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Page 186 unlike the ethereal mermaid of Andersen’s version. But in fact, Disney has efficiently mixed Andersen’s character with a pair of Shakespearean figures. As the central image of youth struggling for independence, the corporate mermaid Ariel conflates Shakespeare’s Miranda with his fairy Ariel in her innocence, her announced desire for freedom, her wish for knowledge, and again, her position with regard to her father. Like Miranda (with the exception of her father), Ariel has never seen a man before and has little knowledge of humans; she mistakes forks for combs, for instance, and believes her friend when he calls the forks “dingelhoppers.” The desires that Ariel’s father so opposes, and about which Shakespeare’s Prospero is ambivalent, present themselves in her signature song: Ariel wants feet so that she can walk, dance, run, see the sun, explore, “know what people know,” and become part of the human world. In short, Ariel’s desire is defined by difference from her father, and integration into a brave new world of knowledge and relationships. Not only Ariel, but also Ursula the sea witch, derives specifically from The Tempest. Caliban, Prospero’s central antagonist, is absent from The Little Mermaid. King Triton, and then Ariel, fight instead against Ursula, whom Disney creates by inflating the role of Caliban’s absent mother, Sycorax, and by conflating Sycorax with her son. Ursula wars with King Triton for control of the undersea domain, as Sycorax once fought with Prospero for the island. While Ursula doubles Triton as a member of the older generation standing in the way of young desire, she herself also stands for transgressive desire. Like the rebellious Caliban, Ursula provides a negative version of the child’s rebellious, maturing desires; she also supplies Ariel with the means for gaining them. The first image of Ursula shows her putting on lipstick; she also wears an enormous amount of eye shadow. When Ariel is frightened about being left voiceless, with thrusting hips the witch tells her, “Use your body language.” Although Ariel at first follows Ursula’s advice, batting her eyelashes and looking innocently seductive, the film ultimately shows that discipline, hard work, and purity of voice bring a man. Paradoxically, the use of Shakespearean comic structure in Disney’s The Little Mermaid allows the film to circumscribe female desire —for independence, possessions, and sexuality—under the guise of celebrating the triumph of young people over the old. According to Frye’s “Argument of Comedy,” while the blocks to young desire are overcome, the transgressors are also reintegrated into society, usually through marriage. Peter Erickson (1985) and Lynda Boose (1982) |
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