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Author
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Comment
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Veronica Schanoes
Registered User
(11/6/05 10:44 pm)
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death
While to a deeply religious 19th-century reader (and not all readers were religious--there were freethinkers running around over a hundred years ago as well), death was not the end of all events, but nor was it simply a transformation. The elaborate mourning rituals and social recognition of grief suggests to me that the death of someone beloved was met with no less sorrow then than it is now, and suggesting that the LM doesn't really die, or that her death isn't meant to be upsetting strikes me as a Disney-esque gloss. It is death, and that's why it's a sacrifice for her to throw the knife in the sea and face it.
I don't happen to admire the kind of self-sacrifice valorized in this story, but it is self-sacrifice.
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Mirjana1
Registered User
(11/7/05 3:56 pm)
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Andersen fairy tales in communist countries
There is something funny I realized just recentely, as I started reading all those stories I read as a child: as I grew up in the communist country, where religion was prohibited, all the references to God, angels, Heaven, etc, were taken out of these stories, so until recently I didn't even know they had religios subtext or even direct content. So, now I am thinking - what else did they leave out of these originals, that was politically incorrect (literary)?
Disney movies were mostly unaltered, but they didn't have religious content, unless I am mistaken again!
Andersen's fairy tales were translated including the names of the characters so in some cases I had to read the story to find out what is its real name.
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Veronica Schanoes
Registered User
(11/7/05 8:35 pm)
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Re: Andersen fairy tales in communist countries
That's very interesting. I guess the answer to your wondering, though, is that it depends! Andersen's tales are usually very, very religious. But the Grimms, for instance, added religious references to the tales they collected in order to make them more Christian and less pagan.
I can't imagine Andersen's stories without the religion--it's such a central part of his approach. I didn't realize that censorship had extended so far.
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Mirjana1
Registered User
(11/7/05 10:01 pm)
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Re: Andersen fairy tales in communist countries
Oh, yes, it did, and I now have difficulties reading them in originial and not thinking about religious content as an add-on. The censorship over religion stretched through mid eighties and only in ninetees let up, and religion made its way back into society.
I will keep on reading all these stories in original, I may catch some other interesting facts on their interpretation in Eastern Europe.
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LadyErmine
Unregistered User
(11/8/05 9:44 am)
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The Little Mermaid
While I usually dislike Freudian interpretations I can't help feeling that there is a strong subtext suggesting castration in Andersen's The Little Mermaid. She loses her tail - that is any masculine attributes she might have had, plus the ability to move easily in her own element, and her tongue - so she can't ask for things, have her own opinions... but after all these sacrfices intended to make her a suitable mate for the Prince (a "proper woman") he STILL doesn't want her. The moral could well be "Don't Do It Girls..."
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Chris Peltier
Registered User
(11/8/05 2:18 pm)
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Re: The Little Mermaid
Recent research suggests that Andersen may have been gay - there is a new biograghy by German writer Jens Andersen which discusses Andersen's suppressed homosexuality as a driving force behind creative output. An article about it can be found here:
www.expatica.com/source/s...gay+virgin
The LM's lack of voice and her despair over unrequited love is exlpained in the article thusly:
For instance, "The Little Mermaid" was written after a crisis Andersen suffered in 1836 at the marriage of Edvard Collin, who may have been the love of Andersen's life but who refused to play the part of his romantic soulmate.
~Chandra~
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Rosemary Lake
Registered User
(11/10/05 6:05 am)
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death, legs
Imo many 19th century religious people were rather ... conflicted about death. I think some of them were sincerely trying to bring their feelings into line with their belief in heaven. Thus some of their literature included apparent flip-flops; invoking grief or pathos, then trying to discharge it, convert it, with some image of heaven.
Also there may have been a fashion for 'sentiment' for its own sake (pathos etc).
As for trading a voice for legs -- if the legs were really functional, if walking were not painful, it might be a good trade. A voice is for influencing other people; legs let you go places and do things for yourself. A tail works only in water; legs can swim too.
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