Part 2 Essay on Film Around the World Water (2005) vs Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid (1836)

Within the Indian Bollywood movie Water (2005) and the Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale version of  The Little Mermaid (1836) there are several similarities between the Little Mermaid and Kalyani. Each of these similarities are the ways in which the movie Water (2005) uses and transforms the myth of the  Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale version of  The Little Mermaid (1836).  There are also several visual styles that are present within the movie Water (2005) that have a connection  relationship to the myth of   The Little Mermaid .

 The first visual  similarity I noted was Kalyani and the Little Mermaid are both young individuals who fall in love with someone who is outside their social status in society. In Water (2005) The lower class widow Kalyani falls in love with Narayan; who is an upper class intellectual man within the Indian Caste system. Whereas in the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale version of  The Little Mermaid (1836) the Little Mermaid who is a princess of the sea falls in love with a human Prince.  These two visual images show the love connection each character couple makes together while they sit near the water.

The second similarity I noted was they each also met the man they loved through the medium of water. Kalyani meets Narayan when she goes to the river to get water to bring back to the widows at the Ashram. While going to the river her dog runs away and she she meets Narayan because he catches the dog. However, in The Little Mermaid (1836), The Little Mermaid meets the human Prince by saving him within the water from nearly drowning in a shipwreck. She happens to do this by chance while she goes to the surface of the sea after she turned fifteen.









Furthermore, The symbolism of water is also used as a physical and metaphorical divider between each of the two individuals. This is because Kalyani and the Little Mermaid hope for marriage in order  to escape their current social statuses for a life they perceive to be better and the water is physically a barrier between the societies their lovers live in as well as their own. However, each of them do not get married in the end and they die. This is due in Water (2005) to Kalyani's prostitution past with Narayan's dad being discovered. This caused her to commit suicide by drowning.  In Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid (1836) this is  because the Prince falls in love with another princess (who is really the sea witch) and it makes the Little Mermaid turn into sea foam when she goes back into the sea. Therefore the water is also a metaphorical barrier because it prevents Kalyani and the Little Mermaid from obtaining everlasting love with their lovers and it has always been a divider between their lovers.

Two more  important  character elements in  each of these stories  are widows and grandmothers. Although in Water (2005) it is Kalyani herself who is the widow in The Little Mermaid (1836) the father is the widower and not the Little Mermaid. However, Kalyani and the Little Mermaid each have grandmother figures in their lives who make them do the act that changes their lives. For example, in  The Little Mermaid (1836) the Little Mermaid's Grandma tells her to go up to the sea's surface since she's grown up. This is eventually where she meets the human Prince. While in Water (2005) Madhu Didi who is the grandmother figure of the Ashram prostitutes Kalyani. This eventually causes her to realize Narayan is the son of one of her former clients as he takes her in his boat to his house to marry her.


In conclusion, the ways in which the Indian Bollywood movie Water (2005)  uses and transforms the myth of the  Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale version of  The Little Mermaid (1836) is by the use of visual styles and character element similarities.  This can be seen by the story and movie plot lines as well as the use of water as a metaphorical and physical symbol within Water (2005) and the  Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale version of  The Little Mermaid (1836).