Fairy tales are very magical to children and to adults as well. Stories that have magical beings like the Fairy Godmother from “Cinderella” or the Genie from “Aladdin” remain in children’s lives forever. The tales and stories grow with the children and the fairy tale characters’ journeys become to be more and more like the children’s adventures growing up. The key in fairy tales is that they hold social values and life lessons that can help kids from a young age as they read those stories. “The Little Mermaid” teaches lessons of courage, determination, freedom, and love. They are used to help children become creative and for their imaginations to become powerful, because they allow children to be creative so they can imagine different worlds…show more content… One element in the story is feet. The Little Mermaid wants to trade her tale for feet so she can be on land and be a human with the Prince, who she fell in love with after she rescues him from drowning. Trading her tale for feet represents how she wants freedom from her family and the ocean, and how she wants to live her own life. Another element is the number six, which is the symbol for evil. The Little Mermaid has five older sisters, six mermaids in total. At the end of the story, the Little Mermaid’s sisters visit her when she is on a boat and, handing a knife to her and completely bald, they tell her to kill the Prince with the knife since he is marrying another woman and leaving the Little Mermaid brokenhearted, “We have given our hair to the witch...to obtain help for you, that you may not die to-night. She has given us a knife...Before the sun rises you must plunge it into the heart of the prince; when the warm blood falls upon your feet they will grow together again, and form into a fish’s tail, and you will be once more a mermaid, and return to us to live out your three hundred years before you die and change into the salt sea foam” (Andersen). The third element is the Initiation for the mermaids, “When you are fifteen, you will be allowed to go up to the surface of the sea” (Arcturus 89). The Initiation in the story is for all mermaids to go to the surface of the ocean and spend the entire day exploring around the land once they reach their fifteenth birthday. {Body paragraph
