Would /co/ be interested in a Jungian analysis of Little Mermaid

Are you going to post a link to one that is already done or are you going to type it up as its author?

Anyone ever read the original? It's dark as fuck.

>>94719191
Every time I read Jung I literally get angry at how wrong he is.

>>94719306
I'd describe it myself. I have read several anylsis and I don't think they are very good. They are either too obscurist or focus too the sexual imagery.

As far as archtype imagery goes I think Mermaid is the most obvious. Water and Mermaids are pretty staple images for Anima stories.

>>94719365
Fairy Tales in their earliest forms were not written for children. The imagery is also a lot more blatant. For example. Arial has no vagina in her mermaid form, when she gets a legs she also gets a snatch. So that element, of it being a transition into adulthood, is brutally honest.

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>>94719388
>Every time I read Jung I literally get angry at how wrong he is.
There is no need to be upset. Your eyes have yet to open.

>>94719191
Only if it's about the original tale where she dies, and not the Disney crap.

-The Prince

To a female viewer the Prince is very much what he appeals to be. He is an idealized man worthy and in need of union with the viewer. The one thing female viewers might miss, and this is key, is that the Prince is always in peril and Arial is the only thing that can redeem him. He is disillusioned with life, emotionally dead, one of his servants remarks that she can't remember the last time he laughed. There are only 2 times he is happy. The first is at the start of the movie where he is in the open sea which is linked to Arial. I'll get to what the sea represents soon. The other times are when he is with Arial.

By the end of the movie, the Prince having not truely connected with her has completly lost his free will and his rescue becomes much more blatant.

To a male viewer the Prince is his own Ego. It is as I described above an Ego that has lost the connection to passion and whim. Completly disconnected from his Anima. He spends his whole time searching for her.

>>94719607
Nice male power fantasy

>>94719547
Well from what I've read the origenal has a similar message. I can get into what the death of the mermaid means in that one. See below

-Surface and Water

For the male viewer: Water is the most staple image for the subconscious there is. The land thus is the conscious world. The metaphor is very easy to understand. The subconscious is very deep and you don't know what's at the bottem, it's filled with repressed things represented by monsters but also deep passions which are not appropriate for society (Arial's a-social mannerism). There is also a great danger in the two worlds meeting, Neptune is aware of this which is why he tries to keep Arial away. Total union with the subconscious is called insanity and than your subconscious needs to be die. That's how the origenal story ends. The boarder between conscious and unconscious was violated and decay set in.

The analysis for a female viewer has no special archtypical imagery. However it should be noted a female's role in development is to be the projection of the man's Anima. So Arial is a redeemer figure that the woman is supposed to be inspire to. She's a healer.

>>94719685
The man has no power, except what Arial gives him.

-Ursula
Ursula represents the rejected, evil, passions. She is the dark side of the Anima or alternativily the evil side of the female viewer, the side associated with failure. She is a failed woman who devotes her every ounce of being to revenge and jealousy. She is banished from the mermaid kingdom, ugly, undesired, and lives in jealousy of the beloved, successful girls (Stacys). She harbors all feelings that are are self-destructive.

Since Arial is also an Anima figure, the positive side, the two are one. This is why Ursuala takes her shape. It also why the only way Arial can come to the surface is in a path that also allows Ursula to. They even share the same voice at one point. In short you can't have one without another (which is why Ursula being killed off is a shitty ending).

By the end of the movie the Prince has failed to unite with the positive side of his Anima, or a positive woman. So he has nothing to guide him and no will left. He hooks up with a controlling, older maternial figure as a result.

It should be noted Ursla's victory is only based on destruction because all she knows is how to be bitter. So she fucks up the prince's mind and creates disharmony in the ocean when she gets power. All she wants in life is to express her frustration and take it out on as many people as possible. This is true whether she is read as an evil Anima half or a literal woman.

-Arial

Arial is a mermaid. She is not THE mermaid but one of several sisters. This is importaint. I can't remember if the origenal story had sisters. This is importaint because it means she is not the whole of the feminine Anima but a part of it. It also signficant she is the youngest of her sisters which makes her something smaller and more frail.

Mermaids are the most apparent type of Anima image. A-social, prone to flights of fancy, young, prone to emotional outburts of all kind, unrestrained. There is of course the interaction between the surface and the water I mentioned earlier. She's basically something to travels between the two worlds as an ambassador.

One interesting thing I read is that the painting she interacts with in the "I want more" song is of Mary Magedline which is herself an Anima figure.

For a female viewer it's an easy to read coming of age story. She sacrifices part of herself, (amusing that Ursala says women do not need to speak when in a union with a man), and has to her father. Real women give up their father. And she has to quickly learn how to control a man indirectly. In short she's a power fantasy for woman. Indirect power is a feminine power.

Remember how I said Ursula and Arial represent two aspects? Ursula also has wins through indirect power, control, manipulation. She also instantly loses the moment she goes for the trident which is a form of direct power. Direct power is masculine. She gets a masculine voice, and treats the thing like phallus. In short she stopped feminine so she loses.

Arial is stronger because she is better at being feminine. In a way she controlled the prince far better than Ursula. It was even more subtitle. The average male viewer wouldn't even see Arial as the controller.


I'm sure I'm missing a few details. Can't think of them off the top of my head.

If you have any questions shoot.