Abstract

The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales is German famous linguists Grimm Jacob and Grimm Wilhelm’s masterpiece. The Complete Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tale is the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen’s work. Both of them have great influence around the world. Cinderella and The Little Mermaid are respective the masterpieces of The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales and The Complete Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tale, which will be the main research objects of this paper. In this paper, the Grimm’s vivid, simple description and the Andersen’s beautiful, poetic description will be compared to each other to show the differences. Grimm’s Fairy Tales pays more attention to showing the human nature, while Andersen’s Fairy Tales is to give the world to alert. The paper then compares Cinderella’s poor life and the little mermaid’s rich environment, although the little mermaid is seemingly in the ascendant, actually it is not the case. In the pursuit of true love, Cinderella gets multiple help, the mermaid, however, only can take it all herself, which contributes to the two characters’ contrast, that is, dependence and independence. To speak of the ending, Cinderella gets happy life but Mermaid sacrifices as bubble. Through deep analysis of the two opposite ending, we know that everyone will encounter fetters and difficulties during love, but we need to fight for it, even if we are unable to obtain the ideal happiness at last, there will be no regrets. Daring to pursue, this is the value of love, also, it provides experience and lessons to the youth nowadays.

Key words: Cinderella; the Little Mermaid; contrast; love; fairy tales

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1 Introduction1

2 The Contrast Between the Grimm and Andersen Tales.2

2.1 Grimm’s Folk Forms and Andersen’s Biblical Forms3

2.2 Grimm’s Narrative Art and Andersen’s Poetic Art.5

2.3 Grimm’s Dream and Andersen’s Reality7

3 The Contrast Between Two Heroines8

3.1 Cinderella’s “Sadness” and Mermaid’s “Happiness”.8

3.2 Cinderella’s Dependence and Mermaid’s Adamancy…9

3.3 Cinderella’s Comedy and Mermaid’s Tragedy.10

4 Conclusion12

References14