摘要

汉斯•克里斯蒂安•安徒生（1805-1875）被无数的中国儿童熟悉，却很少得到中国成年人的关注。本文试着通过联系安徒生的人生经历和亚里士多德的悲剧理论，来分析安徒生的代表作《海的女儿》中他的悲剧情结，以让中国读者更好地了解这位优秀的童话作家，同时也为安徒生的童话提供一个更深层次的理解，因为他的童话并不仅仅是为孩子写的，并不仅仅是思想肤浅的作品。另外，本文也想让更多人充分认识到安徒生童话的精神价值。本文首先分析了故事的环境。结合安徒生本人的早年经历，他在哥本哈根的生涯追求和他所经受的艰难困苦， 本文探求了《海的女儿》中贯穿始终的悲伤基调和安徒生悲剧情结的根源。随后本文对《海的女儿》中主要人物进行了深入讨论。小人鱼是安徒生在故事里的化身，与安徒生在梦想追求和挫折际遇上有很多共同点，而王子则是安徒生人生追求和爱情对象的理想化身。从情节上看，总的说来，《海的女儿》是个典型的悲剧，体现了安徒生的悲剧情结。本文也就安徒生独特的悲剧样式，即“大悲中暗含小希望”这种样式进行了讨论。

关键词：悲剧情结，环境，人物，情节，安徒生传记，乐观

Abstract

Hans Christian Andersen（1805–1875）is well-known by numerous Chinese children, but rarely received any attention of Chinese adults. This paper attempts to analyze Anderson’s tragic complex in his master piece The Little Mermaid (1837) with reference to his life experience and Aristotle’s theories on tragedy so as to further the understanding of this excellent storyteller, which can also provide a more profound understanding towards Andersen’s fairytales rather than regarding them as stories exclusively for children with shallow thoughts. This paper also aims to get more people to fully realize the spiritual wealth of Andersen’s stories. Settings of the story are firstly analyzed and referring to Andersen’s early life experience, his career pursuit in Copenhagen and the hardship he has suffered, this thesis finds out the root of the sadness throughout the story and the tragic complex of the storyteller. Then the thesis has a deep discussion on the main characters of the story and holds that the little mermaid is an avatar of Andersen himself, sharing similar dreams and encountering with similar troubles while the prince is a perfection of Andersen’s love and longing for the better world and those he has affections to. As for the plot, generally speaking, the story is a tragedy which has well marked Andersen’s tragic complex. Andersen’s unique interpretation of tragedy—high-proportional sorrow combined with low-proportional optimism is also discussed in this thesis.

Keywords: tragic complex, settings, characters, plot, Andersen’s biography, optimism

1. Introduction

Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875, also wrote under the pseudonym Villiam Christian Walter), is a world-renowned Danish writer. His stories like The Ugly Duckling (1843), The Emperor's New Clothes (1837), and The Little Mermaid (1837) have been quite familiar to us Chinese people but the storyteller himself is still a mystery to us readers. Although he wrote in many genres, including novels, poems, plays, and travelogues, Hans Christian Andersen is remembered primarily as one of the most distinguished writers of fairy tales. Although Andersen is well-known by numerous Chinese children, his fairytales have rarely received any attention of Chinese adults, no mention appreciating them from a deeper level.