Disney’s Little Mermaid Survives To The End Of The Movie
Public DomainThe Little Mermaid’s sisters hand her a knife so she can kill the prince to save her own life.
In the 1989 Disney movie The Little Mermaid, Ariel makes a deal with Ursula the sea witch to exchange her voice for legs so she can make Prince Eric fall in love with her. The only condition is that if she and Eric don’t kiss by the end of the third day, Ariel will transform back into a mermaid and spend eternity in Ursula’s lair.
In Hans Christian Andersen’s original tale from the 1830s, the contract is much darker. “Your tail will then disappear, and shrink up into what mankind calls legs,” says the sea witch, “and you will feel great pain, as if a sword were passing through you… at every step you take it will feel as if you were treading upon sharp knives.”
What’s more, if the prince marries someone else, the Little Mermaid will “become foam on the crest of the waves.”
Indeed, at the end of Andersen’s version, the prince weds another woman. The sea witch gives the mermaid one more chance, telling her that if she plunges a dagger into the prince’s heart, she can return to her original sea creature form. But the Little Mermaid can’t bring herself to kill him, and she throws herself into the ocean to her death.
This dark Disney story origin differs greatly from the children’s movie, which sees Ariel defeat Ursula and marry Prince Eric to live as a human forevermore.
