Differences Of Mermaid Myths From Cultural Beliefs English Literature Essay

Differences Of Mermaid leg discontinues From Cultural Beliefs gift Literature EssayMyth is traditional ancient stories which rescue actually occurred in a anterior age, explaining cosmological and ghostly traditional of a people, their gods, heroes, cultural traits and religions beliefs (Leach 1975 778). This essay forget compargon relationship between mermaid myths from different cultural beliefs and its symbolic representations which exist the interior(a) signification of each myth.It is certainly true to say that the idea of mermaids when set-back arrived into peoples mind is a mythology aquamarinetic brute with female merciful consistency instead of legs, mermaids fix tail of a angle. They have beautiful crystallizing clear voice, which seduced men to fall into the hallucination when they be singing. In some other(prenominal) word, it could be understood that Mermaid themselves portrait the beautiful seduction of the female sex. nonhing could possibly stand the pleasing voice if any of them get skinny to the mermaid. This significant also has been letn as a theme, connotation, slogan or the meaning of just about certain tales and advertising products. Though, on that point are some questions about the mermaid myth that have been wondered by mythological re searcher. (Doty 2004 11)They have a broad presentation in different myths and folklores depending on those cultural beliefs. The way of mermaids can be differentiated up to the imagination and the message they sine qua non to send. As long as they maintain the female see to it with dramatically long hair, it is a copy right of mermaids characteristics. Significance and meaning are broadly different as well according to a peculiar(prenominal) cultural mythology. Initially, the word Mermaid performer sea woman. Mere is an old English means sea and maid from maiden, means woman. Males equivalent is Merman, where it could be recognized clearly the utilisation of direct word man after mere, mythical research. (Doty 2004 11) Unfortunately, the ideology of this aquatic myth is foc procedured on the representation of womans magical spell and seduction due(p) to the emphasis of appearance. Merman obviously does not play a big role in those deals. Besides, there is another dark fabrication of mermaids attitude, where they would portray foxy planners. They are depicted to be squeezing deportment out of mostly sailor, while attempting to escape from sea storms. In some myths, mermaids also carry humanes gobble up to their underwater kingdom. These two ideas are more terrified than the first mermaid tale, but still emphasize on seduction. It is normal in term of classical myth to depict women as interdict or passive models, said Marta Weigle in Myth and Mythmaking in Fantastic Literature by Women. (Shinn 1986 19) If women in mythology described as negative cause, then Why is a mermaid not portraying as a pecker with more masculinity? Since a dedicat ed spirit of aqua is a Goddess in Thai Pra-mae-kong-ka or waters spirit in Greek mythology not including the famous Poseidon. Anything associated with water should be translated to the meaning of softness. Women do not have masculine body constructed as men. They would not be able to intensively fight as the way male heroes did. Therefore, they have to use the ability of enchanting nearby men who lured by their immobilise bodies and music.Greek mythology explains the characteristics of mermaid in similarity. Greek addressed the divulge of Sirens. Three risky bird-women lived in mysterious rocky coast, where they lure nearby sailors to enchanting by their fine music. Sirens portray as seductresses as same as the translation of women in mythology. Women were sources of sin (Shinn 1986 110). Sirens sometimes portrayed in later folklore as fully aquatic and mermaid-like. They still sustain the figure of female who is the exceed in seducing human in every myth.witcombe.sbc.edu/wate r/artmermaids.htmlthere is another mermaid myth in Japanese beliefs. According to old Japanese tale, Mermaids organs could give the miracle affection to people who desired in particular supernatural power. Any whizz who ate flesh of a mermaid would achieve the immortality and vice versa A mermaids sum total would turn back to mortal human. This mermaid myth is rather extra-ordinary to the ideology of occidental mermaid. The ability of gaining immortality would persuade the dark side of human to hunt mermaid sel anglely, as human is afraid of aged and termination. However, there is a drawback to remind a sin of going against the nature. A person, who became an immortal, would live in the orbit simply for eternity. He or she could only watch their be lie withd people died as time passed by while he or she was the only one who survived for decades. That is the agonic pain human could feel without physical wound. (Doty 2004 15)Such myths that are implant into the different cultures are the result of the fears of water. Regarding to Geoffrey Galt Harpham, the compose of On The Grotesque Strategies of contradiction in terms in Art and Literature, The visionary is the concept without form the world virtually always modifies much(prenominal) indeterminate noun as monster, objects or things (Harpham 1982 3). A byproduct of fear as a mermaid may be makes the figure of the mermaid a monstrous, an abject a wondrous. Feared and unbearable, human invent a figure that represent their different suppressed fear fear of oceans, fear of travelling or perhaps fear of women. Human in the presence of the fearful figure get what is called the temptation. Temptations are not grotesque not because they are abhorrent dragons and gorgons terrible beasts are not necessarily grotesque but because in the midst of an oerwhelming impression of monstrousness there is much we can recognize, mush corrupted and shuffled similarities, (Harpham 1982 5). Due to these temptations, the abject, the grotesque human fear and cannot bear is in fact rather something acquainted(predicate). The idea results in a cross over between human and non-human. To mermaids, theyre fish crossing over with human the familiar with the abject. Even though Mermaids myth is broadly presented according to culture and belief, there are basic understandings of mermaid maintained. Mermaid could not be a mermaid if there is no seductive characteristic in any adept. The tale of different world becomes very well known communicatory by media and the adaptation such(prenominal) as The Little Mermaid of Waltz Disney Picture. In the adaptation, the mermaid figure Ariel plays the protagonist who longs to explore the land above and eventually falls in love with the human prince Phillips while recuing him from a shipwreck. Difference leads to the struggling situation, and audiences love to consume the meshing within a plot. As the crossing over gets narrowed down into something forbidden, the m ermaid figure in the narrative seeks to become human. She is then seen as a human being the protagonist and has humanly judgements. From the frightening image of a sea monster grotesque, the mermaid myth gets varied by the new indistinguishability as a protagonist who is portrayed as a junior curious and delightful girl who can fall in love with the most forbidden condition racial difference. Therefore, the forbidden love issue between human and mermaid appears to be the most famous genre.Within the Thai culture, according to Jit Phumisak, there are fewer stories about mermaids comparing to the occidental although, mermaids have appeared in some Thai literatures. Most people qualification imagine that mermaid has half and half body between human and fish but in the very first Thai literature mermaid appeared as a ophidian in Li-lit-ong-karn-chang-nam ()- --(He, Pra-insuan rode on the white cow and use mermaid as a weapon)-- (With a power of mermaid he could destroy anything) Pra-insuan uses the holy white cow as his transportation and use a snake as his weapon but in this poem the writer didnt use the word snake but he apply mermaid or nguak Which means that snake and mermaid referring to the same thing. This mermaids appearances are nearly like mermaids archetypes in usual although differentiate to fit the Thai literature world.The myth of mermaids is also used through a symbol by using its appearance and its characteristics. The symbolisation of a mermaid that is widely known is the Starbucks Coffee logo having a fit-tailed enchantress in the middle surrounded by the green circle labelled the attach to name. Siren is a name calling for a creature having a half-fish, half-woman body in Greek mythology. According to the myth, enchantresss actually take forms of a bird or a fish but concisely after, the myth stated as the temptress was a fish-woman. The origin of the twin tails is a combination of a fish tail and a womans legs. Usually Sirens are hunting nearly rocks or cliffs. Additionally, they are believed to be daughters of the river Achelous and the nymph Calliope and usually they live in mountains. Basically, a symbolic figure of siren can have diverse meanings such as an inferior of women, a impure imagination attracted towards the beginning or the end of life, or a suffering of a yearning leading to death meaning though they have a beautiful face and breast, they could not satisfy the craving occurred by their music and charm because of their atypical bodies. plainly essentially they give a meaning of temptations or seduction meaning the use of the charm to death. According to Juan Eduardo Cirlot, the author of The Dictionary of Symbols, The spell consequently cast is attributed to the siren whose songs so captivates the listeners that he falls into the ocean (of the cut back water and of na wander forms) teeming with multitudinous life. (Cirlot 2002 298) What significance of sirens is that they were given such a beautiful rhapsody which really the music has reductive and deadly sense hidden that anyone who hear the song may step into sirens fall outs without knowing that he will be a prey of them. So this feature is what Starbucks company got the idea of the logo from the myth of sirens. The Starbucks logo was inspired from the invention of the name of the company. At first, the company name Starbucks was taken from the character who is the first work party on the ship, Pequod, from a literature named Moby Dick. According to Sara Gilbert, the author of The Story of Starbucks, The prominent green, black and white logo that adorns all the Starbucks products is a salute to the companys soonest incarnation.(Gilbert 2008 13) The name, Starbucks, is an intention of the company that every costumer reminds of a fascinating scent of a deep ocean. And that intention comes to a research on the symbol to represent of it, and so they come up with a twin-tailed mermaid or so called siren which was copied from a Nordic woodcut of the sixteen century. The first purpose of the twin-tailed siren was the original symbol from the woodcut which the siren was having a Rubenesque body, viewing its breasts and navel and wearing a crown. Also, apart from her breasts and navel, her tail symbolizes as a more versed connotation openly. According to Howard Schultz, Dori Jones Yang, the author of Pour Your disembodied spirit Into It How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time, That early siren, bare- breasted and Rubenesque, was supposed to be as seductive as the coffee itself .(Schultz and Yang 1997 33) The company gives the significance of the siren as a creature who devour men to death, when compared to the smell of the coffee that the smell was like such a sweet song a siren singing which is, due to the mythology, having a seductive music and it seduces people who hear of it to come to its place or people who smell of their coffee would come to the shop. According to Bryant Simon , the author of Everything but the coffee learning about America from Starbucks, With Schultzs approval, they drew her as a less seductive, less dangerous icon, more a sweet, mild mermaid than a sexually dangerous mermaid.(Simon 2009 42) Later on, the company changed the appearance of the siren logo by covering up its breasts and belly button to have less sexual connotation and it was redrawn by focusing on the sirens face into a sweetly smiley siren than a dangerously seductive introductory one. Importantly, the new siren logo gives a new brighter good feeling of a siren rather than a woodcut siren. Also they changed polish of the surrounding circle from brown to green which is more nature ultraconservative and it gives a feeling of more friendly along with the new siren than the preceding version and it is the one used in every pitchfork until today.In conclusion, the mermaid myth has long been bounded to the civilizations of mankind. Each culture around the world may have it s own interpretation of the mythical sea creature, but it is notable that all share similar features of half fish half human. The figure is often seen as the representation of the females dark side, for example the seductresses of the sea that lure sailors to their end in the deep water of the oceans by their beautiful deceiving voices. Or the scary mythical creature that holds the secret to interminable life and youthful that people are after with little friendship of the consequence of their greed. The figure of a mermaid can be called a grotesque the non-thing that stands for anything opposing human, all that is feared and disgusted by human. However, from another point of view, the mermaid grotesque can be seen as rather familiar to human as a mermaid features half of a woman body, and in some narrative come in contact with such personal side of the human life love. Furthermore, the figure of mermaid can not only represent aspects of unfairness of the femininity but also the humans mind in general, for example, seduction, sexual desire, fears, greed, religion or even forbidden sexual perversity. Different tales were told in many different narratives about the mermaid through space, time and media means.