'Embedded within this classic narrative about an adolescent girl's coming of age is a very contemporary story about the costs, pleasues and dangers of women's access to the "human world."' - Laura Sells, 1995I decided to research a few more examples of remediated folkloric texts which share similarities with either the characters, plot, or issues raised in The Crane Wife. One which came across my path is the story of The Little Mermaid, originally a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen (1837). I read an article by Deborah Ross in a folklore journal which covered female protagonists in classic Disney films, and her analysis of the mermaid character in this paricular one struck me. Ross gives a feminist-positive reading of the story; one which is not often addressed in analysis (I find), and compares and contrasts the Disney retelling (1989) to the original tale . Undoubtedly, feminists have criticized The Little Mermaid's Ariel because she seems to have little ambition beyond getting her prince. This is somewhat reductionist. Ross argues that although many find her to be a meek, trope of a heroine, that the Disney Ariel can be seen as an independent, strong female. She carries an 'anthem of independence' (Ross, 2004). Sells, however, states that 'admitedly, the film is a problematic text for a feminist resistant reading, because it teaches us that we can achieve access and mobility in the white male system if we remain silent, and if we sacrifice our connection to "the feminine"'(1995). The Crane Wife could possibly also be read in both ways; in one sense the heroine is ultimately given agency and choice of her own situation. On the other hand, she could be seen to be conforming to male/ human ideals and sacrificing her own self and nature for access the patriarchal world.
Hans Christian Andersen’s original story is a 'tragic celebration of feminine self-sacrifice. His mermaid fantasizes about becoming human partly because she is curious about a world she has only glimpsed.' (Ross, 2004). More so than the film, she must sacrifice a huge part of herself to become human. She trades her tail for legs, which bleed profusely when she walks, and loses her voice permanently as her tongue is cut out. Naturally in the Disney version the mutilation and blood would have to go (Ross, 2004). The retelling is directed at a younger audience who could not handle gore, and it is sanitised so that she loses her voice only temporarity, and her legs work perfectly. This parallels the transformation the Crane must undergo in The Crane Wife, where to access the world of the male she must change her form, and conform to ideals of his gaze. the metamorphosis closer resembles the Disney version's retelling, where there seeminly is no pain involved in gaining a human form. The comparison is instead to be made between the original Andersen mermaid's suffering, and the pain that the Crane must go through to maintain her place with her husband. She ravages her body to produce cloth for him to sell, tearing out her own feathers for the weave. She must go through pain to enable them to live 'happily' together. In both instances, the women go through physical as well as emotional sacrifice and torment for their male counterparts.
Both The Crane Wife and The Little Mermaid emphasize issues of choice and agency. Ariel wants access, autonomy and mobility (Sells, 1995). She believes the human world above the sea to be a utopia of free movement: she dreams of legs first for “jumping”and “dancing” and “strolling,” and only secondarily for marrying (Ross, 2004). All of these verbs are representative of mobility. Her fascination with the human world only then becomes transformed into love for Prince Eric. Initially, it was not the man she was yearning, but the world to which he belongs. This could be read as the desire of women to access the patriarchal, male-dominated world, in which she is by nature offered no power. This is seen as the desireable ideal: the 'real world.' In The Crane Wife, the desire is formed in reverse order: the Crane attempts to access the 'real world' so that she can be with the male protagonist. Her love is first and foremost for him, rather than the life he represents. In fact, we can assume that the life of mortality and domesticity seems less suited to her than her original life in the forest. Whereas Ariel imagines this 'other world' as in a sense more her own than her actual world.
'Ariel's ascent to the "real world" easily becomes metonymic of women's access to the white male system. Those who are priviledged in the white male system are oblivious to anything outside the system. The sea world is rendered either invisible or mythic while the land world is endowed with cultural validity.' (Sells, 1995). Similarly, in The Crane Wife, a contrast can be made between the natural animal-populated world of the forst, and the domestic human world of the Woodcutter. The Woodcutter character is oblivious to the fact that his wife used to belong to the former, in which he had previously met her. No individual is expected to cross the boundaries between the two, and the mystical and otherworldy is not expected to encroach on the ordinary.
In Andersen's original, the human world is described as wonderous, beautiful and full of life. The images the movie uses to tell the story give the agency of Ariel a reverse spin. In the Disney film, the underwater world is fantastic, while the land is dull and plain to us. Whatever Ariel might say, or sing, what we see her do is flee a world of infinite possibility to settle in the land of the banal. Her fantasy is a sort of anti-fantasy (Ross, 2004). Yes, she gets her legs, she makes her stand, she marches - but only down the aisle, to marry some guy named Eric. We read the Crane as doing virtually the same thing; of entering the mundane and abandoning the fantastic.
'Many fairy tales, and many more movies, end with a wedding. When the marriage seems to grant the heroine true personal fulfillment and possibilities for further growth, the ending may actually seem like the beginning of a new life' (Ross, 2004). Each of the heroines in these three versions of folkloric tales have a drastic change in situation by the conclusion of their respective stories. In The Crane Wife, the heroine abandons her husband and marriage to return to her true form and her original home. It does not end conventionally, in a 'happy ever after' marriage. She goes through a process of self-actualization and uses her agency in choosing her own path. In Andersen's tale the mermaid dies because she fails to earn the prince's love (Sells, 1995). The disney version subverts the self-actualization of the herione by ending the story in a marriage to Eric. She ends up not independently strong, but settling for a partner. The original finds her granted with immortality through her sacrifice. Both this version of the mermaid, and the Crane, achieve the otherwordly and ethereal.
References:
Ross, D. (2004). Escape from Wonderland: Disney and the Female Imagination. Marvels & Tales, 18(1), pp.53-66.
Sells, L. (1995). "Where Do the Mermaids Stand?" Voice and Body in The Little Mermaid. In: E. Bell, L. Haas and L. Sells, ed., From Mouse To Mermaid - The Politics of Film, Gender and Culture, 1st ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp.175 - 192.
