The Merciless Tragedy of Desire: An Interpretation of H.C. Andersen’s “Den lille Havfrue”
1996; University of Illinois Press; Volume: 68; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2163-8195
Autores Tópico(s)Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices
ResumoMY INTEREST IN DEN LILLE HAVFRUE, an interest I share with many readers and scholars, results from the tension between a powerful, almost heartbreaking representation of the merciless tragedy of earthly love and desire on the one hand and religious reparation on the other, a reparation many readers find both unconvincing and sentimental. Scholarly interest in the tale culminated in 1967 in a debate juxtaposing two interpretations, Soren Baggesen's Christian existentialist approach and Eigil Nyborg's Jungian reading (see Baggesen Individuation eller frelse? and Replik, and Nyborg Den indre linie and Psykologien). Any subsequent interpretation must take these two readings into account. Although I find Baggesen's analysis a major contribution to our understanding of the tale, my interpretation nonetheless disagrees with his in terms of some fundamental issues as well as with Nyborg's Jungian reading. I propose, therefore, to analyze the two main themes of Den lille Havfrue: salvation through the acquisition of an immortal soul and human love. I will discuss the latter in greater depth than usual taking seriously the story of unhappy, unrequited erotic love. From the analysis of the place of love and sexually in the story, a psychoanalytic interpretation will be attempted. TOPOGRAPHY By virtue of its genre, Den lille Havfrue has both a heavily semanticized topography and a formidable narrative structure. The thematic values of the topography are established from the beginning. The opposition between land and sea is interpreted as an opposition between up (here) and down (there). Notably, the little mermaid's grandmother calls the land den hoiere Verden (1: 96) [the higher world (65)].(1) Their respective value is indisputable. This basic topographic-thematic division of the fictional universe is supplemented by two (or three) additional realms: that of air and heaven and that of the maelstrom leading down to the depths beneath the ocean floor, one of the places of final destruction. In addition to this vertical division of the fictional universe, a horizontal one is based on the opposition between culture and nature. Nature, however, is divided into a positive cultivated space as opposed to a demonic and destructive one. In the sea, the merking's castle represents culture, the gardens of the princesses cultivated nature, and the territory of the sea witch demonic nature. On land, culture is represented by the castle and city and cultivated nature by fields and forests, whereas destructive nature is represented by the warm countries where the heavy air of the plague rests (1: 106) and by the surface of the sea bordering the land. The sea is conceived as a destructive force of nature threatening the life of man. Furthermore, on land another vertical division is established between the surface of the land, the mountain top, and the depths of the sea. This division is thematically significant, because it topographically indicates the upward vs. downward movement so important to the story. Let us draw a diagram of the fictional universe: Although this diagram is a mixture of a system of coordinates and a simple drawing, it may serve its purpose, because it stresses the amazing economy of the text in the specification and thematization of the elements of the universe. The castle is the central social unit on land as well as on the sea floor. However, the church and temple--i.e. religious sanctuaries-are on the land whereas, the witch's demonic territory, a sphere of magic and destruction, is beneath the sea. The similarities and differences between land and sea are due to the double relation between the two realms: they are, at one and the same time, homologous and opposed to one another. Due to the basic anthropomorphism of the genre, the sea is constructed by analogy to the land. However, at the same time, the opposition of sea and land is basic. In spite of their specific homologies, they are conceived as culture vs. …
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