Characterized by her bright red hair, her purple seashell bikini top, and her green mermaid tail, the youngest of seven daughters Princess Ariel is rebellious and longs to be apart of the human world. With her best friend Flounder and her father’s advisor Sebastian, Ariel goes of to find human artifacts that have been lost under the sea.
During one of her trips to the surface of the ocean, where she asks a seagull named Scuttle to appraise the human objects she finds, she sees the handsome Prince Eric. After saving him from drowning, Ariel falls in love with him but knows that she can never be with her true love unless she is human. Ariel visits the sea witch Ursula and agrees to give Ursula her voice.
Ariel almost manages to get her true love’s kiss but is undermined by Ursula. But before Ursula can destroy Ariel and forever take the royal trident and crown, Eric kills her by ramming his ship through her heart. At the end of the story, King Triton uses his magical trident to transform his youngest daughter into a human. She and Eric lived Happily Ever After.
The fairytale story of Ariel marks the breakaway from the first three Disney princesses. Ariel does not portray the typical damsel in distress who waits and dreams for her prince to rescue her. An American Film critic, Roger Ebert praised her as a “fully realized female character who thinks and acts independently, even rebelliously, instead of hanging around passively while the fates decide her destiny.” Ariel is passionate and shows a thirst for knowledge.
Many criticisms have been made about Ariel’s physical appearance in the film. The Los Angeles Times’ Michael Wilmington instead remarked on Ariel’s good looks: “Mermaid’s” saucy heroine, Ariel, isn’t much like Andersen’s sad, noble sea-maid. She’s a sexy … with a double-scallop-shell bra … She has no gills, but, when she smiles, she shows an acre of Farrah Fawcett teeth.” Her glossy tail and revealing bra serve not as functional pieces of clothing that add to Ariel’s character, but rather make her ‘ideal’ figure more apparent.
Another analysis of the story remains that Ariel changes for Prince Eric. Journalists have explicated that The Little Mermaid is “embarrassingly retrograde in terms of gender politics”. The princess is teaching young girls that they need to drastically change, like exchanging a tail for legs, their appearance and who they are (her voice) for a guy. The one argument to that effect is that Ariel wanted to be “Part of that World” long before she met Eric. Living in the human world is what Ariel always dreamed of and when she fell in love with one of the humans, she only wanted it even more.
Like many teenagers she put her emotions first and gave up her voice and possibly life to be in the human world for three days. Ariel makes some mistakes along the way and then has to deal with the consequences. This shows her humanly imperfection that every girl can relate to. Ariel takes action to make her dreams possible and this type of character is something that young girls today should actually admire.
Ariel has such a bright personality, and she is definitely one of the most beloved disney princesses, for her spunk. Unlike the previous Disney princesses, she has some drive in life. She is inquisitive and wants to explore the world. True, she uses this inquisitive drive to pursue a man, but at least she is going after what she wants. However, on her journey to pursue Eric, she changes for him, and that is something you should never do while pursuing someone. But hey, she gets the prince, so good for her!
I love the story of princess Ariel! She is one of my absolute favorite princesses, and probably a lot of others peoples too. Although she does spend the entire movie chasing a man; she takes matters into her own hands. Arguably she combines her goal of being human with getting Eric. As a result, she is one of the first truly admirable princesses for her independent spirit.
I think Ariel is one of the most liked princesses, which probably partially stems from the fact that she is different from the other princesses in that she lives in the ocean. That being said, this means that many girls look up to her. The one thing that I would say may be a problem with her character in the story is that her main goal is to make a man fall in love with her and get a kiss from him. Although potentially harmless, it may teach young girls that they need attention from guys to be happy, which is a problem in today’s society. I do love Ariel, but this message may be misleading to young girls.