SOURCE: Ingwersen, Niels, and Faith Ingwersen. “A Folktale/Disney Approach.” Scandinavian Studies 62, no. 4 (autumn 1990): 412-15.

In the following essay, the Ingwersens compare Andersen's “The Little Mermaid” to the Disney adaptation of the short story.

A. the Tests

Any student of folklore will point to the importance of “the test” in the magic tale. Heroine or hero, according to the epic expectations invoked by the genre, must inevitably pass one or a series of tests to eliminate the lacks in her or his life and to earn the reward of living happily ever after with the sexual partner encountered on that “quest for fulfillment.”

In the magic tale, the protagonists may initially fail the tests posed, but they ultimately prove their mettle. Hans Christian Andersen's texts are strongly indebted, of course, to the folktale (and, in this case, [“The Little Mermaid”] to the magic tale), but the poetic narrative...