Coverpage
Introduction
Beauty and the
Beast Aladdin
Cinderella
“Actually you are wrong.
Not every princess got a happily ever after. Your favorite
princess, actually, suffered
because of her love.”
In the
deepest part of the sea lived the sea king. He
had six beautiful mermaid daughters, of whom the
youngest was the most beautiful of all and had the most beautiful
singing
voice. All the sisters longed for the day
when they
could go visit the surface of the water, but the youngest wanted to
visit it
the most of all. The young mermaids
could not go to the surface until they were fifteen, so the youngest
had the
longest to wait. She heard all of her
sisters’ stories of what they would see and waited for her turn to
visit the
surface.
She
finally turned fifteen and she was allowed to go visit the
surface. When she reached the surface
she saw a huge ship where there was a party going on for the prince on
board. The little mermaid stayed for a
very long time, watching the festivities and gazing at the prince. A storm came upon the ship and sank it. The Prince was thrown overboard and the
little mermaid rescued him and took him to a near beach.
The little mermaid stayed with him until she
saw some girls walking their way. She
swam out to sea and watched as the girls found the Prince and helped
him.
The little
mermaid returned to the sea. She had
fallen in love with the Prince and
because of this she was very sad. Her
sisters finally got her to tell them what had happened.
They explained to her that is was impossible
for her to be with the Prince. Mermaids
had a mortal soul, while humans had an immortal soul and they could
never be
together. How could the little mermaid
get the Prince to love her when she had a tail instead of legs?
This made
the little mermaid very sad and even in the midst
of everyone else’s happiness she would think of the Prince and become
very
sad. She decided to go see the Sea Witch
and see if she knew any way that she could help her be with the Prince. The Sea Witch had known that the little
mermaid was coming and already had an answer.
The Sea Witch would make the little mermaid a potion that would
give her
legs. And though she would have legs,
every step she took with them would feel as if a knife were going
through her
feet until her feet actually bled. But
if the little mermaid could make the Prince love her more than any
other and
marry her she would be able to stay with him forever.
But if the Prince married someone else, the
next morning the little mermaid would die.
But there was a price to pay for the potion.
The little mermaid would have to give up her
voice, her greatest possession.
The little
mermaid agreed took the potion. She went
to the beach where she had left the
Prince and drank the potion. As her tail
turned into legs she felt excruciating pain and fainted.
When she woke up she saw the Prince standing
above her. The Prince took her with him
and kept her with him up at the palace.
He grew very fond of the little mermaid even though she couldn’t
talk or
sing. He loved her dancing and kept her
with him always. And though the little
mermaid felt pain with every step she took, she was very happy.
But the
little mermaid couldn’t get the Prince to love
her. As if he could read her thoughts, he
told her that he did love her, but loved the girl who had rescued him
at the
beach the most.
Then one
day the Prince’s parents sent him to his future
bride. The Prince went to go meet his
Princess and took the little mermaid with him.
The little mermaid was afraid that the Prince would marry this
girl and
since she turned out to be the girl who found him at the beach he loved
her and
married her.
Just
before dawn the day after the wedding, the little
mermaid was looking out to sea waiting for the sun to come up and claim
her
life when she saw her sisters. They had
gone to the Sea Witch to find a way to save her. For
their hair, she had given them a
knife. If the little mermaid stuck the
knife in the Prince’s heart, she would be turned back into a mermaid. The little mermaid took the knife and went to
the Prince’s room where he lay sleeping with his bride.
She moved towards him but her love would not
let her kill him to save her. She flung
the knife into the ocean just as the sun rose.
But though she felt like she was dying, the air spirits had
taken her
for her good deed and would keep her with them. She
would not die but live as an air spirit
with them forever.
“As much
as I love telling stories, I am done trying to prove that Princesses
can be good role models for little girls. Ariel selflessly gave
up her own life because she loved the Prince. What other role
models do little girls have today besides Princesses? Britney
Spears? Wouldn't you rather your sisters imitate women who are
genuinely good people?”
Emily was
silent for a while. She knew that she had
overstepped the line, but she knew what to do to make it better,
besides she really did like to play with her sisters. “Okay, I
get it. I’ll even go play Princess with
them. But if any of my friends call do NOT
tell
them what I am doing.”
Emily had learned a lesson that morning. While she may feel that
the Disney Princesses could be shallow, they weren't really that
bad. Although their original stories were a lot cooler.
Back to my Coverpage
Author's Note: I have diverged from Andrew Lang's Blue Fairy Book,
which contained all of the other stories in my storybook, so that I
could include my personal favorite Disney story, the Little
Mermaid. I was surprised at how different the original version of
this story by Hans Christian Andersen was from the
Disney version, a large difference being the ending. I was
surprised to find out that this story didn't end with a happily ever
after and it worked out well that it was my last story. This
story definitely had a darker tone than the Disney version.
The Prince is not as likeable as in the Disney version and the little
mermaid's father does not play a large role at all. The main
changes that I noticed in my storybook are that the Princesses rarely
have names in the original version and they do not have animal comrades
like thier Disney counterparts. The original version of the
Little Mermaid would have been a lot more light-hearted if it had
Sebastian and Flounder.
Bibliography
Story Title: The
Little Mermaid
Story URL 
Author: Hans
Christian Andersen
Book Title: Fairy
Tales and Stories by Hans Christian Andersen
Year Published: 1872
Image
Information
The Little Mermaid
Statue
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Celebration on the
Ship
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The Little Mermaid
is found
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The Little Mermaid
is transformed
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