Our Final DH Project is about Love and Transformation in Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid”, “The Steadfast Tin Soldier”, and “The Ugly Duckling”.

Abstract

We, Catrina Ziade, Raffi Yalenezian, and I, put forward the idea through literary analysis and research that Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales are arguably largely based on his life; notably, that “The Little Mermaid” is based on his unrequited lover Edvard Collins, “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” is based on his first love Riborg Voigt who too rejected him, and that “The Ugly Duckling” can be interpreted as an autobiography.

We used Google My Maps to represent the locations of Andersen’s most important life achievements and unrequited lovers. In addition, we also explore the themes of “Love and Transformation” in each fairy tale and across all three using Voyant Tools for text analysis, and find Andersen is selective in his choice of words and how they are used, and that he has chosen water as a symbol in the sense it is a medium for transformation.

To be able to access the TimelineJS embed of our project, please click here. We hope you’ll enjoy it as much as we did!