The Little Mermaid according to Propp

Analysis of ”The Little Mermaid” according to Propp taxonomy:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Propp begins with the problem of classifying and organizing tales. In    comparing the functions of tale after tale, he discovers that his total number of functions is 31, and that however a tale may not contain all of them, those that it has, always appears in the same order.

In “The Little Mermaid” we discover that one of the members of the family absents herself from the family, and in this particular tale, she leaves home twice. Once when she is fifteen and she has permission to rise up out of the sea. At that time, she falls in love with the prince, she saves him, and she is always dreaming of going back again. The second one, when she decides to leave behind her life, her family and her world, to live her proper experience, following her feelings.

 

Although the heroine is prevented from the dangers of the other world by her grandmother, her grandfather and the witch, the little mermaid decides to forget all the warnings and does her best to reach her wishes. To make this possible, she knows that she needs to have two legs instead of her tail. On the other hand, the villain, represented by the sea witch, wants revenge against the Sea King and to succeed on her purpose, she asks for information about little mermaid in order to be sure about what she must offer her, to be able to take possession of  Little mermaid´s treasure, her voice. The witch knows that doing this, she will cause a great sadness to the Sea King.

Little Mermaid is approached with a requirement:  if she cannot succeed in making the prince love her, she will die. Her feelings are so deep that she accepts it, she drinks the magical agent given by the witch and she leaves home to become a human dumb.

 

              

 

The heroine is pursued by the shadow of her misfortune when the prince decides to marry another girl and her hearth breaks into pieces since. she knows it is the final for her. When she is dying of sadness, a difficult possibility is presented to her by her sisters. If she wants to be saved, she has to .kill the prince. Although the little mermaid cannot kill him, the task is solved, since her soul is saved because of her correct decision.

 

                                                                               

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Although she cannot return home, at least she returns to her essence and she recovers her tail and ascends to the heaven to live with the sisters of the air. On the other hand, the witch failed in her purposes as she cannot destroy the little mermaid´s soul.