Posted on by Stephanie McGann

Fairy Tales #7: The Mermaid

Magical. Mysterious. Heartbreaking. Perplexing. It’s hard to come up with just the right adjective to describe The Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. His storyline does not fit squarely into the fairy tale world that rewards virtue (think Cinderella) nor does it fall neatly into the anti-fairy tale world that punishes vice (think Godfather Death). It’s a little of both, kind of like real life, and that makes it surprisingly uncomfortable in a child’s story.

Nevertheless, I include it in my line-up of fairy tales because that discomfort makes it a powerful teaching tool. Let’s take a look at the plot and then try to understand the lessons Hans Christian Andersen was trying to get across. There is tremendous wisdom there for parents and children alike.

PLOT SUMMARY
Exposition – The Background

Though no humans have ever seen it, a great kingdom exists deep under the sea. It is ruled by the sea king who lives with his mother and six charming mermaid daughters. Like all mermaids, they are created to live 300 years, upon the expiration of which they will turn into seafoam.

The daughters have a strong fascination with the human world above but are not permitted to go there until their fifteenth birthday. In the meantime, they content themselves with their grandmother’s stories about humans and collect various artifacts from shipwrecks and the like. One by one, each sister has her turn to go to the surface until it comes to the youngest, called simply “the little mermaid.”

Inciting Incident – The Problem

The little mermaid spends her first night above the surface of the ocean watching a party aboard a great ship. As it turns out, the crew was celebrating the sixteenth birthday of a handsome prince. A storm sweeps in, lightning strikes, and the ship begins to go under.

The little mermaid, who was watching the prince most intently, sees that he has been knocked unconscious. She at first plans to take him home to her collection but then realizes he would die under water. She instead swims him to shore and leaves him on the beach.

Rising Action – The Build-up

From that day forward, the little mermaid falls into a downcast state. She thinks of the prince all the time and hopes in vain to see him again. As her grandmother explains, mermaids are not made for the human world. Not only do they lack legs, but they also do not have souls. Not willing to give up her dream of being with the prince, she eventually goes to the sea witch and begs her help.

Climax – The Point of No Return

The sea witch agrees to change the little mermaid’s tail into legs so she can join the human world. In exchange the little mermaid must give up her voice, which is her most alluring asset and the essence of who she is. Though her legs will be beautiful on the outside, they will cause her great pain. With each step, she will feel as though she is walking on knives.

Additionally, the little mermaid must win the love of the prince to stay a human. If he marries another, she will die and instantly turn into seafoam, forfeiting the 300 years she otherwise would have had.  Even knowing all this, the little mermaid accepts the bargain, drinks a magical potion, and gets legs.

Falling Action – The Unraveling

On land, the little mermaid soon meets the prince. He is taken with her and eventually confesses that he loves her better than anyone else, but he nonetheless pines after the elusive woman who had previously saved him from the shipwreck. All the while, the prince has no idea that the little mermaid is indeed she. Without her voice, the she is unable to tell him who she really is.

The prince’s father arranges for him to be married to a princess from a nearby kingdom. The prince reluctantly agrees to meet the princess and ends up believing her the woman who saved him. (Unlike in the Disney version, the princess does not try to deceive the prince, he simply believes it of his own will. She’s the one, so to speak.)

The two are married at once in a grand ceremony at sea with the little mermaid in attendance.

Resolution – Almost Happily Ever After
The Little Mermaid’s Sisters by Anne Anderson

The poor little mermaid is miserable during the ceremony and reception, for she knows that she will die upon the following morn. In the final moments before the sunrise, her mermaid sisters rise to the surface and try to help her. They present her with a magical dagger they got from the sea witch and beg her to kill the prince. If she does so, she will get her mermaid life back.

The little mermaid nearly kills him but thinks better of it. No sooner does the sun come up, then she dies according to the terms of her agreement with the sea witch.

Unexpectedly, however, the little mermaid finds herself in the presence of beings called “daughters of the air.” In her new state, she will have 300 years to win a soul by doing unseen good in the human world. Though in the end she does not get to live happily ever with the prince, she will get to live eternally in heaven.

PLOT ANALYSIS

Few of my students ever like the ending of The Mermaid though they mostly see the justice of it. The reason the little mermaid does not get to live happily ever after with the prince is because she was not created for that purpose. She was made to be a mermaid, not a human. What’s more, she clearly compromises herself when she bargains with the sea witch, so the human life she assumes is false.

But if she does not deserve to get the prince, then why does she get to win a soul? After all, mermaids are supposed to live their mortal lives for 300 years and then turn into seafoam—no soul, no heaven, nothing. And yet she gets something better than her mermaid family when she rises up with the daughters of the air upon her death.  

In order to answer that question, we need to first examine the world of the story.

Ocean, Earth, Sky, Heaven

Hans Christian Andersen builds a natural hierarchy into his setting that begins with the ocean on the bottom, moves up to the earth, then onto the sky, and concludes with heaven.

The mermaids of the ocean are akin to animals in that they have bodies but do not have souls. As such, they are lower than their earthly counterparts, the humans, who have bodies and souls. The daughters of the air are kind of in limbo. They have neither body nor soul but the promise of both. Finally, heaven is the highest place, and it can only be reached with a soul.

The “Voice” of the Soul

Though the mermaids do not have souls, they do have beautiful voices. In fact, their voices are their essence. That means that when the little mermaid bargains with the sea witch and sells her voice, it is kind of like she is selling her soul to the devil.

So intent is she on marrying the prince that she is willing to compromise herself beyond recognition. One drink of the sea witch’s potion and her mermaid tail turns into legs. She likes that trade, despite the physical pain it entails, because it makes her more attractive to the prince. But she also loses her voice, which makes her less attractive. Not only is she unable to win his love through her songs, but she cannot even tell him who she is.

Literally, her identity is gone; figuratively, her true self, her very essence, is lost.

My students generally have mixed feelings about the little mermaid’s deal with the sea witch. Many are inclined to see it as a rather innocent or even commendable action because she is “following her heart.” The problem with that interpretation, however, is that it forgets that the little mermaid does not have a human heart to follow. She is less than a human, so to speak. Thus, her heart is not guiding her in a virtuous sense but in more of an instinctual, covetous sense.

To Be Human

Luckily, the little mermaid finds her true self in the final moments of her life when she is given the chance to kill the prince in order to save herself. As we know, she chooses to let herself die rather than kill him. This act is the first selfless one she has performed.

To review, everything in her life up to that point was designed for her sake. She wants to marry the prince because she wants him and the immortal soul marriage could give her. Of course she saves his life on the shipwreck, but she does so to add him to her collection. Hence, even that service is rendered thinking first of herself.

In contrast, she saves the prince’s life in the end, full-knowing she will lose her own. Her sisters, well-intentioned as they are, behave like mermaids when they give her the knife. “Look out for yourself,” they remind her in short. Theirs is a survival instinct. Yet, the little mermaid has overcome that instinct in herself. She has become like a human in that she finally knows the meaning of love. She knows that true love, agape, is about sacrifice.

In that final act of sacrificial love, she wins a place among the daughters of the sky. She likewise gets her voice back and wins the promise of a soul.

CONCLUSION

Even if you are extremely faithful, this ending is a hard one, especially for a child. Hans Christian Andersen knew that to be the case, yet he wrote it anyways. Simply put, he wanted to teach children to consider the full weight of their actions. His message, though grave, is not meant to scare.

We can tell this by looking at his narrative voice. Hans Christian Andersen is what I call a parent narrator. His voice is wise and discerning, gentle and reassuring as he tells what turns out to be a very sad story. As readers, we know he cares for his little mermaid much as the sea king does. He does not want the little mermaid to trade her voice to the sea witch for a false promise of happily ever after, nor does he want any of his readers to make similarly fatal mistakes.

Yet he does not scold or rebuke the little mermaid. He knows such headstrong desires are a part of life. Like a good parent, he trusts his little mermaid will figure out her mistakes and expects her to make amends for them, even if it takes 300 years.

Posted on by Stephanie McGann

Exercise for a Storyteller #2: Write a Sequel or a Prequel

Alas! Some stories do not end quite how we would like them to. One of the starkest examples of this in my classroom is Hans Christian Andersen’s The Mermaid. Unlike in the Disney version, his little mermaid does not live happily ever after with the prince. She dies. Or rather, she gets turned into seafoam.

Is being seafoam any better than death? my students inevitably wonder.

Well, that really depends on what being seafoam means in the world of the story. If it’s just another form of death, then it really makes no difference in the end. If, as is the case in the story, it opens the door to some kind of new life for the little mermaid, then being seafoam is clearly much better than death.

The catch, though, is that Hans Christian Andersen never tells us exactly what the little mermaid’s new, foamy life will consist of. He leaves that for us to imagine.

That’s where the fun part comes in for the aspiring storyteller!

With a little prompting, my students come up with beautiful sequels, usually having the little mermaid gain an immortal soul and thereby live the kind of happily ever after that Hans Christian Andersen wanted his readers to aspire toward.

A sequel need not pick up from the end of a story either. If there’s something unanswered in the middle of the story, a child could run with that. Just think about all the potential storylines from The Snow Queen, another of my favorites by Hans Christian Andersen. Each of little Gerda’s adventures in her quest to save Kay includes fantastic characters and subplots that could be used to create whole new stories. The most popular of those characters with my students is always the robber girl, and I’ve gotten to enjoy many wild stories about her over the years.

Finally, just as some stories make us wonder what happens next, others make us wonder what happened before. Stories that begin in a fallen state are perfect for this. Some of my favorites for a prequel are Jack and the Beanstalk by Joseph Jacobs, Hansel and Gretel by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, and The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde. In each of these stories, tragedy is a premise. Jack’s dad is gone. What happened to him? Hansel and Gretel’s mother is dead. What happened to her? The giant is mean and selfish. What made him be like that?

The child who tries to answer one of those questions will have the makings of a whole new story without having to come up with everything from scratch. In the process, she will gain more insight into the original story as well. It’s a win-win for a teacher and a beautiful writing exercise for a child. 

In order to write a sequel or a prequel, I recommend a child start with fairy tales, preferably an early version by one of the greats like Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, or Oscar Wilde. (See some of my favorites here). Once she has read it, have her narrate the story orally to ensure she has the details down and to help her establish her storyteller voice. The next step is to think through or talk through what might have preceded the story or followed after it. As soon as she has an exciting thread to work with, she should begin writing her story, following the one scene in one sitting rule.

Sequels and prequels can be written for all genres of stories, and I recommend a child experiment with lots of them. Nonetheless, there is something particularly magical about fairy tales that makes them the perfect starting point for a child. Besides understanding a few basic fairy tale conventions, there is no expectation for a child to be an expert on anything in particular. All she needs is her imagination!

First Image Credit: The Little Mermaid by Ivan Bilbin (1937)

Second Image Credit: The Selfish Giant by Walter Crane (1888)

Posted on by Stephanie McGann

Fairy Tales #12: A Classical Study

There is something about reading fairy tales that is quintessentially classical. After all, classical education considers the great stories of Western culture one of its core foundations. So if at the end of a school day I have read a fairy tale with my students, I am usually pleased. But, if that’s where it ends, I am all the more disappointed.

Rich as they are for the moral imagination, I try to draw as much from them as possible. Here is a breakdown of some of my favorite extension activities to do with students.

DISCOURSE
Socratic Discussion

A classical mainstay, Socratic discussion is at the heart of my approach to studying fairy tales. We discuss the stories in small groups and as a whole class, often rearranging the desks and chairs so we form one large circle or several smaller ones. This discursive format helps students break down the plot and unpack its core symbols.

I guide the discussions but play a limited role in order to encourage active engagement from the students. Plus, it lets them tease out the ideas that they find most interesting. In this way, students feel a greater sense of ownership in the discussions and make more personal contributions.

Disputation

This is a really fun one that serves as a natural outgrowth of Socratic discussion. Disputation involves debating key aspects of the story, typically those that pose moral dilemmas. For example, in reading Cat and Mouse in Partnership, we might debate whether the mouse should have formed a partnership with the cat. Or when reading Cinderella, we might debate whether or not it is a good story for little kids.

Sometimes our debates are very formal with preparation and regulated rounds. Other times, they are of a more impromptu style. Either way, the students get very animated and impassioned.

CREATIVE WRITING
Plot Reinvention

Another exercise I really like is plot reinvention. First, students have to thoroughly understand the original plot of the story, meaning they can express the inciting incident, climax, and resolution for themselves much as I have done in this blog series. Once they can do this, they choose an element to change.

If, for example, the father in Godfather Death were to choose God, then the whole story would change. The student’s job would be to tell that new story. One of the great things about this exercise is that it gives students a concrete place to start writing, which can be very difficult with more open-ended prompts.  

Character Reinvention

Character reinvention follows this same principle. What if Little Red Cap were a naughty girl? Or what if the fisherman had a tougher upper lip? Or how about making the youngest sister in Twelve Brothers a real chatter-box?

When students develop a whole new approach to a character, it affects all of his or her motives and actions and can lead to a different, not to mention highly entertaining, story altogether.

Working from Art

I also like projecting beautiful paintings or sketches from fairy tales and having students write just one scene based on the picture. This approach is a little more contained than the previous two, so it makes it easier for students to develop sharp, properly formatted dialogue and well-planned narration. As such, it readily doubles as a grammar lesson as well as a creative writing exercise.


Cinderella by John Everett Millais

In preparation for writing a scene for Cinderella, I might depict the painting above by John Everett Millais and prompt students with the following: Describe the moment in time depicted here. What are the character’s thoughts? Words? Actions? Draw your ideas together as a scene from the story. Be sure to include dialogue and narration.

ARTISTIC RENDERING
Reflective Journaling

There are a number of mediums one could use for reflective journaling, but one I really like is water color. This entails students painting something they found inspiring in a fairy tale.

After reading The Little Match Seller, one might paint a wood stove, another a Christmas tree, or even the little girl flying up to Heaven. Once students have painted their pictures, they reflect in writing on what they have depicted and why. When that’s done, they walk around and view everyone else’s journals in what we call a “museum walk.”

All the while, we play classical music and otherwise maintain silence. It makes for a very relaxing, thoughtful environment, not to mention beautiful work. 

Story Board

This one is borrowed from the publishing industry wherein editors lay out words on a story board and then contract illustrators to matches them with pictures. I have students do the same thing with a fairy tale.

Their story boards can be very elaborate or more of a quick sketch, true to the story or reinvented using one of the models above. Either way, students fine-tune their understanding of the plot and have the opportunity to do so in an artistic, visual way.

Act Them Out

Most of my students like acting out the fairy tales best of all. I give them liberty to keep or change whatever they want in the plots. For that matter, they can even combine plots as long as it makes sense. Their job is to write the script, memorize it, and present it in a formal production. Ideally, we invite other classes in the school to come and watch.

CONCLUSION

These types of exercises cause students to think deeply about the fairy tales. This is extremely valuable from an educational standpoint, not least because it helps students to really understand the stories and develop their own insights.

It is perhaps even more valuable from a moral standpoint because the lessons can serve as a guide for life’s real-world difficulties. When, for example, they are discerning the nature of a friendship, they can draw from Cat and Mouse in Partnership. They can look to The Mermaid or The Snow Queen when trying to understand the true meaning of love. Perhaps they will think about The Emperor’s New Clothes when they eventually come to critique politics. Or maybe, they will take heart from The Little Match Seller in the face of personal suffering, which no doubts awaits everyone at some point or another.

Whatever the case may be, by extending the fairy tales with additional exercises, students come to embody them in a way that will enrich their lives forever. At least that’s my hope.

Image in the public domain

Posted on by Stephanie McGann

Fairy Tales #1: Introduction

I once asked my seventh grade class what a fairy tale was, and one student said, “It’s a story that begins with Tinker Bell waving her wand over the Disney Castle.” She was joking, of course, but her words were illuminating.

Many children today associate fairy tales with the magical world of Disney and know little of the literary let alone the historical background behind them. That’s because Disney has a type of cultural monopoly over fairy tales that allows them to dictate storylines (and insert social politics) according to their commercial business preferences.

Some of their changes are small—just have Cinderella’s dad die so he doesn’t seem like such a deadbeat. No big deal to lose one measly character. Some of the changes are big—let Ariel live happily ever after with Prince Eric. Turning the little mermaid into seafoam as punishment for disobeying her father doesn’t exactly make for a box office hit. Other changes are complete transformations. How exactly is Frozen supposed to be based on The Snow-Queen?

I get it. It’s all about the bottom line. And frankly, Disney’s versions are just as authentic as the so-called “originals.” After all, fairy tales come from a long tradition of oral storytelling which allows the teller to add, subtract, stretch, and reinvent as desired. Even Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm did that.

(Yup! They didn’t “write” the tales that now bare their name. They actually traveled from town to town collecting and recording stories that were already being told.)

Defining Fairy Tales

So what holds a fairy tale together? What do they all have in common?

When I first started teaching fairy tales, I tried to find a definition to share with my students that would answer those precise questions. Most definitions talked about good conquering evil. That certainly rings true, but Disney’s version of “good” is totally different than, say, Hans Christian Andersen’s.

Let’s return to The Mermaid for a moment, which inspired Disney’s The Little Mermaid. The “goodness” of obedience was swapped out for a modern “goodness” of independence. Throw cultural differences into the mix, and you’re left with an even more ambiguous understanding of what constitutes “good.”

What’s more, most stories boil down to some kind of good versus evil paradigm, so there needs to be something further that sets fairy tales apart from other genres. This is where my student’s playful comment about Tinker Bell comes in handy because it captures the dreamy side of fairy tales and the promise of “happily ever after.” No doubt Disney’s branding with the “magical kingdom” depicts the essence of this.

Putting it all together, I eventually came up with the following definition: a fairy tale is a fanciful, make-believe story that reveals a particular set of values about society and pivots around the rewards of virtue overcoming vice.

Lake Scene with Fairies and Swans by Robert Caney

I like this definition because it allows for differences across time and place (e.g., values which are changeable) while still maintaining a set of universal principals (e.g., virtues which are unchanging). While fairy tales originated in the Middle Ages and are generally set in that time period, they are not constrained by it. Likewise, they are not limited to Western culture.

Just think of the many versions of Cinderella told all over the world. Yeh-Shen, which is a Chinese version, was one of my favorites when I was little. Like the Disney version and the Brothers Grimm version before that, it has the basic “rags to riches” storyline. A major difference, however, is that a magical fish grants Yeh-Shen’s wish to go to the ball. This reflects significant cultural differences in China wherein fish are symbols of good fortune. Nevertheless, the reasons the fish rewards Yeh-Shen are consistent with those of Disney’s Fairy Godmother and the Grimms’ magical tree: Cinderella is being rewarded for her virtues.

Fairy tales are told to bestow lessons and to offer the promise of reward if those lessons are followed. The “happily ever after” motif was a particularly powerful one in the Middle Ages where the vast majority of the population was plagued with hardship. They taught young children that if you live a life of virtue, then you will be rewarded. Of course, that reward was not really expected to be found in an earthly palace but rather in a heavenly one.   

Continuing the Tradition

There are countless reasons to study the “original” fairy tales today. They’re enjoyable, for one, but they’re also a lens into the hopes and fears of the common people of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Given how dominated historical accounts of the time were by the affairs of royalty and nobility, fairy tales offer a type of anthropology into the lives of everybody else.

But that’s still not all. Fairy tales give us pause to reflect on our own lives. They remind us that though the world is a scary place wrought with danger, we should take heart. Virtue will prevail, if not in life then in death. As G.K. Chesterton put it, 

“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”

And that’s the number one reason why children should read fairy tales, especially the “originals” that tend to be starker. To that end, this series will analyze some of the fairy tales I use in my classroom, including those that are both well-known and lesser-known: Cinderella, Godfather Death, The Snow-Queen, Little Red Cap, The Twelve Brothers, The Mermaid, The Fisherman and His Wife, Cat and Mouse in Partnership, The Little Match Seller, and The Emperor’s New Clothes. Finally, I will share the types of classical exercises I use them for with my students.

Image courtesy of The National Gallery of Art, Washington