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Lost Property Fairy Tales: Ogawa Yōko and Higami Kumiko’s Transformations of “The Little Mermaid”
- Marvels & Tales
- Wayne State University Press
- Volume 27, Number 2, 2013
- pp. 181-193
- 10.13110/marvelstales.27.2.0181
- Article
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I begin this discussion of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” in Japan with a brief history of some Japanese mermaid stories, including the introduction of Andersen’s famous literary fairy tale in 1904. I then focus on one contemporary transformation of the tale written by Ogawa Yōko in response to illustrations by Higami Kumiko: “Ningyo hōseki shokunin no isshō” (The Life of a Mermaid’s Jeweler, 2006). After analyzing Ogawa’s exploration of gender roles, voice/voicelessness and unreliability, and her images of loss of self through death, dissolution, and disappearance, I suggest some of the ways in which these elements may relate to the pleasures of reading fairy-tale transformations.