FF Tuesday September 20

Jessica Fisher Today in class we started off discussing Hans Christian Anderson and Oscar Wilde. We talked about how both their stories are extremely depressing and that this could be a result of their poor upbringings. After this we went into groups of four discussing aspects of “The Little Mermaid” by Hans Christian Anderson. Group one focused on Anderson’s violence and his reasons for it. Hans Christian Anderson’s violence focused on his heroine to show that the pain of suffering was inflicted for a higher purpose and self-realization. We compared his use of violence to that of Grimm’s violence and we saw that Anderson’s violence was used more psychological and for the hardships in life and self-realization in cutting out the Little Mermaid’s tongue and making her legs be in pain as if she were walking on knives. We saw in the Grimm’s violence that they used violence as physical punishment to teach a lesson. Group two focused on the morals and a happy ending in “The Little Mermaid.” The moral is be true to yourself and be loyal to your family as well as desire or deviation from your known world could lead to punishment. At first we thought that the ending wasn’t very happy because she doesn’t get the prince, like in the Disney version, and she is turned into a Daughter of Air, but after discussion we realized it was a happy ending because in the end she does get a soul after her three hundred years of doing good deeds. Group three focused on the roles of passive and active characters. The Little Mermaid was active because she was willing to suffer for her desires and did anything she could to get it, and the sisters were active because they cut their hair off to try to save their sister’s life. The Sea Witch is passive because she gives her blood for the little mermaid to transform unlike in the Disney version where she goes up to land and tries to get the prince to not fall in love with her. Group four discussed the land versus the sea and we realized that land was most important to the little mermaid and it was the drive of a soul versus no soul. Then, we discussed “The Happy Prince.” We compared the sacrifices in “The Happy Prince” and “The Little Mermaid” and we came to the conclusion that in “The Little Mermaid” her sacrifices are purely for herself and it continued after death for her eventual happiness; and in “The Happy Prince,” his sacrifice was purely selfless and in the end his sacrifice lead to death but he was taken up for his good deeds. Finally we talked about social satire and how Wilde was criticizing how the upper class doesn’t look down onto the poor and see their suffering and just live in their own little world without sorrow. We concluded class looking at a sample essay to help us in writing our papers due next week.