Twentieth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

While cultural variation is particularly relevant in the study of conceptual emotion metaphors, Kövecses (2004) notes that there are thought to be some near-universal metaphors that function at an “extremely general level” (p. 264). These near-universal metaphors, in turn, serve as a skeleton that can be styled in a limitless number of ways based on individual and cultural-specific values. This phenomenon is parallel to a pattern observed in the fairy tale literary genre in which stories contain a deep, skeletal structure that is built upon and modified based on the teller’s individual and cultural experiences. The following paper, therefore, aims to uncover the conceptual emotion metaphors that span across fairy tale variants and dissect how they are constructed differently based on the author’s individual and cultural influences. Specifically, this paper analyzes conceptual love metaphors within and across three mermaid tales: Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué’s Undine (1811), Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid (1837), and Walt Disney’s The Little Mermaid (1989). The two primary conceptual love metaphors identified are “LOVE IS SACRIFICE” and “LOVE IS (A VEHICLE TOWARD) TRANSCENDENCE”, both of which take on distinct iterations and prevalence in each mermaid tale.