The Little Mermaid is a princess in her own domain – feels very comfortable, has a family to back her up, she is equipped for that way of life (tail). She longs for a prince and the life of humans, their immortal souls. (Which both can be interpreted as wanting more, having idealistic picture of life someplace else, not necessarily another country, but another surroundings, occupation, set of circumstances: the restlessness that occupy most of us at certain age or stage in life. It is a trait of a curious mind, the one that needs to expand. That explains why would she leave a world she was so perfectly happy in).
To enter that other world, we have to pay the price, and we have to endure changes. Losing the tail signifies losing that ability to be functional in your surroundings – suddenly, all the things you knew are irrelevant (and it’s very much so in a life of an immigrant – you do feel out of your element, unable to maneuver through these new circumstances) . Every step is a pain you must endure if you wish to go anywhere. It is very much so with entering any other area in life that is new – adolescence, retirement, disability, new job, etc – any other expansion of your comfort zone into the unknown.
The prince is that element we feel we need to feel stronger. It can be a relationship, but it can also be occupation, money, status, children, special interest – any dream OUTSIDE of yourself. We need it to feel better about ourselves as we don’t believe we can make it without it.
The voice is a significant factor. When changing our circumstances, we don’t have the ability to communicate with those we meet in new surroundings. Not necessarily is this just a language barrier (immigrant issue, again), it is the difference in the mind frame and lack of ability to relate to new surroundings. Our frame of reference is different than the one of those we encounter in new circumstances. An adolescent has difficulties expressing herself in the world of adults she wants to be in. Newly disabled person needs a period of adjustment to be able to relate to the world in a productive way. Losing the voice emphasized the isolation in the new world – no one understands how we feel and we don’t know how to tell them.
So, atop everything else, the prince loves someone else (and that he thinks she saved him instead of LM just emphasizes her isolation and helplessness)! LM is losing that one dream that brought her into this new world, the one reason she endured all the suffering. Aside from the fact that happens more often than not, what is more significant is the way we deal with it. There is no going back – we have changed and living as we used to is not an option. We have to let go of the dream if we are to grow. So, finally, “death” (travel to a higher, happier state) means shedding the doubts, fears and desires of earlier stage and re-birth of a new person, one who does not need a dream somewhere outside herself. If we can see death as a transformation, not an end, we’d have the moral of the story.