[In the following essay, Dahlerup deconstructs“The Little Mermaid.”]

A text, just like a person, may be very well structured—and at the same time completely deconstructed. A structuralist reading finds (or constructs) the implicit significance of the relations of the formal elements. A deconstructive reading finds (or constructs) “the warring forces of signification” (Johnson) within these same elements. The advantage of deconstruction is the opening of the text to more complex levels of signification. The disadvantage is the professional reader, who will always be able to “construct deconstructions.” The only protection from the sophistication of the deconstructive reader is the validity of his or her argumentation.

“THE LITTLE MERMAID”

“The Little Mermaid” is known to children and to grown-ups worldwide, to normal and to professional readers. Children and normal readers are usually fascinated by the sad story of unrequited love. Professional readers have seen the basic dualism of the story, whether it be life versus death (Søren Baggesen), culture versus nature (Eigil Nyborg), or high status versus low status (Ellen Grønlund, Peer E. Sørensen). Psychoanalytic professionals of various schools have seen the unsuccessful individuation. To all these readings the structure is basic. To my deconstructive reading the confusion of the story is basic.

CONFUSION OF THE PROJECT

At first sight the narrative level of the story is well defined: the Mermaid wants the Prince and eternal life. Further examination shows that these projects do not at all work. The Mermaid “does not want” the Prince. She hides and keeps silent every time she has the chance to reveal herself and to talk; for example, she “lagde Sø-Skum paa sit Haar og sit Bryst, saa at ingen kunde see hendes lille Ansigt” [94] (“placed sea foam on her hair and her breast so that no one could see her little face”).¹ The loss of her tongue, a crucial condition at one level of the story, does not count at all at another level, because the Mermaid did not use her ability to speak when she still had it:

Nu vidste hun, hvor han boede, og der kom hun mangen Aften og Nat paa Vandet, hun svømmede meget nærmere Land, end nogen af de andre havde vovet, ja hun gik heelt op i den smalle Canal, under den prægtige Marmor Altan, der kastede en lang Skygge hen over Vandet. Her sad hun og saae paa den unge Prinds, der troede, han var ganske ene i det klare Maaneskin.

[95]

(Now she knew where he lived, and she came there many an evening and night on the water; she swam much closer to land than any of the others had dared; yes, she went all the way up into the narrow canal and under the splendid marble balcony, which threw its long shadow out across the water. There she sat looking at the young Prince, who believed that he was quite alone in the clear moonlight.)

The Mermaid, in fact, does not want eternal life either. She gives up fighting for it and for marriage at the first opportunity. This is her reaction when she sees her rival:

Den lille Havfrue stod begjærlig efter at see hendes Skjønhed, og hun maatte erkjende den, en yndigere Skikkelse havde hun aldrig seet. Huden var saa fiin og skjær, og bag de lange mørke Øjenhaar smilede et Par sorteblaae trofaste Øine!

[103]

(The little Mermaid longed to see her beauty, and she had to admit it; she had never seen a lovelier figure. Her skin was so fine and translucent, and behind her long dark lashes smiled a pair of faithful, dark-blue eyes!)

When the Prince tells the Mermaid that he will marry the Princess, “den lille Havfrue kyssede hans Haand, og hun syntes alt at føle sit Hjerte briste” [104] (“the little Mermaid kissed his hand, and already she felt as if her heart were breaking”). The confusion in the project (her quest) is thus the confusion of a protagonist both wanting and not wanting her object. The warring forces at this level are within a character torn between her will to achieve her goal and her masochistic, romantic, and Christian passivity.

CONFUSION OF THEME

Interpreters have stressed the dualism of the story (life versus death, and so on). But at the level of theme the story is not dualistic, it is “symbolic.” Andersen—through the grandmother—himself gives the clue to the symbolic system, “ligesom vi dykke op af Havet og see Menneskenes Lande, saaledes dykke de op til ubekjendte deilige Steder, dem vi aldrig faae at see” [96] (“just as we rise up from the ocean and see the lands of human beings, so they rise up to lovely, unknown places, those we never get to see”). Seaside versus land corresponds to land versus heaven. Thus the Mermaid's longing for the Prince is not longing for a prince, but “the symbol” of a longing for eternity.

Confusion concerning the theme of the story mainly reflects the reader's conflict in handling a symbolic way of thinking and the author's conflict in the strategy of symbolizing. The warring forces of signification at the level of theme are thus a conflict of rhetoric. The symbol (love story), which should point to something else, has grown so interesting in itself that it blocks its function of transference. This blockage in the symbol's system of transference can be noticed on several levels. One problem is the double position assumed by the human side of the story: Mermaid is to Prince as Prince is to Soul. The Prince thus represents both body and soul. Andersen freely ranges back and forth in this very special symbolic system. In a crucial paragraph we see the system at work:

naar han med hele sin Tanke og Kjærlighed hang ved dig, og lod Præsten lægge sin høire Haand i din med Løfte om Troskab her og i al Evighed, da flød hans Sjæl over i dit Legeme og beholdt dog sin egen.

[96; my emphasis]

(if he clung to you with all his thoughts and love and let his right hand by the minister be put into yours with a promise of faithfulness here and for all eternity, his soul [would have] flowed over into your body and yet kept to its own.)

In this paragraph the Prince's representing both body and soul is obvious, most significantly so in the sentence italicized, in which the metaphor “flyde” (“flow”) combines the liquid of seed with the airy consistency of soul. Coitus becomes the clue to animation; seed becomes soul. This conception of the male seed as symbol of the human soul is the main symbolic effect of this paragraph and of the story. The symbol conforms to traditional patriarchal ideology. But the patriarchal condition of salvation is opposed by a very different vision. The main life symbol of the story, the sun, is introduced in terms that could not possibly refer to a male god. The sun, which is compared to a flower and radiates life and love and light, is associated, if with anything, with female sexuality: “I Blikstille kunde man øine Solen, den syntes en Purpur-Blomst, fra hvis Bæger det hele Lys udstrømmede” [88] (“In sea calm one could glimpse the sun; it seemed like a purple flower, from the chalice of which all light streamed forth”). Only at the end of the story does the sun have some phallic aspects and become connected to the Christian God. In the rest of the story the sun has female connotations, positive connotations, in contrast to which the witch appears as a negative parallel. But whether the upper level of the story, the top of the hierarchy, is male or female, it is turned upside down, because the lowest state of the hierarchy is the most highly valued. This is evident in the color blue, which is the color of the sea. Apart from a very few cases of negative connotations—“Blaat, som Svovl-Lue” [89]; “den blaae Lynstraale” [91] (“blue as sulpherous flames”; “the blue lightening flash”)—blue has highly positive connotations. One such is, for example, in the very opening paragraph of the story: “Langt ude i Havet er Vandet saa blaat, som Bladene paa den deiligste Kornblomst, og saa klart, som det reneste Glas” [88; my emphasis] (“Far out at sea the water is as blue as the petals of the loveliest cornflower and as clear as the purest glass”).

The lowest step thus is, at the same time, the highest step. This confusion is further stressed by the fact that step four (1. sea, 2. land; 3. land, 4. heaven) has the color of step one:

Over det Hele dernede laae et forunderligt blaat Skjær, man skulde snarere troe, at man stod høit oppe i Luften og kun saae Himmel over og under sig, end at man var paa Havets Bund.

[88]

(Across everything down there lay an astonishing shade of blue; one would more likely believe that one stood high up in the air and saw only the sky above and below than that one was at the bottom of the sea.)

The beginning state thus coincides with the final state: my beginning is my end. The whole story thus is stopped at its very opening. Add to this the fact that other parts of the seaside coincide with the heavenly side, primarily the situation of a daughter being common to both, and the development of the theme is blocked further. Indeed these are warring forces.

COMPLEXITY OF COMMUNICATION

Andersen, we know, told his story to children and left open some symbolic levels for grown-up listeners. Within the text, too, there are special communicative conditions from narrator to narratee (the implied reader). Certainly there is a main structure: a human narrator tells his story (I call the narrator “him”) of a mermaid to a human narratee. Thus, as a rule, narrator and narratee are different from the protagonist:

før hun turde komme op fra Havets Bund og see, hvorledes det saae ud hos os … men gjennem Vandet saae de meget større ud end for vore Øine.

[89; my emphasis]

(before she dared come up from the bottom of the ocean and see how things look with us … but through the water they looked much larger than in our eyes.)

Consequently the narrator describes the merfolk's home as “dernede” (“down there”) and the land as “heroppe” (“up here”). Within this main structure the narrator takes his time to play: when the point of view is the merfolk's, the whole thing is turned upside down; “here” becomes the sea, and “there” becomes the land: “jeg [the Mermaid] skal, holde af den Verden deroven” [91; my emphasis] (“I shall love that world up there”). Some metaphoric opposites belong to this playful shift in perspective: from a seaside point of view birds are comparable to fish—“og de Fisk, som der saaes mellem Grenene, kunde synge [88]” (“and the fish that were to be seen among the branches could sing”)—and from the land-side point of view fish are comparable to birds—“saa svømmede Fiskene ind til dem, ligesom hos os Svalerne flyve ind” [88] (“then the fish swam in to them, just as with us the swallows fly in”).

The main structure of communication, however playful in its shifting points of view, very clearly demonstrates that the milieu and thus the problems of the protagonist are not those of narrator and narratee.

The main structure is, however, broken several times and with shifting implications. Sometimes narrator and narratee “identify” with the merfolk and take their point of view, for example, in this description of the castle in the sea: “man kunde see alle de utallige Fiske, store og smaae, som svømmede henimod Glasmuren” [97; my emphasis] (“one could see all the innumerable fish, large and small, that swam toward the glass wall”). When the Mermaid visits the sea witch, she bears with her the point of view of narrator and narratee: “saa man maatte blive angest og bange” [100; my emphasis] (“so one would become anguished and afraid”). The structure of identification is also seen in paragraphs with the Mermaid's inner views and no quotation marks: “O! hun vilde saa gjerne have rystet hele denne Pragt af sig” [92]; “O, det vilde blive et skrækkeligt Veir!” [93] (“O! She would have liked to shake off all this elegance”; “O, it was going to be terrible weather”). The correspondences thus demonstrate the warring forces of distance and identification towards the story told.

But there are warring forces inside the narrative elements. In some paragraphs the difference is not between narrator/narratee versus the Mermaid, but narrator versus narratee/Mermaid. This happens in paragraphs in which the narratee—like the Mermaid—is evidently a “child.” The similes of the opening paragraph of the story display the universe of a child; the abstract idea of “depth” is explained in this way: “mange Kirketaarne maatte stilles ovenpaa hinanden, for at række fra Bunden op over Vandet” [87] (“Many church towers would have to be placed on one another to reach from the bottom up above the water”). Sometimes the narrator has to explain the sea folk's metaphors in order to be sure the human child listening understands the shift: “det var de smaa Fugle, som Bedstemoderen kaldte Fisk, for ellers kunde de ikke forstaae hende, da de ikke havde seet en Fugl” [89] (“it was the small birds that Grandmother called fish, for otherwise they could not understand her, since they had not seen a bird”). In the quoted lines the childlike narratee contributes to the tone of the story, but in lines that are highly symbolic, the childlike narratee also influences the very theme of the story. In the following lines the Mermaid is transformed into a human being. Allusions to Eve in paradise very clearly suggest that this transformation includes the transformation into grown-up sexuality. But what happens when this story is told to a childlike narratee? Notice the words emphasized:

Da Solen skinnede hen over Søen, vaagnede hun op, og hun følte en sviende Smerte, men lige for hende stod den deilige unge Prinds, han fæstede sine kulsorte Øine paa hende, saa hun slog sine ned og saae, at hendes Fiskehale var borte, og at hun havde de nydeligste smaae, hvide Been, nogen lille Pige kunde have, men hun var ganske nøgen.

[100]

(When the sun shone across the sea, she awoke, and she felt a burning pain, but right before her stood the wonderful young Prince. He turned his coal-black eyes on her, so that she lowered her own and saw that her fish tail was gone and that she had the handsomest little white legs that any little girl could have, but she was quite naked.)

In this case the childlike narratee obstructs the symbolic process and blocks the development of the Mermaid into a grown-up, that is, sexual, status. At the end of the story the childlike in the communication system reaches its climax. The narrator withdraws, and the last words are uttered by a childlike narrator (a daughter of the air), and her message is the complete rejection of the marital (that is, the sexual) state as the only road to eternity.

“The Little Mermaid” is thus a story of the opposing values of innocence and sexuality, told in a narrative structure in which a grown-up narrator is influenced by a childlike narratee, who at the end overcomes the narration's warring forces.

The main mood of the story is one of “melancholy,” that is, a sad, sympathetic identification with the unhappiness of the protagonist. The main technique in establishing this mood is the use of the word “little.” In some of the opening remarks the word connotes age, but it soon shifts to such connotations as the “unhappy,” “longing,” and “pitiable”: “de tænkte vist ikke paa, at en deilig lille Havfrue stod nedenfor og rakte sine hvide Hænder op imod Kjølen” [89]; “Du stakkels lille Havfrue” [106] (“certainly they did not imagine that a lovely little mermaid stood down below and stretched her white hands up toward the keel”; “You poor little mermaid”).

The melancholic mood is established, too, by the narrator's way of argumentation. Quite often, through very slight suggestions, he shifts from rational logic to masochistic or passive logic. In the following lines, the narrator makes the protagonist a passive sufferer: “men ud til hende smilte han ikke, han vidste jo ikke heller, at hun havde reddet ham” [94] (“but toward her he did not smile; of course, neither did he know that she had saved him”). A rational argument would place the responsibility on the Mermaid herself: he did not smile at her because she had hidden herself and told him nothing concerning his salvation. Here is another example: “Prindsen spurgte, hvem hun var, og hvorledes hun var kommet her, og hun saae mildt og dog saa bedrøvet paa ham med sine mørkeblaae Øine, tale kunde hun jo ikke” [100 f.] (“The Prince asked who she was and how she had come here, and she looked at him so mildly and yet so sorrowfully with her dark-blue eyes, [for] she could not, of course, speak”). The rational, unsentimental comment would be that since she could not speak and did not try to express herself by gestures or mimicry, he never knew her story. The optimistic setting of the very same conditions could be that although she could not speak, her sparkling eyes, her expressive dance, and her gesticulating arms told him more than words could about herself and her love.

A melancholy, sentimental mood is dominant. It is suspended only in the section in which the Prince refuses the love of the Mermaid. In these lines narrator and narratee suddenly identify with the Prince: “ved hver Bevægelse blev hendes Deilighed endnu mere synlig, og hendes Øine talte dybere til Hjertet, end Slavindernes Sang” [101; my emphasis] (“with each movement her loveliness became even more apparent, and to the heart her eyes spoke more deeply than the song of slave women”). But apart from this very slight turn in the narrative point of view the narrator in the lines of rejection is rather withdrawn. What happens on the scale of communication in the following sentences of denial?

Prindsen sagde, at hun skulde alletider være hos ham, og hun fik Lov at sove udenfor hans Dør paa en Fløiels Pude.

[101]

“Jo, du er mig kjærest,” sagde Prindsen, “… du ligner en ung Pige, jeg engang saae.”

[102]

Dag for Dag blev hun Prindsen kjærere, han holdt af hende, som man kan holde af et godt, kjært Barn, men at gjøre hende til sin Dronning, faldt ham slet ikke ind.

[102]

(The Prince said that she would always be with him, and she had permission to sleep outside his door on a velvet pillow.

“Of course you are most dear to me,” said the Prince, “you resemble a young girl I once saw.”

Day by day she became dearer to the Prince; he cared for her as one can care about a good, dear child, but to make her his queen never even occurred to him.)

These examples use the arguments of psychological sadism, the two of them with no comments. The logic of sadism is broken only if the narrator reckons on a grown-up narratee who is able to discern it. To a child this cruel logic would properly not be discovered. If this is so, these lines (and example three explicitly) hurt not only the Mermaid, but the childlike narratee, who is rejected just as is the childlike in the Mermaid (“som man kan holde af et godt, kjært Barn, men …”). These lines reveal an aggressive attitude toward the Mermaid and the child narratee on the part of the Prince and the narrator. Warring forces between a sadistic rejection of, and a sentimental identification with, the protagonist imbue the narrative scheme.

COMPLEXITY OF RHETORIC

On the level of rhetoric “The Little Mermaid” is very complex. In this [essay] I can only touch on the main rhetoric figure, the simile. The simile of “The Little Mermaid” at the microlevel is a question of style. The simile is simply the dominating figure, which is quite evident from the first lines of the story:

Langt ude i Havet er Vandet saa blaat, som Bladene paa den deiligste Kornblomst og saa klart, som det reneste Glas, men det er meget dybt, dybere end noget Ankertoug naaer, mange Kirketaarne maatte stilles ovenpaa hinanden, for at række fra Bunden op over Vandet.

[88; my emphasis]

(Far out in the ocean the water is as blue as the petals of the loveliest cornflower and as clear as the purest glass, but it is very deep, deeper than any anchor line reaches; many church towers would have to be placed on top of one another to reach from the bottom up above the water.)

The simile is a way of “thinking” for the protagonist and the Prince; their concept of compatibility is based on the principle of similarity: “rosenrøde Blomster, som lignede Solen der høit oppe” [88]; “han lignede Marmorstøtten nede i hendes lille Have” [93]; “‘Jo, du er mig kjærest’, sagde Prindsen ‘… du ligner en ung Pige jeg engang saae’” [102] (rosy red flowers that resembled the sun high up there”; “he resembled the marble statue down in her little garden”; “‘Of course you are the dearest to me,’ said the Prince ‘… you resemble a young girl I once saw’”). At the macrolevel the simile is Hans Christian Andersen's own way of understanding. The whole story is one great simile, the story of the Mermaid being only a symbol of something to which she, as symbol, is similar.

The warring forces at this level are the complex system of the symbolized forces that the mermaid symbol sets into motion. The crucial point is the very choice of the mermaid symbol. In universal tradition mermaids are sex symbols. Hans Christian Andersen's Mermaid is the opposite. She is an innocent child trying to enter into the state of sexuality. Andersen, thus, breaks down the traditional mermaid symbol and, ultimately, his own symbolization of her. His choice of a mermaid symbol has misled some critics (for example, Eigil Nyborg) to take the Mermaid as a sex symbol, which she definitely is not. The Mermaid symbolizes the “a-sexual being” trying to become sexual and to transform her sexual situation to a spiritual situation.

The Mermaid also symbolizes the “human being.” Andersen breaks through the symbolizing tradition when he has a female represent the general.

But of course the Mermaid could represent a “female being.” Her transformation from child to woman would represent the conditions in male societies for female sexuality. Her change from having a tail to possessing legs may symbolize a shift in erogenic zones, the legs representing the vagina (the splitting of her tail being the symbol of her new position: she has to learn to spread her legs). Her loss of a tongue may be the symbolic displacement of clitorectomy.

Since in the story of the Mermaid her loss of a tongue may be interpreted as a symbolic castration, the tale itself—as pointed out by Sabrina Soracco—could be about an unsuccessful transference from the state of the imaginary to the state of the symbolic. If this symbolic process is accepted, one might ask whether such a process could ever enter the conscious or unconscious mind of Hans Christian Andersen. Or is such a symbolic interpretation only that of later feminist readings?

The Mermaid may symbolize the “male being.” Of course she may represent Andersen himself, since her low social status, her longing for (the ending of the story), but in most cases they are stimulating intellectual challenges.

Note

1. All translations were made specifically—and quite literally—for this section of “Splash!”

Works Cited

H. C. Andersens Eventyr. Vol. 1: 1835-42. Ed. Erik Dal. Copenhagen: Reitzel, 1963.

Baggesen, Søren. “Individuation eller frelse?” Kritik 1 (1967): 50-77.

Culler, Jonathan. On Deconstruction. Ithaca, New York: Cornell UP, 1982.

Grønlund, Ellen. “Falske tolkninger.” Nordisk tidskrift för vetenskap, konst och industri 42.3 (1966): 120-36.

Johnson, Barbara. The Critical Difference. Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins UP, 1980.

Man, Paul de. Allegories of Reading. New Haven/London: Yale UP, 1979.

Nyborg, Eigil. Den indre linie i H. C. Andersens eventyr. Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1962.

Prince, Gerald. “Introduction to the Study of the Narratee.” Reader-Response Criticism. Ed. Jane Tompkins. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1980.