Post V: Contemporary Example of Transcendentalism

Thesis: Ariel is a modern day example of Transcendentalism because she decides that she is sick of living the life people have set up for her. She decides to exceed the limits of a normal mermaid and does something that no mermaid has ever done before. She became a human.

In the movie "The Little Mermaid" a young mermaid has a dream of becoming a human. This mermaids name is Ariel. Ariel was one of four daughter of thee King Triton. She has this dream of having a perfect life on land and falling in love with a young sailor she had saved from a ship wreck that had happened close to her home. "What would I give to live where you are/ What would I pay to stay here beside you/ what would I do to see you smiling at me/ Where would we walk/ where would we run/ If we could stay all day in the sun/ Just you and me/ and I could be/ part of your world" was a quote from Little Mermaids "Part of Your World" during the scene where she had saved the prince and he is unconscious on the beach. In this song she conveyed her love for him and for being a free human without society's restrains. Ariel and like all other mermaids were forbidden to go near the humans because there king preaches that humans are nothing but evil. Ariel decides for herself that she wanted to be the judge of how she felt about humans herself. So she made a deal with an evil witch named Ursula. Ursula agreed that if she could keep Ariel's voices, she would give her legs in return and human like traits. She ends up on land, but with no voice. She finally meets the prince but she cannot talk to him. She learns the ways of humans until Ursula uses her voice, pretends to be her and steals Eric from her. In the end They end up getting married and falling in love together. Her dad learns that humans aren't so bad and they all have a huge party together.

Self- Reliance: I noticed self-reliance in Ariel from the start of the movie. At the beginning of the movie she tries to go off and look for treasure by herself. She left her important duties behind to go do something that she wanted to do. She went up to the surface to watch the humans on her own and she saved Prince Eric. She had to go with her gut feeling and that was really what she wanted to do. Her dad eventually found out about it and he got very mad. She decided that she was going to find her love and prove her dad wrong. She then goes to Ursula and makes the trade with her. She decides to do this on her own as well and has to live on the surface alone.

Intuition: Ariel shows a lot of intuition through out this movie as well. Ariel has the passion for knowing more about humans and proving that they can be amazing. Many other mermaids have been living under the law of tradition, which is that humans are bad and to try and stay as far always as you can from them. She has a dream and a mindset that allows her to dive deeper into information. She has a huge collection of thingamabobs and whatchamacallits. Every time she finds something new she takes it up to her friend Scuttle to figure out what it is. For example she found a fork in the ship that she was looking in the beginning of the movie. She took it up to Scuttle and he said it was for brushing your hair. Here is another example below.

Scuttle: I haven't seen this in years, this is wonderful! 
Ariel: What is it? 
Scuttle: A banded, bulbous snarfblatt. Ariel, Flounder: Oh.