.

If the task of the mythological mermaid is to make a person love herself, then the little mermaid cannot force anyone; her desire is to be close to the prince, to become his wife. The little mermaid wants to please the prince, she loves him and is ready to sacrifice everything for their happiness. For the sake of her love, she renounces her home, her beautiful voice, she renounces her essence, herself. The Little Mermaid completely surrenders herself to the power of fate in the name of her love.

But the prince sees in her “a dear, kind child, it didn’t occur to him to make her his wife and queen, but meanwhile she had to become his wife, otherwise she couldn’t find an immortal soul and had to if he married on the other, turn into sea foam.”

The mermaid's dream is a dream of happiness, an ordinary, human dream, she wants love, warmth, affection. “And he laid his head on her chest, where her heart beat, longing for human happiness and an immortal soul.” Love for the little mermaid is a constant overcoming of physical and moral torment. Physical - because "each step caused her such pain, as if she were stepping on sharp knives", moral - because she sees that the prince finds his love; but it does not harden her. Love should not overshadow a person's true vision of things and the world. “The little mermaid looked at her eagerly and could not help admitting that she had never seen a sweeter and more beautiful face.” The little mermaid lost her voice, but gained sharpness of vision and perception of the world, because a loving heart sees sharper. She knew that the prince was happy with his “blushing bride”, she kissed his hand and it seemed to her “that her heart was about to burst with pain: his wedding should kill her, turn her into sea foam!”

But Andersen gives the little mermaid a chance to return to her family, to the palace of the sea king, and live for three hundred years. The little mermaid understands that all her sacrifices were in vain, she loses everything, including life.

Love is a sacrifice, and this theme runs through Andersen throughout the tale. The little mermaid sacrifices her life for the happiness of the prince, her sisters donate their beautiful long hair to the sea witch to save the little mermaid. “We gave our hair to a witch to help us save you from death! And she gave us this knife - see how sharp it is? Before the sun sets, you must plunge it into the heart of the prince, and when his warm blood splashes on your feet, they will again grow together into a fishtail and you will again become a mermaid, come down to us in the sea and live your three hundred years. But hurry! Either he or you—one of you must die before sunrise!” Here Andersen brings us back to the mythological theme. The mermaid must destroy a person, sacrifice him. The theme of shed blood is reminiscent of pagan rituals and sacrifices, but in Andersen's fairy tales, paganism is overcome by Christianity, its ideas and moral values.

For Andersen, love makes irreversible changes with a person. Love always does good, it cannot be evil. And so the little mermaid, holding a knife in her hand, still sacrifices her life, and not someone else's, chooses her death, giving the prince life and happiness. “The little mermaid lifted the purple curtain of the tent and saw that the head of the lovely newlywed was resting on the chest of the prince.”

The first thing the little mermaid sees is the prince's happiness and love. It would seem that this picture should cause jealousy in her, and jealousy is unpredictable, jealousy is the power of evil. “The little mermaid bent down and kissed him on his beautiful forehead, looked at the sky, where the morning dawn flared up, then looked at the sharp knife and again fixed her eyes on the prince, who in a dream said the name of his wife. She was the only one in his mind!” The world of people for the little mermaid is beautiful. He so beckoned her underwater, so enchanted on the day of his coming of age; she feels sorry for this world, she is afraid to lose it, but she sees the prince, who at this time pronounces the name of his wife. “The knife trembled in the hands of the little mermaid.” Love cannot kill another love - this is Andersen's thought. “Another minute - and she (the little mermaid) threw it (the knife) into the waves, which turned red, as if stained with blood, in the place where he fell. Once again she looked at the prince with a half-faded look, rushed from the ship into the sea and felt her body melt into foam. The little mermaid abandoned herself entirely, but she had another dream - to find a human soul. This dream has come true and it hasn't. By itself, love already gives a person a soul. It is no coincidence that the little mermaid does not turn into sea foam, love gave her the opportunity to move into a different state, she becomes one of the daughters of the air.

The little mermaid again has a chance to find what she deliberately renounced. Her love and good deeds give her the right to gain an immortal soul. “Three hundred years will pass, during which we, the daughters of air, will do good to the best of our ability, and we will receive an immortal soul as a reward ... You, poor little mermaid, with all your heart strove for the same as we did, you loved and suffered, rise up together with us to the transcendental world. Now you yourself can earn an immortal soul by good deeds and gain it in three hundred years!” Andersen ends the tale with this theme.
Ancient mythological beliefs, having lost their power over human consciousness, are preserved in the folklore and artistic images of writers from different countries. In our work, we turned to only one such image and saw how complex and individual the writer's relationship with mythology and the mythological image is. Interpreting the image of the mythological mermaid, turning it into the mermaid heroine of his fairy tale, Andersen partially preserves its mythological features and possibilities. But at the same time, the mythological image under the writer's pen acquires a human essence, human character, human destiny. The little mermaid, with the help of the witch's witchcraft, turns into a man, she selflessly loves the prince, this love turns out to be unrequited and even tragic, she sacrifices her life for the sake of the prince's happiness.

Starting from pagan mythology, Andersen affirms the values ​​and ideas of Christianity, affirms the power of human love as the greatest moral force in the whole world, regardless of whether this world is real or fantastic. And such metamorphoses in Andersen's fairy tales occur not only with one little mermaid. Any mythological characters, whether they are gnomes, the snow queen, the ice maiden, acquire individual characters and destinies under the writer's pen, become like people, endowed with human dreams and desires. Mythological fairy-tale images are reinterpreted by the writer, used by him for the artistic transformation of such important moral ideas for him as the ideas of humanism, spiritual purity and selfless and devoted love.

Everyone remembers the sad tale of the little mermaid who fell in love with a handsome prince. This famous fairy tale by Andersen has been published many times. In 1989, a full-length cartoon based on the fairy tale was created at the Disney studio, and since then the image of the little mermaid named Ariel, with red hair, a green tail and a swimsuit made of lilac shells, has become recognizable by both children and adults. I’ll tell you why the cartoon is “based on” just below, but for now let’s recall Andersen’s plot and pay attention to important details.

On the day of her fifteenth birthday, the little mermaid, the youngest daughter of the sea king, gets the right to float to the surface of the sea. There she admires the beautiful ship and the young prince: the prince also has a birthday, the people on the ship are festively dressed and set off fireworks. A storm begins, the ship sinks, the prince, tired of fighting the waves, loses consciousness. The little mermaid swims with him to the shore and leaves him on the shore, where he is first found by a beautiful girl, a pupil of the monastery. The little mermaid is sad about the prince, sails to look at him, and then asks her grandmother about death and receives this answer:

“We live for three hundred years, but when the end comes to us, we are not buried among our loved ones, we don’t even have graves, we just turn into sea foam. We are not given an immortal soul, and we never resurrect; we are like a reed: you tear by the roots, and it will not turn green again! Humans, on the contrary, have an immortal soul that lives forever, even after the body turns to dust; it flies to the sky, straight to the twinkling stars! How can we rise from the bottom sea ​​and see the land where people live, so they can rise after death to unknown blissful countries that we will never see!

Why don't we have an immortal soul? the little mermaid asked sadly. - I would give all my hundreds of years for one day of a human life, so that later I could also ascend to heaven. (...) Is there really no way I can get an immortal soul?

“You can,” said the grandmother, “let only one of the people love you so that you become dearer to him than his father and mother, let him give himself to you with all his heart and all thoughts and tell the priest to join your hands as a sign of eternal fidelity to each other.” ; then a particle of his soul will be communicated to you and someday you will taste eternal bliss. He will give you a soul and keep his own. But this will never happen! After all, what we consider beautiful, your fish tail, people find ugly; they know nothing about beauty; in their opinion, to be beautiful, one must certainly have two clumsy props - legs, as they call them.

Then the little mermaid secretly goes to the sea witch, and she agrees to brew a potion that will turn the little mermaid's fish tail into legs. In return, she takes the beautiful voice of the little mermaid, and warns her:

"Remember that once you take on a human form, you will not become a mermaid again! You will not see the seabed, or your father's house, or your sisters! And if the prince does not love you so much that he forgets both his father and mother for you, he will not surrender you with all your heart and does not tell the priest to join your hands so that you become husband and wife, you will not receive an immortal soul. From the first dawn after his marriage to another, your heart will burst into pieces, and you will become the foam of the sea! "

In the morning, the prince finds a beautiful mute girl on the seashore and takes her to the palace. The prince was delighted with the little mermaid, he took her with him for walks, became attached to her, and even "was allowed to sleep on a velvet pillow in front of the door of his room." However, it did not occur to him to consider her his bride, and he remembered the girl from the monastery, who, as he believed, had saved his life.

The time has come when the prince, at the behest of his parents, was to meet the princess of the neighboring kingdom. What was his happiness when she turned out to be the very pupil of the monastery. On the night after the wedding, the prince's ship sailed home, the newlyweds retired to the tent, and for the little mermaid this night was to be the last. The eldest daughters of the sea king rose from the sea and handed her a dagger:

"Before the sun rises, you must plunge it into the heart of the prince, and when his warm blood splashes on your feet, they will grow together again into a fish tail and you will again become a mermaid, descend to us in the sea and live your three hundred years before you turn into into the salty sea foam. But hurry! Either he or you—one of you must die before sunrise!"

And the little mermaid kissed the sleeping prince and princess goodbye and threw the dagger into the water...

What happens next is not described in all editions of the tale. In some books, this is where the tale ends - the little mermaid simply turns into sea foam. One of the reviews of The Little Mermaid says that the full version was not published after the 1917 revolution for ideological reasons. The fact is that, as can be seen from the quotes, the little mermaid wanted to become a man not only out of love for the prince - she wanted to find an immortal soul that allows her to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Love here is an opportunity to enter eternity, and death is complete non-existence. Now in new, colorful editions, the tale is printed in full, but in children's libraries it often exists in abbreviation.

What was filmed at Disney Studios? Of course, a love story with a happy ending. The sea king Triton, seeing that Ariel and the prince really love each other, turns his daughter into a human. The cartoon ends with a wedding and general happiness. Of course, there is no question of any soul, immortality, and the like. But in the end, the little mermaid really saved the prince, she loved, suffered, sacrificed her voice, and the option with a happy ending, maybe not so bad?

However, the fact is that Ariel in the cartoon does not make a choice between the prince's life and her own. In the book, her rival is a very much like her pious beautiful princess. I would even say that this is the mermaid's alter ego, it's like she herself is in human incarnation, and therefore the prince chooses the princess - after all, she is a person, and she already has a soul.

Illustration for the book "The Little Mermaid", artist Christian Birmingham, ed. "Good book", 2014

And in the Disney cartoon there is no princess, there is the witch Ursula, who wants to seize power in her own hands. Taking the voice of the little mermaid, she turns into a beauty, bewitches the prince and leads him down the aisle. At the last moment, the little mermaid's friends disrupt the wedding, and the prince is disenchanted. Ursula is a stereotyped villain and no choice needs to be made to fight her.

Frame from the cartoon "The Little Mermaid" (1989): the wedding of the prince and Ursula

Accordingly, everything is already clear to a child who has watched the cartoon - this is good, but evil, good has won, and evil is punished. But after all, not everything is so simple in life, and for this reason writers create their great works - to convey human wisdom and the complexity of choosing answers to the most important questions.

Well, those who carefully read the real ending of Andersen's fairy tale will find out that the little mermaid was nevertheless rewarded for her difficult choice.

The sun rose over the sea; its rays lovingly warmed the deadly cold sea foam, and the little mermaid did not feel death: she saw the clear sun and some transparent, wonderful creatures hovering over her in hundreds. She saw through them the white sails of the ship and the red clouds in the sky; their voice sounded like music, but so sublime that the human ear would not have heard it, just as human eyes could not see them. They did not have wings, but they floated in the air, light and transparent. The little mermaid saw that she had the same body as theirs, and that she was more and more separated from the sea foam.

- Who am I going to? she asked, rising into the air, and her voice sounded with the same marvelous music that no earthly sounds can convey.

— To the daughters of the air! the air creatures answered her. - A mermaid does not have an immortal soul, and she can find it only if a person loves her. Its eternal existence depends on someone else's will. The daughters of the air also do not have an immortal soul, but they can earn it by good deeds. We fly to hot countries where people die from sultry, plague-ridden air, and bring coolness. We spread the fragrance of flowers in the air and bring healing and joy to people. Three hundred years will pass, during which we will do good to the best of our ability, and we will receive an immortal soul as a reward and will be able to taste the eternal bliss available to people. You, poor little mermaid, with all your heart aspired to the same thing as us, you loved and suffered, rise with us to the transcendental world. Now you yourself can earn an immortal soul by good deeds and gain it in three hundred years!

And the little mermaid stretched out her transparent hands to the sun and for the first time felt tears in her eyes.

During this time, everything on the ship began to move again, and the little mermaid saw how the prince and his wife were looking for her. They looked sadly at the surging sea foam, they knew for sure that the little mermaid had thrown herself into the waves. Invisible, the little mermaid kissed the beauty on the forehead, smiled at the prince and rose, together with other children of the air, to the pink clouds floating in the sky.

“In three hundred years, we will enter the kingdom of God!”

“Maybe even earlier!” whispered one of the daughters of the air. We fly invisibly into people's homes where there are children, and if we find there a kind, obedient child, pleasing his parents and worthy of their love, we smile.

The child does not see us when we fly around the room, and if we rejoice looking at him, our three hundred year period is reduced by a year. But if we see an evil, naughty child there, we weep bitterly, and each tear adds an extra day to the long period of our trial!