The Little Mermaid: an icon of woman's condition in patriarchy, and the human condition of castration.

Hans Christian Andersen's story 'The Little Mermaid' is read as a creation myth and a metaphor for woman's condition in patriarchy, broadly conceptualised within a Lacanian framework. In the first part, the psychoanalytic concept of castration (broadly conceptualised as containing any existential severance which forms the basis for sexual difference and subjectivity) is utilised to argue that the myth is about a construction of (mostly female) subjectivity through a series of separations or splits: (1) birth, (2) growing up, (3) desire and (4) death. Birth and death are read as representing real separations. Growing up is read as structured around a symbolic castration of tongue and voice, while desire is read as structured around lack. In the second part the ideological implications of Disney's adaptation of the original for its symbolic status are explored. It is argued that by simplifying and externalising internal complex conflicts in the Andersen story, Disney's version reduces the myth to a fairy tale, and reproduces the ideology of romantic love.