Love Is Sacrifice

When Disney came out with a movie version of Hans Christian Andersen's story, "The Little Mermaid," I was thrilled. That was one of my favorite fairy tales when I was a child.

To say I was disappointed by the movie would be an understatement. I was flabbergasted. Befuddled. They took something beautifully tragic and turned it into something playful and fun. Okay, there were some tense, even creepy, moments. But the story just wasn't how I remembered it.

Did I really expect Disney to accurately portray everything that happened in the original story? My adult self knows better. But at the time I was twelve. I don't know what I expected. I can't remember.

I just know it wasn't that movie, with its singing crustacean, John Wayne-style showdown between the sea witch and the mermaid's dad, and the ultimate happy ending where the handsome prince rescues the girl - er, mermaid.

Asserting that the movie version is "based on" the fairy tale is being generous, indeed.

The original story is darker, but richer

I used to have an audio version of this story (yes, on actual cassette tape) that I would listen to all the time. The original story, not the Disney version. I wore that tape out listening to it over and over.

In the story, there's a mermaid who is the youngest of five sisters. Each one gets to surface on their fifteenth birthday, and they are each one year apart in age. The youngest mermaid sister (Disney calls her Ariel, but Andersen keeps her unnamed) longs to experience life above the sea (not unlike Disney's Ariel). So, she listens intently (and jealously) to her sisters' perceptions of what the world above is like and waits impatiently for her turn.

When it comes, she encounters a prince who reminds her of a statue she has in her underwater garden at the castle. His ship wrecks, she saves him, and she's drawn more than ever to wonder what it must be like to be human.

The sea witch entices her even more by saying, "Humans have immortal souls that live with God in heaven when they die. Mermaids only live three hundred years and then they die, turning to seafoam."

So, not only is the little mermaid fascinated by the handsome prince, she's also enchanted by the idea of having an eternal soul.

To get, she has to give

Ariel, in the Disney version, has to give up her voice to the sea witch in exchange for a pair of legs. That's true to the original story, although the movie's depiction is much less gruesome. But even more than that, Andersen's little mermaid must walk on "piercing daggers" with every step once she drinks the vile potion that will give her legs.

Intense pain. Every. Single. Step.

I winced when I heard that as a child, and it still makes me cringe. I can feel it. Or, at least, I can imagine it.

To gain her immortal soul and not lose her earthly life hundreds of years before her time, the little mermaid must make the prince fall in love with her. But all she has to attract him is her physical beauty and her amazing dancing ability.

So, she dances for him. And the dancing is as painful or more so than the stepping. But she loves him. She wants him. And she wants eternal life.

She's not the only one who sacrifices out of love

The handsome prince isn't too bright. He doesn't realize that the little mermaid loves him, or that she's the one who saved his life. He thinks a girl at the temple, where the mermaid dropped his almost lifeless body, is the one who saved him.

He loves and wants to marry the temple girl, but he thinks he can't because he assumes she's dedicated her life to serving there. Later, he finds out that the girl at the temple was actually a princess from the neighboring kingdom, who his father wants him to marry. She was only at the temple to study.

Overjoyed, the prince marries the princess. The little mermaid knows then that she must die when the sun comes out the next day.

Her mermaid sisters know this too, and they try to stop it by selling all their hair to the sea witch in exchange for an enchanted dagger. They give this to the little mermaid, telling her she must kill the prince before the sunrise so she can return to the sea and live out her remaining 285 years.

She goes into his bedroom and sees him sleeping next to his bride. Then she drops the knife.

She would rather become seafoam on the ocean than kill the man she loves or cause such pain for his new bride.

A happy ending, but not the one you expect

When the sun rises, the little mermaid dies and falls to the sea as foam. But she doesn't stay that way.

Transparent beings calling themselves "daughters of the air" pick her up and take her with them.

"You'll spend three hundred years as a daughter of the air," one of them tells her, "and then you'll earn your immortal soul and get to go to heaven to live with God."

Because of her selflessness, because of her sacrifice, the little mermaid earned her immortal soul after all.

This story taught me a lot about love

Growing up, I was in church every time the doors opened. I still am.

Jesus says in John 15:13 (NLT), "There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends."

The "love is sacrifice" theme isn't new to me, and it wasn't when I heard "The Little Mermaid" for the first time. But I've not heard or read any other story that portrays the theme as poignantly or memorably as this one.

At a time when so many people's attention is focused on "me" and "what I want," or "what's best for me," the original version of "The Little Mermaid" (not so much the Disney version) calls us to examine whether it might not be better to focus on what's best for other people and do that instead.

In the name of love.

Our children need to be reminded what real love looks like. This story, and perhaps some discussion following its reading, can help with that.