How to fill out a reading diary Sample design for grades 1,2,3,4
Author: Andersen G-H.
Title: “The Little Mermaid”
Genre: literary fairy tale
Theme of the work: about love
Number of pages: 18
You will find a complete selection of illustrations for this and other works in our section of the website here
Plot - summary
The little mermaid is looking forward to her fifteenth birthday, when she will be able to rise to the surface of the ocean and see the wonderful world around her.
She surfaces and witnesses a storm, during which she rescues a handsome young prince.
Having fallen in love with the prince, the Little Mermaid decides to be close to him and goes to the Sea Witch, who gives her legs in exchange for her voice.
The prince finds the Little Mermaid and settles her in the palace, where everyone admires the girl’s beauty.
But the prince decides to marry someone else, whom he considers his savior, and the Little Mermaid can only save herself by killing the prince.
The little mermaid cannot kill her beloved and with the first rays of the sun she becomes one of the daughters of the air, magical, invisible creatures who do good.
A summary of the work can be read here, and there you will also find another version of the summary for the reader’s diary
Summary of “The Little Mermaid” for a reader’s diary
Author's name : Hans Christian Andersen
Title : Little Mermaid
Number of pages : 48. H. G. Andersen. "Mermaid". Publishing house "ROSMEN", 2012.
Genre : Fairy tale
Year of writing : 1836
The material was prepared jointly with a teacher of the highest category, Kuchmina Nadezhda Vladimirovna.
Experience as a teacher of Russian language and literature - 27 years.
Proverbs for the work
True love neither burns in fire nor drowns in water.
Love is a fire, and once it catches fire, you can’t put it out.
Life without love is like a year without spring.
One heart suffers, and the other does not know.
You won't be nice by force.
Other readers' diaries
Hello! My name is Maria, I am the author of the Pushkin website. I hope that my site helps you, in turn I ask for your help. My son was diagnosed with autism. He needs daily correctional activities, if you can help, I will be grateful to you. Every 10 rubles you give is another chance for my child to live a full life. Collection page here
Mermaid
In the deepest part of the sea stands the coral palace of the sea king. He has been widowed for a long time, and his old mother, a worthy and intelligent woman, is in charge of the palace. She loves her six granddaughters very much, pretty little mermaid princesses. The best of all is the youngest, quiet and thoughtful, with sea-blue eyes. Instead of legs, she, like other mermaids, has a fish tail. She loves only her garden with bright red flowers and a marble statue of a beautiful boy that fell to the bottom from a lost ship. Hugging the statue, the little mermaid dreams of ships, cities, people and animals.
Continued after advertisement:
According to tradition, the mermaid first rises to the surface at the age of sixteen. The time comes for the daughters of the sea king to see the land. The little mermaid, the youngest in the family, had a chance to rise after her sisters. She emerges not far from a three-masted ship, from the deck of which music can be heard. In the ship's cabin, the little mermaid notices many smart people, and among them a handsome prince with big black eyes, who looks like the marble boy from her garden. The ship's crew and guests cheerfully celebrate his sixteenth birthday. In the evening the fireworks begin. Large suns spin like wheels in the night sky, fiery fish spin their tails, and loud music sounds on the deck.
Late in the evening, after the holiday, a strong storm begins at sea. The prince's ship turns over on its side and breaks into pieces. The little mermaid saves the drowning prince. Supporting him, she sails to the shore with a beautiful grove and a tall white building like a church or monastery, and leaves the prince on the sand. Soon people run out of the white building to help. Having come to his senses, the prince smiles and the little mermaid becomes sad, because he did not smile at her and did not even know who saved his life. She dives into the water and swims away.
Briefly exists thanks to advertising:
The little mermaid tells everything to her sisters and they take her to the prince’s palace. Since then, the little mermaid swims there every evening and looks at the young prince for a long time. She often hears fishermen saying a lot of good things about the prince, and she is glad that she saved him.
The little mermaid asks her grandmother about people and learns that their lifespan is shorter than that of mermaids. But people have an immortal soul, which flies to the sky after the body turns to dust. Mermaids live for three hundred years, but they are not given an immortal soul. After death, all that remains is sea foam. A mermaid can only receive a soul if one of the people loves her and they are married by a priest. But this will never happen, because the fish tail of mermaids is considered beautiful, but people find it ugly. To please a person, you need to acquire two awkward supports - legs, as people call them.
The little mermaid loves the prince and is ready to do anything to get an immortal soul. Leaving her sisters to dance at the ball, she goes to the sea witch. She agrees to make a drink, after drinking which the little mermaid’s fish tail will turn into a pair of slender legs. At the same time, her graceful gait will remain, but walking will cause terrible pain. The Witch warns that, having taken on a human form, the little mermaid will never return to her native element. If the prince marries someone else, the little mermaid's heart will break into pieces and she will become sea foam. In payment for the magic drink, the witch demands the beautiful voice of the little mermaid. She will be left with a pretty face, an airy gait and expressive eyes, “enough to conquer the human heart.” After giving the little mermaid the potion, the witch cuts off her tongue.
Continued after advertisement:
Having sailed to the prince's palace at night, the little mermaid drinks a magical drink. A sharp pain pierces her. and she loses consciousness. Waking up during the day, she sees the prince in front of her, and when she lowers her eyes, she discovers, instead of a fish tail, two small legs, like those of a child. The prince tries to find out who she is and how she got here, but she is silent. Taking the little mermaid by the hand, the prince leads her to the palace, and she patiently endures the pain, and her gait remains airy.
In the palace, the little mermaid is dressed in silk and muslin, and she becomes the first beauty. Still remaining mute, she dances like no one has ever danced before. Everyone admires her, and the prince calls the little mermaid his little foundling. He becomes more and more attached to the little mermaid, but loves her only as a sweet, kind child. It never even occurs to him to make her his wife.
At the request of his parents, the prince goes across the sea to a neighboring king to meet his daughter, and takes the Little Mermaid with him. A prince and a beautiful princess fall in love, celebrate their engagement, and then their wedding. Soon the time comes to go to the prince's homeland. A luxurious tent for the newlyweds is pitched on the deck of the ship.
Only one evening remains for the little mermaid to spend time with the one “for whom she left her family and her father’s house, gave her wonderful voice and endured endless torment every day, while he did not notice them. ... Long after midnight, dancing and music continued on the ship, and the little mermaid laughed and danced with mortal torment in her heart.”
When the ship becomes quiet, the little mermaid remains on the deck to wait for the first rays of the sun. Suddenly, near the ship, she notices her sisters with their hair cut off - they gave their hair to the witch so that she could help save the little mermaid from death. The witch gave them a sharp knife, which the little mermaid must plunge into the prince's heart. If his blood gets on her legs, they will grow back into a fish tail, the little mermaid will become the same and live her three hundred years. “Kill the prince and return to us!” - with these words the sisters swim away.
Briefly exists thanks to advertising:
The little mermaid lifts the curtain of the tent and sees that the head of the beautiful bride lies on the chest of the prince. She kisses the prince, throws the knife into the waves, which turn red, as if stained with blood, throws herself into the sea and her body dissolves into sea foam.
After death, the little mermaid joins the daughters of the air, who fly without wings thanks to their own lightness. Like mermaids, they do not have an immortal soul. But they can get it for the good deeds they do to people. The Little Mermaid sees the prince and his bride looking for her throughout the ship. Invisible, she kisses the beautiful bride, smiles at the prince and, together with other children of the air, rises to the pink clouds.
Analysis of the fairy tale The Little Mermaid
The fairy tale reveals the theme of selfless love. Many people wonder: why didn’t the author make the ending of the fairy tale happy, like magical folk tales? But the author wanted to convey to the reader the idea that true love is not only the happiness of possession, but also suffering, sacrifice and the courage to abandon a loved one in the name of his well-being. The Little Mermaid is the ideal of self-sacrifice. The main idea of the fairy tale The Little Mermaid is that only true love can sacrifice its personal interests for the sake of the happiness of its loved one.
Main characters
In 1837, the fairy tale “The Little Mermaid”, written by Hans Christian Andersen, was first published. It was adapted many times, animated and feature films were made based on it, plays and musicals were staged. When translated into Russian, the title of the work was changed.
From Danish it meant “Little Sea Lady”; the main character had nothing to do with mermaids.
The main characters of "The Little Mermaid":
The daughter of the sea king fell in love with a handsome young prince and decided to sacrifice her voice in order to gain legs. She is the main character of the entire text. The Little Mermaid saved the young man from death, but he fell in love with another. The prince is described as an honest and noble young man.
Ariel has five more sisters , all of whom live in the underwater world. The Little Mermaid turns to her wise grandmother for advice. She is trying to teach her granddaughter to be kind and attentive. The terrible sea witch helped Ariel find her legs, but forced her to give up her voice in return. The princess is a sweet girl whom the prince fell in love with.
He thought that this cute creature saved him from death. At the end of the book, the daughters of the air appear - magical creatures who took Ariel's soul.
The Little Mermaid is not about a prince and legs
Andersen's fairy tale "The Little Mermaid" is much deeper than it seems. This is the best illustration of Christianity and Neoplatonism
All adults and children know the fairy tale “The Little Mermaid” by Hans Christian Andersen. Everyone remembers how she unrequitedly fell in love with a handsome earthly prince, how she saved him, walked on sharp knives, and yet resigned herself to his wedding and turned into sea foam. In Disney it’s generally like that – a happy ending with a continuation.
But the fairy tale, of course, is not about that.
One step closer to people
Let's start with the fact that the Little Mermaid had a grandmother, loving and wise. It was she who revealed to her granddaughter the main secret of how people and sea creatures differ. “We live for three hundred years, but when our end comes, we are not buried among our loved ones, we don’t even have graves, we simply turn into sea foam. We are not given an immortal soul, and we are never resurrected; we are like a reed: if you pull it up by the roots, it will not turn green again,” said the grandmother.
Photo: www.globallookpress.com
People, she continues, have an immortal soul. Just as sea inhabitants can rise from the bottom of the sea and see the land, so they go to “unknown blissful countries that we will never see.”
- Why don’t we have an immortal soul? - The Little Mermaid asked sadly. “I would give all my hundreds of years for one day of human life, so that later I too could ascend to heaven.”
Can mermaids even have souls? The image of a mermaid comes from Slavic mythology, and previously people associated them rather with demonism. It was believed that they became unbaptized children, drowned people or cursed wives and virgins. But the most important thing is that even in popular belief, mermaids always wanted to become one step closer to people: to love real men, to borrow clothes from earthly women, to take a hair comb. They are distinguished by abandonment, simple-hairedness, unacceptable for peasant girls - hence the oppressive feeling of incompleteness of being.
By the way, according to Slavic beliefs, a mermaid has legs. Images with a fish tail are a Western European invention, since they were associated there with Homeric sirens.
Photo: www.globallookpress.com
Neoplatonic jerk
Andersen's merit is that he takes a popular, recognizable symbol and fills it with spiritual, Christian content. In his original fairy tale, a man who falls in love with a mermaid and marries her in a church shares with her the immortality of his soul.
To her grief, the Little Mermaid made an unforgivable mistake by turning to the witch. But the temptations of the devil pursue us everywhere, on earth and under water. The main thing is that in the end she chose the Christian path of love and self-sacrifice.
“I am near him, I see him every day, I can look after him, love him, give my life for him,” the Little Mermaid thinks about the prince. Which of the modern girls is capable of this? Perhaps not many. She is offered a knife that will return her to the same mermaid level of existence, but she refuses.
In many ways, this is a reference in the ontology of the Neoplatonists, in whom being flows from the highest beginning - the One - downwards. And at every level there is existence, but the lower, the less there is. And in this sense, Andersen’s Little Mermaid rises above its level and makes a neoplatonic leap.
Photo: www.globallookpress.com
After turning into sea foam, “the little mermaid did not feel death: she saw the clear sun and some transparent, wonderful creatures hovering over her in hundreds.” After death as a sea creature, she becomes a “daughter of the air” - this is a level higher, one step closer to God, to the One. This is a new test for 300 years - and only virtues make it possible to finally find an immortal soul and experience the eternal bliss available to people.
The most important thing is in the ending of the fairy tale. They explain to the little mermaid that the 300-year service is shortened if you rejoice with the children, and every tear, on the contrary, adds an extra day to the probationary period.
Incredibly, this idea is in a fairy tale for children. Dejection is a sin. “Rejoice in that day and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven,” says the Gospel of Luke. The Little Mermaid releases the prince and his bride with a smile, showing inhuman generosity.
Andersen generally has a lot of Christian fairy tales. Not everyone knows that Gerda reads the “Our Father” in her fight with the Snow Queen, and her grandmother reads the Gospel to her and Kai. And Eliza from “Wild Swans” looked up and saw God. Soviet translators, unfortunately, sometimes allowed themselves to replace the word “Lord” with “master” in fairy tales, and in cartoons they completely discarded Christian motifs.
It is worth reading slightly less well-known fairy tales, for example, “The Philosopher’s Stone”, “What the Whole Family Said”, “Flax”, “The Red Shoes” and many others - believe me, as an adult you will read them completely differently.
Andersen is amazing in that even sad, at first glance, fairy tales give us hope and remind us that not all happiness is on earth. That we are here for a short time, every earthly moment is precious, but our main road leads further - to heaven.
Read on topic:
Secrets of the fisherman and the fish
Cartoon “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia”: love can be taught from the screen
