Hello everyone!
Yesterday I published the summary of the Disney mermaid, commenting that this movie is based on a book. Today I want to talk a little bit about that book.
For starters the little mermaid is a story written by Hans Christian Andersen and it is not a story as sweet as the Disney movie but sad and bloody. The story of the little mermaid is originally written as a ballet, but it has been adapted several times... the most popular adaptation, I daresay, is the animated film made by Disney.
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Now, I will talk a little bit about the story, a summary of this... since to tell you the whole story would be to deprive you of the reading and it is also a bit long... So I will only talk briefly about the story so that you know it if you are curious.
What is the story about...
The little mermaid lives in a kingdom under the sea with her father, her grandmother and her five older sisters. When a mermaid turns 16, she is allowed to come to the surface, so each of the sisters was allowed to rise to the surface at that age. When the turn of the little mermaid finally arrives, that is to say when she turned 16, she was allowed to rise to the surface as tradition dictated. Already on the surface he sees a ship and a handsome prince; she falls madly in love with him.
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Suddenly a storm breaks out and the little mermaid saves the prince from drowning. The prince never gets to see the little mermaid, nor does he know who rescued him.
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Once back home, the little mermaid asks her grandmother if humans can live forever, and she tells him that humans have a much shorter life span than 300 years which is what mermaids live for. When mermaids die they become sea foam and cease to exist, while humans have a soul that continues to exist in the sky.
The little mermaid keeps thinking about the prince, so she visits the witch of the sea, who sells her a potion in exchange for her voice. Furthermore, the witch warns her that once she becomes human, she will never be able to return to the sea and that when she takes the potion, she will feel as if a sword pierces and bleeds her, and that every step she takes will feel like stepping on broken glass and swords. that will make her feel pain and the sensation of bleeding; in exchange for that pain, he will have two beautiful legs with which he can dance like no human has ever done before. On the other hand, the witch tells her that she will only get a soul if the prince loves her and marries her, because then, a part of the prince's soul will pass into her body. If that does not happen, the Little Mermaid will die with a broken heart and will become sea foam.
The little mermaid despite the warnings accepts and drinks the potion. She reaches the shore and the prince finds her, he takes her to his castle and is attracted to her even though he cannot speak. What the prince likes the most is to see her dance and she dances for him despite the pain caused by each step he takes.
One day, the prince's mother ordered him to marry the daughter of the king of the neighboring country. At first, the prince refuses because he says he will only marry the woman who rescued him. Due to a confusion he ends up believing that the one who rescued him is the daughter of the King, so he agrees to marry her.
When princes get married, the little mermaid's heart breaks. She thinks about everything she sacrificed, all the pain she had to endure, and she only thinks that the next morning she would die turning into sea foam.
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But on the night of the same day, her sisters appear but hairless. They give the little mermaid a dagger that the sea witch gave them in exchange for her long and beautiful hair. And they explain to the little mermaid that if she kills the prince with the dagger and lets the blood run down her legs, she will become a mermaid again, she will be able to leave all that suffering behind and she will be able to live 300 years as sirens normally live.
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The little mermaid prepares to murder the prince while he sleeps. But when she sees him she is unable to kill him because despite everything she still loves him.
So he leaves, throws the dagger into the water, and decides to throw himself into the water before the sun rises. The sun rises and finally his body becomes sea foam the prince observed everything that happened at that time and realized that the little mermaid was his true savior, but it was too late, he had already turned into foam.
But instead of ceasing to exist, in return for her good deeds, the little mermaid became an ethereal spirit, a daughter of the air. The other daughters of the air welcome him and explain that he became one of them because he tried with all his might to obtain an eternal soul. But that in order to earn that soul, he would have to do good deeds for 300 years. Then one day, she would have an immortal soul that would live forever in the glory of heaven.
If it's a sad enough story, she didn't get the prince's love and went through all that suffering just to make him happy, and due to certain circumstances and misunderstandings, he married another. But despite all the pain, she loved him so she couldn't hurt him. It did not have an expected end, the little mermaid at least had the reward of getting a soul someday. I hope you liked knowing this story, it seems sad to me but many versions have been made based on this.