Curtailment in Mermaid Lore: Disney’s The Little Mermaid (1989)

This chapter explores the long-lasting western fascination with the legendary mermaid character, focusing on the disney animation of hans christian andersen’s fairy tale the little mermaid (1837). The enduring appeal of the mermaid trope derives from the cultural ambivalences it evokes. On the one hand, it is a subversive trope, destabilising foundational western binaries such as reason vs. Nature/ mind vs. Body/ reason vs. Matter/ rationality vs. Animality/ reason vs. Emotion/ man vs. Woman, etc. On the other hand, the plot structures in which the mermaid has become implicated in western narratives effectively neutralise the subversive potential of the mermaid trope. I explore how this tension between subversion and repression plays out in disney’s animation of andersen’s tale.keywordsmermaids in western culturetomboy storiesadaptationdisney animationdisneyfication.