Towards a Happier Ending – On Structural Transformations of Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tale The Little Mermaid in the Postmodern Feminist Fairy-Tale Fiction

1 Research Objectives, Material and Method

Andersen’s fairy tale The Little Mermaid ([1837] 2009) has been canonized as a story about unrequited love to a man, which prompts the heroine to self-sacrifice. While read through the lens of feminist fairy-tale critique, the story reveals its potential as a portrayal of women’s objectified position in a patriarchal society, expressed through her transformation into a speechless beauty. Correspondingly, the broadly understood “feminism” constitutes the main framework used to discuss the tale itself, as well as its literary and film adaptations, many of which strive towards doing justice to the main character by providing a happier outcome to her struggles. This widely established line of reception encompasses contributions centered on themes regarded as central to feminist thought, such as gender roles, female identity, sexuality, agency, and empowerment.^[1] What the gender-oriented scholarship on The Little Mermaid seems to miss, on the other hand, is the internal diversity of feminism itself. Consequently, in the majority of the existing readings of both the original tale and its retellings, feminist thought is employed as a general frame of reference, without further engagement with the different positions within it.

As reflected through the so-called “wave metaphor”, which depicts the turning points in the history of the feminist movement, feminism is, by contrast, a highly multifaceted concept. It unfolds as a range of partially competing ideas regarding both sources of and approaches to the subject of gender inequality. While informed by this complexity, the present article offers a comparative analysis of the ending scenarios created in three subsequent English-language reworkings of The Little Mermaid, published during the period classified respectively as the second and third waves of feminism. The analysis involves tracing the differences in how the respective authors approach the ending of the original tale and discussing them against the backdrop of the “wave metaphor”. By juxtaposing the different notions of female happiness created in the retellings, my primary aim is to determine to what extent they can be seen as expressions of evolving feminist ideas. In that respect, the article invites a more nuanced view of feminism as a critical perspective in fairy tale studies, not only with regard to Hans Christian Andersen but also with respect to the reworkings of traditional folktales.

The textual material selected for the analysis includes the following works: The Undine (1982), by the highly acclaimed American novelist and fantasist Jane Yolen; The Pangs of Love (1983), by the English writer of children’s and adult fiction Jane Gardam; and The Tale of the Voice (1997), by the Irish-Canadian writer and literary historian Emma Donoghue. All of these are revisionary fairy tales aimed at older readers: young adults and adults. While approximating the original tale in terms of length and structure, each of them offers an alternative course of events that points to a legitimation of the heroine’s pursuit of happiness. Hence, feminism can serve as a common frame of reference for discussing the various ways in which the three authors redefine the fate of the heroine. Based on this observation, I will address the respective ending scenarios from two complementary perspectives: first, in relation to the overall course of feminism throughout the second half of the 20th century, and second, in relation to the original tale. Meanwhile, I argue that the latter aspect – concerning how the reworkings transform the original tale – should be understood in relation to the former: the evolving principles of feminism.

2 Why Revise Fairy-Tale Endings?

The fairy tale is a genre distinguished by its unique structure. As demonstrated by the Russian folklorist Vladimir Propp, a paradigmatic folktale – which serves as a template for the literary fairy tale – is structured as a quest story composed of several narrative units that follow a strictly arranged order. Typically, the main story begins with the hero – most often a male – embarking on a mission to eliminate some form of misfortune or shortcoming caused by the villain. Along the way, the hero demonstrates his heroic qualities, meets helpers, and acquires magical aids to use against the villain. In the final phase of the storyline, the hero confronts the villain, who is typically defeated, the initial misfortune is resolved, and the hero is rewarded (Propp [1928] 1968).

The last three steps of the hero’s journey lead directly to what is considered the most powerful characteristic of a fairy tale: the happy ending. As noted by Marina Warner, “there is the occasional well-known fairy tale that ends badly, like ’Red Riding Hood’ according to Charles Perrault. But it is an aberration” (Warner 2014, xxiv). In fact, the happy ending defines the fairy tale not only in terms of structure but also in terms of its impact on readers. Classic fairy tales depict various forms of relatable injustice and maltreatment being reversed or resolved. At the aesthetic level, this offers the reader the pleasure of wonder, hope, and consolation. No wonder, then, that authors who set out to twist a well-known fairy tale often approach the task by changing the ending (Altmann and de Vos 2001, xxi–xxii).

As illustrated by Jack Zipes, the American icon of fairy-tale studies, the joy of a happy ending, however, comes with a cost. In many cases, it makes the reader negligent of the fact that fairy-tale messages are neither timeless nor universal, as they reflect the social codes of the times in which they were produced. Studying those contexts might, as Zipes puts it, “ruin their magic power” (Zipes [1983] 2006, 1). The awareness raised by Zipes throughout his research on the social functions of fairy tales is reflected in the genre called “revisionary fairy tales”, which became increasingly popular in the 1970s. The rise of the genre at that time was inspired by two concurrent strains of thought in the history of culture: postmodernism and the second wave of feminism (Bacchilega 1997). Accordingly, revisionary fairy tales aim to challenge traditional fairy-tale messages concerning gender, ethnicity, class, disability, or nature by testing them against new sociocultural realities (Smith 2007). The notion of “revision” denotes an intertextual strategy in which certain elements of the source tale are transposed into the target tale and modified so that they acquire new meaning within the new context. As a result, new tales are produced – so-called “retellings”, “rewritings,” or “reworkings” – designed to trigger critical reflection on their sources. Given the consolatory appeal of happy endings, one could argue that, when used as a revisionary strategy, they have the potential to recuperate the authority of the fairy tale as a grand narrative, provided they are infused with new meanings.

3 The Little Mermaid as a Quest Story

From a generic point of view, The Little Mermaid qualifies as a literary fairy tale – an original creation derived from the folk tale genre. It is a quest story, like the majority of folk tales; however, the storyline developed by Andersen does not fully conform to the model described by Propp. Above of all, The Little Mermaid lacks a villain – any external source of evil. The quest depicted by Andersen is driven by an inner force: the mermaid’s longing to move beyond her place of origin and enter the human world, as represented by the prince. Once the mermaid falls in love, her primary object – or subject – of desire becomes the prince. In order to be with him, the mermaid needs to acquire a human body and an immortal soul. The witch to whom the mermaid turns serves as a helper. She takes the heroine’s voice by cutting off her tongue but provides her with a human body. Still, unlike in a paradigmatic folktale, the heroine’s quest for happiness does not have a happy ending. Having refused to kill the prince, who marries someone else, the mermaid ends up as a soulless spirit; as such, she fails to achieve any of her initial goals. The only thing she does win is a chance to earn a soul by doing good deeds for mankind (Andersen [1837] 2009, 78–100).

In critical reception, this ending has mostly been analyzed through the lenses of gender criticism, as I have mentioned before, or social criticism. In the first case, it is considered “a disturbing parable of woman’s place in the world of men” (Oates 1998, 253). In its literal sense, it is, moreover, thought to glorify the notions of female submissiveness, self-denial, and self-sacrifice (Warner 1994, 396–398). In the second case, the outcome of the story appears to disclose the limitations imposed by strict social hierarchies – like those Andersen himself experienced as he tried to move upwards in society (Zipes [1983] 2006, 81–104). Both of these approaches are marked by a “feeling of unfairness on the mermaid’s behalf” (Easterlin 2001, 273–274), which renders her a victim of some greater powers: either patriarchy or class. As it turns out, the same feeling is reflected in the three reworkings discussed below, each designed to do justice to the main character by identifying the villain and providing a happy outcome.

4 “Waves of Feminism”: Timeline and Critical Discussion

The term “feminism” denotes advocacy for women’s legal and personal rights in order to secure equality between the sexes. The notion of gender equality lies at the core of the feminist movement, but the ways in which this common objective has been approached have changed throughout history. In a Western context, the evolution of feminism is often presented as divided into several stages referred to as “waves”, each of which marks a distinct historical period centered around a specific set of ideas. According to this framework, the course of feminism in the Western world falls into four major phases: the first is identified as the women’s suffrage movement, which lasted from 1848 until 1920; the second covers the period between the 1960s and 1980s and resulted in a number of legislative regulations aimed at broadening women’s autonomy within both the public and domestic spheres; the third, spanning the subsequent two decades, engages with redefining feminism according to the principles of intersectionality and inclusivity; whereas the fourth, which began around 2012, is characterized by the use of social media as a platform for exposing and addressing instances of gender discrimination, many of which still relate to issues raised throughout the preceding waves, such as sexual harassment and misogyny (Malinowska 2020). In addition to the division outlined above, scholars of mass media and popular culture identify the period from the 1990s onward as marked by a decrease in support for any further expansion of the feminist movement, while still benefiting from the liberties achieved by previous generations (Aronson 2003).

While it has been extensively used to navigate the changing principles of feminism, the wave metaphor has also been a subject of controversy. A number of critics view it as an oversimplification of the complexity of feminist thought, as well as the diverse forms of activism promoting gender justice. In particular, the wave metaphor suggests that certain sets of concepts peak at specific points in history, after which they recede and are replaced by new ones. This conceptualization is thought to convey a false sense of linearity while disregarding the uneven dissemination of feminist ideas (Nicholson 2010). Moreover, the metaphor operates with divisive language that is adopted by subsequent generations of feminists, encouraging them to position themselves in opposition to one another. Hereby, the “discursive legacy” of the concept is seen as a cause of antagonisms within the feminist movement and as a challenge to its sustainability (Reger 2017). Last but not least, the wave metaphor is not suitable for global application, as its account of the first two stages of feminist activity predominantly considers Western Europe and the U.S. In spite of the concerns mentioned above, it remains the dominant framework for outlining the general course of feminism in the West, and this is how it will be used throughout this study. A more detailed discussion of the feminist principles relevant to this analysis unfolds in the sections below. In this respect, I focus specifically on the insights developed during the second and third wave, as these are the two main strains of feminism that underlie the differences among the three reworkings in question.

5 Back to the Female Realm: Jane Yolen, The Undine

The Undine by Jane Yolen depicts a mermaid undergoing a successful metamorphosis from being a submissive sexual object to becoming a self-aware individual. The reworking was first published in 1982. Therefore, according to the timeline presented above, it falls under the second wave of feminism. The feminist agenda of the tale reflects the author’s self-declared predilection for “liberating women out of men’s stories and letting them live on their own” (Nicole 2019), which is one the prevailing aspects of Yolen’s extensive literary production. In her reinterpretation of Andersen’s fairy tale, the author employs several revisionary strategies, such as reframing the relation between the worlds of merfolk and humans through the lens of patriarchy, contrasting the two main characters according to the villain/victim binary and redefining the stereotypical perception of female personality. As a result, she creates a happy finale that clearly references the key feminist concepts introduced during the second wave, such as the notion of patriarchy as the principal source of female oppression and sisterhood as the ultimate refuge.

The portrayal of patriarchy in Yolen’s tale relies on a distinction, according to which the hierarchical relationship between the world of nature and humans, as presented in the original tale (Thomsen 1990, 405–407), is redefined by the principle of gender rather than by the idea of an immortal soul. While drawing on the traditional view of women as part of nature rather than culture (Reynolds 2020, 185–188), the merfolk kingdom is depicted as a female realm governed by men: “The gods of the sea are male, but the sea herself female”. Moreover, the dynamics between the two genders is described as a battle, denoting the mutual hostility between the opposing sides that are constantly clashing with each other: “[…] the furrows becoming mountains, the mountains tumbling down into troughs. Female into male, male into female” (Yolen 2013). This initial portrayal echoes the extensive critique of the social and cultural mechanisms underlying the oppression of women, inspired by second-wave feminists. The work believed to have set the tone for this discussion is The Second Sex by the French existentialist Simone de Beauvoir, which is one of the first attempts to present the notion of femininity as a construct created by the patriarchal culture. In her study, considered a pillar of 20th-century feminist thought, the author locates women’s subservient position in society within a particular narrative evident throughout history, where women are depicted as “other” and thus hostile, inessential, and incomplete in relation to men (de Beauvoir [1949] 1956). By reinforcing this view of the male/female dynamics in her reworking, Yolen paves the way for the subsequent vilification of the prince.

Designed as an incarnation of the male-centered view of the world, considering masculinity as the human norm and femininity as an aberration, the prince figure recreated by Yolen is much less a complex character than his role model from Andersen’s tale. Before the prince meets the mermaid, he is portrayed as a cynical womanizer who seduces and discards women of all sorts – both “maidens” and “matrons” – without any sign of regret. His approach to women, clearly compliant with de Beauvoir’s insights from The Second Sex, combines a neglect for the female personality, based on the stereotypical dichotomy that renders women whimsical and unstable as opposed to men.: “WATER is changeable, female, mutable. […] So the prince thought as he stared over the waves”, and a desire for the female body, dehumanized as a sexual object: “’A wife whose face puts a mountain range to shame. How could he […], who loved beauty in women above all things – abide it’?”

First and foremost, de Beauvoir’s impact on second-wave feminism finds expression in a number of ideas developed to articulate the reality of the female condition in a male-dominated society. Correspondingly, up to the point where the mermaid gets seduced by the prince, her portrayal unfolds in relation to such concepts as “the feminine mystique”, coined by the American journalist Betty Friedan to disclose the detrimental effects of women’s limited roles in society (Friedan [1963]), as well as “the male gaze”, referring to the sexual objectification of women (Mulvey 1975). Unlike Andersen’s mermaid, who saves the prince of her own free will, the heroine of Yolen’s tale is portrayed as being trained to cater to men’s needs by objectifying herself under their gaze. Skilled as she is in her craft, the mermaid rises from the water in immediate response to the prince’s sigh as she finds him contemplating the misery of his impending marriage to a princess whom he considers strong and stable but, above all, ugly: “Rising only to the edge of her waist […], the mermaid showed the prince her shell-like breasts, her pearly skin […]”. Despite the engagement, the prince declares his affection for the mermaid, who then transforms into a human and follows him, regardless of the pain it causes her: “It was the sigh that did it […]. She followed him, knife upon knife, smiling”.

The relationship between the mermaid and the prince is intended to illustrate general truths about the uneven distribution of power between the two realms: “[…] the lies of kings are lightly told. […] women believe lies”. Meanwhile, what makes the happy ending possible is the fact that the mermaid’s position is reversed. For this to happen, the author exploits the stereotype of women’s notorious changeability and turns it to the heroine’s advantage. As a result, the mermaid suddenly decides to leave the prince and reunite with her sisters in the female realm, where she finds comfort: “It opened to her, gathered her in, washed her clean.” (Yolen 2013) While the mermaid regains her agency, the prince does not change at all. Abandoned by the mermaid, he remains with his wife, still indulging in extramarital affairs. Given the sense of disillusionment that pervades Yolen’s depiction of the male realm, the mermaid’s choice – contrary to the self-sacrifice of the original heroine – highlights the importance of sisterhood, understood as a concept that celebrates the collective unity among women while signifying their shared struggle against patriarchy (Morgan 1970). It is clear that, while infusing her portrayal of the mermaid’s sisters with binary thinking associated with the second wave, the author downplays the inclusive appeal of Andersen’s portrayal. In the original tale, the sisters support the mermaid without judgment, regardless of what she needs. First, they help her find the prince: “’Come, little sister!’ said the other princesses; and, linking their arms together, they rose up in a long row out of the sea, at the palace where they knew the prince’s palace stood” (Andersen [1837] 2009, 88). When she is in danger, they make a sacrifice to save her from death, which she ultimately rejects: “Then she saw her sisters rising out of the flood; […] their long beautiful hair no longer waved in the wind […]. ’We have given it to the witch […], so that you may not die tonight”’ (98). In Yolen’s take on the story, the sisters only react when the mermaid realizes that her affection for the prince was a mistake and decides to reunite with the female realm. In this respect, the ending of Yolen’s reworking reinforces what later became a main critique concerning second-wave feminism: its homogenous concept of “women” understood as a collective group defined by gender and unified by common oppression.

6 Decentring Gender. Jane Gardam: Pangs of Love, Emma Donoghue: The Tale of the Voice

Toward the early 1980s, the feminist discourse of the second wave became polarized with divergent positions on a number of issues related to sexuality, such as sex work, pornography, and heterosexuality itself. The first camp, referred to as “anti-porn feminists,” gathered representatives of the radical strain, who believed that practices of this kind perpetuated male-driven violence against women. The other camp, the so-called “pro-sex” or “libertarian” feminists, viewed them, by contrast, as potentially liberating and empowering, as long as they were performed with consent (Ferguson 1984). The split, known as “the feminist sex wars”, paved the way for the new wave of feminism to arise. The arrival of this new wave was announced in 1992 by Rebecca Walker, daughter of the second-wave activist Alice Walker, in her response to a dismissal of sexual harassment charges against U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas (Walker 1992). Published 15 years apart, the two revisions of The Little Mermaid by Jane Gardam and Emma Donoghue, respectively, reflect the principal characteristics of this transition. Judging by their release dates, each of the texts represents a different strain of feminist ideas. Despite the time gap between them, the stories, however, prove to share a common objective. In order to challenge the second wave’s emphasis on gender as the main source of women’s oppression, both authors aim to suppress the gender-critical potential of the original tale and elaborate on its critique of social class.

In terms of narrative roles, the two reworkings follow the same division that can be found in Yolen’s retelling. What makes the prince act as the villain here, however, is not just the privilege of gender but rather an interplay of gender and social class. With regard to the above, both texts seem to reflect the third wave’s idea of intersectionality – a notion coined by the American civil rights advocate Kimberlé Crenshaw, which posits that discrimination and privilege arise from an interplay of multiple factors, such as gender, race, class, and sexual orientation (Crenshaw 1989). While this line of interpretation is fully legitimate regarding Donoghue’s retelling, it may seem controversial when applied to Gardam’s text, as it was published before the term “intersectionality” emerged. Nevertheless, when considered as continuity, the two texts still demonstrate the turning points of feminist thought between the 1980s and 1990s, which is the case regardless of how they fit into the established timeline.

7 Jane Gardam: Pangs of Love

Contrary to Jane Yolen, the author of the next reworking to be discussed refrains from declaring herself a feminist-oriented writer. Nevertheless, as demonstrated in criticism, a great deal of fiction written by Jane Gardam shows an openness to feminist readings centered on the notion of female maturation within the patriarchal social order. Moreover, some of it, e.g., the novel Bilgewater (1976), has been read in conjunction with Angela Carter, considered a pioneer of feminist revisionary fairy tales, and hence reclassified as adult rather than children’s literature (Eagleton 2024, 143–159).

What makes the prince act as the villain, however, is not just the privilege of gender, but rather an interplay of gender and social class. In terms of timeframe, Gardam’s reworking of The Little Mermaid appears as a sequel to Andersen’s tale, as it features the mermaid’s younger sister, who embarks on a mission to find the prince and inform him of the sacrifices made by the original mermaid for his sake. As a result, the heroine relives the story of Andersen’s mermaid, but with a more promising outcome. Right from the beginning, the reworked version unfolds as a critical commentary on the feminist discourse of the era, discussed by the respective female protagonists. The main heroine is portrayed as an advocate for radical approaches to reversing patriarchy, aiming to dismantle rather than adjust existing social structures to eliminate areas of male dominance (Rowland and Klein 1996). This standpoint developed within the second wave served as an incentive to define the profile of third-wave feminism in opposition to qualities like “antimale”, “antisex”, “antifeminity” and “antifun” (Snyder 2008, 179). Outraged by the injustice of her older sister’s fate, the “seventh mermaid” strongly opposes the idea of romantic relations with men – the eponymous “pangs of love” – which she regards as a “burden” or “a mental illness” that “spoils lives”, “puts women in a weak position” and, eventually, “makes them to be considered a second class” (42).^[2] Remarkably enough, in the heroine’s account, “women” and “men” are unitary categories, encompassing males and females of all sorts, in this case both merfolk and humans, which can be seen as yet another sign of endorsing the second wave’s homogenous apprehension of genders. As suggested by the expressions quoted above, this portrayal is highly exaggerated and seeks to mock the feminist spirit represented by the mermaid rather than reinforce its relevance. While ironizing the heroine’s totalizing view of gender, Gardam appears to echo the theory of gender performativity developed by feminist philosopher Judith Butler (1990), which underlies the third-wave critique concerning the pre-discursive existence of categories that constitute the very subjects of feminist thought, such as “women”, “men”, and “patriarchy”.

The comic effect in Gardam’s reworking relies on defining the personality of the heroine in opposition to Andersen’s mermaid, depicting her as “coarse” and “quick-tempered” (40) rather than thoughtful and melancholic. It also exposes the naïve self-confidence associated with the mermaid’s young age: “Oh shit […]. I’m as mature now as they were at fifteen” (36).

Pictured as a good-hearted, but strongly immature “damsel” (36), the heroine evokes sympathy from the other females in the mermaid realm; however, the claims she makes are not taken seriously: “[…] do you hate men? It’s very fashionable” (41). In that respect, the relations within the female community, including the mermaid’s sisters, her grandmother, the witch, and herself, do not reflect the principle of equality underlying the second-wave notion of sisterhood (Evans 2015, 111–133), as they are vertical rather than horizontal, structured by age-based authority: “[…] she’s always been spoiled. We [the elder sisters] would never have dared to talk to you [the Sea King’s mother] like that” (36). By means of this portrayal, the author subverts the second-wave idea of sisterhood, as it overlooks the ongoing power dynamics between women and those individuals who do not fit into the established norms of conduct.

The mermaid believes she has proven her point when she, just like her sister, gets dumped by the prince. Well aware that the prince is nothing but a self-centered womanizer, the heroine is unable to resist his unconcealed advances. For that reason, her outspoken disdain for romance loses credibility: “Love for a man – ridiculous” (35)/“He’s good-looking […], and rather sweet-natured” (40). In order not to lose face in front of her female community, the mermaid decides to test the prince and asks him to make a sacrifice similar to her sister’s: “And you agree to lose soul, body and self-respect […]?” (44). At first, the prince agrees, but the prospect of losing his human identity eventually causes him to run back to his wife, leading the mermaid to reassert her stance: “Men aren’t worth it” (45). In 1989, Gardam’s reworking was reprinted in a collection titled Close Company: Stories of Mothers and Daughters. According to the introduction, this anthology emphasizes the importance of female role models in shaping the identity of younger generations of women, as articulated by Simone de Beauvoir (Heaton and Park 1989, xiii–xiv). In Pangs of Love, this central theme is discussed at two interrelated levels. On one level, it is explored literally through the relationship between the main heroine and her grandmother; on another level, it manifests symbolically as a clash of two different waves of feminist ideas represented by these two respective characters.

Considering her disillusionment with the prince, the mermaid views it as an example of a broader truth: “[…] they’re all the same” (45); “I shall dedicate my life to freeing and instructing other women and saving them from humiliation” (45). In response, the she is confronted by the grandmother, whose speech unfolds as a list of charges against the second wave’s ideology, voiced from the perspective of its third-wave opponent, who seeks to counteract the perceived rigidity and militancy of the radical feminists of the 1970s: “I hope you don’t become one of those frowsty little women, who don’t laugh and have only one subject of conversation”; […] “So now, unclench that fist” (45–46). Interestingly, the grandmother figure recreated by Gardam combines two contradictory positions: regressive in terms of how she exerts her authority over the mermaid, and progressive in terms of how she challenges the mermaid’s generalized view of gender as the main source of discrimination against women: “Maybe you […] were just unfortunate. It is a mistake to build a whole philosophy upon one disappointment” (45). Correspondingly, the story ends with the implication that the heroine manages to find happiness with “one of her own kind”: “[…] a handsome young merman with whom she seemed much at her ease” (44). In that way, the author draws attention to the fact that, in addition to gender, the mermaid and the prince belong to two different worlds. Unlike in the original tale, these worlds are not valued in terms of rank; they are simply presented as different. Through this ending scenario, the critical focus of the story shifts according to the principle of intersectionality, from the general notion of “men” to that of a specific “class of men”, as represented by the prince.

8 Emma Donoghue: The Tale of the Voice

The story titled “The Tale of the Voice” by Emma Donoghue is part of the collection Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins, which consists of 13 reimagined fairy tales narrated from the perspective of their female heroines. The stories are intertwined by a narrative structure in which the narrator of a given tale becomes a listener in the story that follows. As stated on the author’s official website, the idea behind the project was suggested by a former Irish feminist publishing house. The collection was first published for adults in the UK and then, amidst the author’s initial reservations, for young adults in the US.^[3] As noted by María Amor Barros del Río (2020, 21–31), the overall orientation of the collection is intersectional, as the various aspects of female oppression explored in the respective tales contribute to a nuanced understanding of how it is driven by a range of factors. In the analysis that follows, I wish to demonstrate that the principle of intersectionality not only informs the collection as a whole but also the author’s reworking of The Little Mermaid on its own.

In Donoghue’s interpretation on the mermaid’s story, the message drawing a connection between gender and class as factors underlying the mistreatment of women becomes even clearer than in Gardam’s tale. The didactic intention of the reworking is revealed at the very beginning: “In the days when wishing was having, I got what I wished and then I wished I hadn’t” (Donoghue 1997, 175). This opening remark develops into an account of a journey undertaken by a poor woman from a fishing village, who falls in love with a rich merchant from the city. The narrative technique based on a combination of retrospection and the heroine’s personal point of view allows room for an ongoing evaluation of the events, making the moral of the story feel more authentic and grounded.

Aside from the ending, the course of events in Donoghue’s reworking follows the overall plotline of the original tale; however, the story has been almost entirely transposed into a realistic setting. In this reworked version, the only fantastic character that reappears is the witch, while the mermaid, once a mythical being, has been redefined as a relatable human. Due to this substantial change, the nature and culture binary depicted in the original has been erased to highlight the difference in social status between the two characters, which is expressed through dichotomies such as “village” versus “city” and “poor” versus “rich”. The fact that the woman and the man represent two opposite social spheres is something that pervades the narrative as a whole. What changes as the story progresses is how the heroine renders these two spheres.

The first time the woman meets the man is in a marketplace, where she is trying to sell fish. While reflecting on what caused her immediate infatuation with the stranger, the heroine concludes that it was her longing for a better life, which she believed the man represented: “The man was everything I wasn’t, couldn’t, hadn’t” (177). According to her initial belief, the world represented by the man was superior to her own, prompting her to leave home and embark on a quest she explicitly refers to as a “climb” (78). Having consulted the witch, the woman loses her extraordinary voice but recovers her understated beauty, which grants her entrance into the man’s realm. Experiencing life by his side, however, turns her previously held perception of reality upside down. In Donoghue’s version of the tale, patriarchy is depicted as a social order pertaining to the social elite of the city and is, therefore, unfamiliar to the main heroine. Hence, when she witnesses the objectified position of women in the man’s social circle, the heroine reacts with disbelief: “At the balls he took me to there were many beautiful young women who didn’t say a word. […]. They answered every question with a shrug or a smile. I could not understand it” (185), which reflects her feelings in much the same way as when she discovers her prince’s unfaithfulness: “You will laugh to hear how shocked I was” (185). Unable to fit into the standards upheld by women in the city, the heroine decides to leave. As she wanders around, the detrimental effects of living as a silent object of the male gaze make her resort to prostitution - “the only trade open to a wordless girl” (186). Judging by these events, what the woman initially thought of as a social “climb” turns out to be her “fall”. Nevertheless, she recovers, not because of her sisters’ efforts, but due to her own strength, which suggests that the role of sisterhood in women’s fight for liberty is overstated: “The music you make has always been in your own power” (188). The final part of the story unfolds as a quest towards a “happily ever after” through the following steps: the heroine regains her voice and, thereby, her agency; she returns home, marries a man from her village, and decides to stay there forever: “I would never again leave this harbour that smelt like home” (189).

Despite overstating its own distinctiveness, the feminist thought of the 1990s is, indeed, considered as more inclusive and less judgemental than any of the two preceding waves, as it prioritizes multivocality and individual choice over unitary goals and collective guidelines (Snyder 2010). In its understanding of womanhood, the third wave of feminism not only “respects differences between women based on race, ethnicity, religion, and economic standing”, but also “allows for identities that previously may have been seen to clash with feminism” (Heywood 2006, xx). What Leslie Heywood refers to in the quotation mentioned above is the project of reclaiming the tabooed, sexualized expressions of femininity as symbols of female empowerment. While met with controversy, this characteristic aesthetics served the purpose of replacing the so-called “victim mentality” of the preceding era with the concept of “power feminism”, where women feel entitled to interact with men as equals and express their empowered position however they desire (Wolf 1993). In “The Tale of the Voice”, both of these principles come to the foreground through means of a happy ending that denotes female empowerment in marriage.

Published in a period where the ideals of the second wave had long become a tired format, the rewriting authored by Donoghue illustrates the intersectional character of women’s oppression in a highly conclusive way. Instead of just implying a happy ending in the form of marriage to a man of the same class, as is the case in the preceding example, the story actually ends with the same scenario becoming a reality. In Donoghue’s rendition, the villager whom the mermaid figure marries appears to be the opposite of the glamorous but negligent merchant representing the prince: “[…] a fisherman with green eyes, who likes to hear me sing, but preferred to hear me talk” (189). With regard to the above, the story reasserts the belief that women’s oppression is not solely about gender, as it rises in direct proportion to wealth. While the author’s portrayal of the “common people” is undoubtedly favorable, it is not entirely idealistic, as reflected in the heroine’s previous experiences with men from the local community: “I refused two neighbours’ sons who thought they could have me for the asking” (175). Thus, from an overall perspective, the heroine’s story opposes any form of strictly dichotomous thinking, whether regarding gender or class.

9 Conclusions

The aim of the present paper has been to provide a nuanced understanding of the feminist concepts employed in three contemporary reworkings of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Little Mermaid, where the common objective is to reframe the ending of the original tale as happy. Through this analysis, my ambition has been to draw attention to the multifaceted nature of feminism as a revisionary perspective, which produces diverse rather than homogeneous outcomes.

Altogether, despite the minor displacements concerning the established timeline, the three happy-ending scenarios I have discussed can be seen as compliant with the course of feminism throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In Undine, first published in 1982, the ending conveys the heroine’s return to her mermaid sisters in the female realm, where she finds refuge from her exploitative relationship with the prince, who is depicted as representing the male realm. Through this scenario, the author reasserts several key principles developed during the second wave of feminism, including its essentialist view of the female/male dichotomy, its emphasis on gender as the principal source of women’s oppression, and its celebration of sisterhood, which denotes female solidarity against patriarchy. By contrast, Jane Gardam’s reworking of Pangs of Love, published only one year later, warns of the impending decline of the second wave. As reflected in the ending, which unfolds as an explicit dispute against male hostility, the story suggests that the mermaid has found happiness with a male “of her own kind” rather than with her mermaid sisters. In The Tale of the Voice, published in 1997, the vision of the heroine’s future suggested by Jane Gardam actually comes true. The mermaid, recreated as a poor fisherman’s daughter, returns home devastated by her relationship with a rich merchant from the city but eventually recovers in a happy marriage to a man from her local community. By means of this ending scenario, which renders the heroine’s experience of the city as shaped by an interplay of gender and class rather than gender alone, the author reasserts the third wave’s emphasis on intersectionality, highlighting the diverse forces behind women’s oppression.

As it turns out, the influence of the changing principles of feminist thought also determines the position of the three reworkings with regard to the source tale. To reinforce the principles of the second wave, as seen in “Undine”, the gender-critical potential of the original story is retrieved and enhanced, while its critique of class society is suppressed. In the two reworkings inspired by the principles of the third wave, the mechanism is reversed. While mitigating the antagonism between the two genders, the authors redirect the gender-critical appeal of the original toward the notion of class. From a generic point of view, in both cases, the reworked versions prove to be much more reactionary than the original tale, as they operate with clear-cut dichotomies: villain/victim, male/female, good/evil, and much more definite ending scenarios – the happy endings that reinforce the renewed messages. Regardless of which strain of feminism they adhere to, all three texts discussed can thus be seen as examples of the same revisionary strategy, where the authority of the fairy tale is reclaimed and new meanings are delivered within an old, well-known design.