Love and Immortality in The Velveteen Rabbit and The Little Mermaid

Chapter 3 of Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child's Moral Imagination by Vigen Guroian.

This chapter is divided into two parts. First, The Velveteen Rabbit. His desire is to be loved enough to become real. We all know the story - he does become real to the boy as the boy sees him as a real personality and not just a toy, and the rabbit becomes shabby-looking. But then the boys gets sick and all his toys are burned to prevent the spread of germs - and the rabbit is left out with the garbage to be burned. Then the nursery fairy turns him into a real rabbit. The boy's love made him real in one sense, but the magic of the fairy who watches over the toys (like God watches over us) makes him real forever - makes him immortal. His real-ness before was just a shadow of the real immortality, in the same way that our lives in the image of God are only a shadow of the real existence we'll have in Heaven.

Next, he examines The Little Mermaid. All her life, the little mermaid yearned for something more than her limiting life under the sea - she wanted to see the sun and the world beyond, much like we yearn for an existence beyond our finite lives in paradise. She tells her grandmother that she would give up all her years of life as a mermaid for just one day on earth and then an eternity in Heaven. That turns out to be prophetic. She is side-tracked when a young man reminds her of the statue that symbolizes life above the water, and her focus is thrown towards him. She yields to temptation and makes a deal with the powers of evil. She does get her day on earth, but with it comes pain and she loses her soul. Yet her final act of self-sacrifice when she refuses to take the life of the man who didn't love her becomes an act that saves her - she becomes a being of the air with a chance for immortality.

All of the entries in this series:
1. Awakening the Moral Imagination
2. On Becoming a Real Human Child: Pinocchio
3. Love and Immortality in The Velveteen Rabbit and The Little Mermaid
4. Friends and Mentors in The Wind in the Willows, Charlotte's Web, Bambi
5. Evil and Redemption in the Snow Queen and Narnia
6. Heroines of Faith and Courage (and Conclusion)