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Archetype Fairy Tales

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Fairy Tales have been labeled with a positive connotation since as long as people could remember. Parents read fairy tales to their children to bring them to a state filled with imagination and magic. Kids love the fact that fairy tales let them venture off into a creative world where anything is possible. We like to think that we know how these stories go, but in reality, we do not. Fairy Tales have been written ever since the 1800s, and if we told our kids the original fairy tales, instead of a state filled with imagination and magic, it would be a state filled with horror and fear. Fairy Tales may have withstood the test of time by continuously being told generation by generation, but that does not mean that these fairy tales have not been …show more content…
The Hero is portrayed by the mermaid, she is given a personal task to make the prince fall in love with her. When the mermaid is given the chance to save herself and kill the prince, she risks her life for the man that she loves. Another archetype can be Star-Crossed Lovers, because in a way the mermaid and the prince are like Romeo and Juliet. The two characters are both from two different worlds, and they cannot be together because the mermaid cannot tell the prince that she was the one who saved him from the shipwreck. The love story ends in tragedy for the mermaid because she does not get the man of her dreams. The Villain archetype can be connected to the evil sea witch.The witch makes a transaction with the mermaid and intentionally makes the transition from mermaid to human excruciatingly painful. The sea witch also makes sure it is dire for the mermaid to enjoy her time as a human by making every step the mermaid take feel like “treading upon sharp knives”(Andersen). The sea witch can also be thought of as The Villain because she told the mermaid that if she did not make the prince fall in love with her, then the mermaid would die and become “foam on the crest of the waves” (Andersen). The three archetypal elements in “The Little Mermaid” make the entire story

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