Reviews for The Little Mermaid [With Book]

The average rating for The Little Mermaid [With Book] based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-05-14 00:00:00 Sharon White [ At last the little mermaid's turn arrives. She swims up to the surface, and sees a human prince on a ship, celebrating his birthday. Without his knowing, the little mermaid falls in love with this handsome prince with his jet-black eyes, from a distance. Like all mer-people, she is excited to see a violent storm approaching. But then she realises that because humans are different from mer-people, the handsome prince is actually in great danger. The little mermaid valiantly rescues him from drowning, and carries him to the safety of land, near a white building. Then she waits in hiding, to make sure he is found. Eventually a group of girls come out from the building and discover him, so the little mermaid returns to her home under the sea. But as time passes, the little mermaid sadly realises that the prince does not even know it was she who had saved his life. She is so quiet and thoughtful that her sisters begin to worry. When she tells them, one of her sisters helps her to find the kingdom where the handsome prince came from, so that she can watch him as he lives his day to day life in the palace. However, it does not really help. The little mermaid becomes even more melancholy after this, and asks her grandmother what would happen to humans if they did not drown. Would they live forever? Her grandmother explains that humans have only a short lifespan whereas mer-people live for 300 years. But when mermaids die, they turn to sea foam and cease to exist, whereas humans have an immortal soul, which rises up into the sky and lives on in heaven. According to her grandmother, the only way a mermaid can acquire an immortal soul, is if a human man falls in love with her and marries her. This makes the little mermaid determined to make the prince fall in love with her, but she needs help, so she sneaks away from a party and secretly visits the Sea Witch. She is very frightened, finding her way to the entrance through grasping polyps, and eels. One eel even has a dead mermaid in its clutches. Clearly the Sea Witch lives in a dangerous part of the ocean, "She had built her house from the bones of shipwrecked men, and here she sat, letting a toad feed out of her mouth, just as some people do with a pet canary ... She pressed [the vile slimy eels] close to her vast spongy chest." As with all stories of this kind, the hideous Sea Witch agrees that she can help, but demands a terrible price for her special potion. The little mermaid must give up her best talent - her beautiful singing voice. In return, the Sea Witch will give her the potion. The Sea Witch tells the little mermaid that drinking the potion will feel agonising, as if a sword is being passed through her body. But when the little mermaid recovers, she will still be beautiful and have two "pretty legs". She will also be able to dance more gracefully than any human has ever danced before. But every step she takes will feel as if she is walking on sharp knives. The conditions pile on. The Sea Witch warns that once the little mermaid becomes human, she will never be able to return to the sea. If the prince does not fall in love with her, and marries someone else instead, then the little mermaid will die the next day. At dawn on the first day after he does so, the little mermaid will die of a broken heart and dissolve into sea foam upon the waves. And, just to finally seal the bargain, the witch will cut out the little mermaid's tongue as payment. The little mermaid remains undeterred by all these terrible conditions. After she agrees to the arrangement, the little mermaid swims to the shore, near the prince's palace, and drinks the potion, fainting with the agonising pain. But when she comes to, she sees that she now has a pair of (what to her, look) very strange human legs, instead of her beautiful tail. The handsome prince discovers her, and says that she reminds him of the girl who (he assumes) had saved him - the girl from the white building who happened to be there when he woke up. Of course, the little mermaid has no voice, so cannot tell him the truth. Although the prince admires the little mermaid enormously and is fascinated by her beauty and grace, he does not fall in love with her. He likes to see her dance, and she dances for him even though her feet bleed and she suffers excruciating pain with every step. The prince is kind to the little mermaid, and has a boy's velvet suit made for her, so that he can take her everywhere with him on horseback. Soon, the prince's parents decide it is time for their son to marry, and encourage him to marry a princess from a neighbouring kingdom. The prince confides in the little mermaid that he is sure he will do no such thing. But when the prince meets the princess, in true fairytale fashion, she turns out to be the girl from the white building who found him on the beach - and hence the girl he believes saved his life. The prince unknowingly shares his joy in this with the heartbroken little mermaid, who still cannot convey the true story. He declares his love for the princess, and the royal wedding is announced at once. The little mermaid has no choice but to help with all the preparations, and even carry the bride's train up the aisle. After the wedding, the prince and princess celebrate on a wedding ship, and the little mermaid realises that she has lost everything, and will now die very soon, in a matter of hours. But unbeknownst to her, her sisters have a plan. They swim up to her, looking very different. The sisters have made a bargain with the Sea Witch. She demanded that they cut off all their long, beautiful hair in exchange for a special knife. The Sea Witch has promised that if the little mermaid plunges this knife into the prince's chest and kills him, then when his blood drips on her feet, her legs will turn back into a tail. If the little mermaid does this, and also lets the prince die, she will become a mermaid once more, all her suffering will end, and she will live out her full life in the ocean with her family as before. The little mermaid watches the prince as he sleeps, but the only word on his lips is the name of his bride. She cannot bear to kill him, and just as dawn breaks, the little mermaid tosses the knife into the sea. She follows it by throwing herself in after it, since she fully expects to turn into sea foam. However, she does not. She feels the warm sun and realises that she still exists, but as an earthbound spirit, a spirit of the air, instead. There are many other daughters of the air around too. They explain to the little mermaid that because she tried with all her heart to obtain an immortal soul, and because of her supreme selflessness and mercy in not killing the prince, she has become one of them instead of turning into sea foam. Additionally she will be given the chance to earn her own soul by doing good deeds for humans for 300 years. One day she will have earned her immortal soul and will rise up into heaven. And each time she visits the house of a good child, as a spirit of the air that time will be lessened. (hide spoiler)]

Review # 2 was written on 2018-01-07 00:00:00 Son Tran By now, I should be saying that I am used to reading Anderson's bitter-sweet tales. After all, I have read many of them. BUT HELL NO! I can't say it. The only reason I still read his tales is because his writing style is so vivid and beautiful. I am kind of addicted to his writing in such a way that I must have a dose of it once in a while. This tale is my favourite as far as description of scenes are concerned. He has a way with imagining awesome scenes. But for plot, I think almost every tale of his revolves around bitter-ending love story. This tale too has it. I felt nothing new. One thing I can say here is that for the first time, even though I was sad, I didn't mind this bitter-ending. 7 January, 2018