Conflicting Loyalties as Reflected in Ariel's Social Interaction in Rob Marshall's The Little Mermaid (2023)

Abstract

People take on additional responsibilities by committing to multiple loyalties in order to adjust to society, which makes it challenging for them to maintain balance. Utilizing literary analysis, this thesis aims to examine how conflicting loyalties affect people's decisions. With a focus on four main characters who are suggested to be dealing with loyalty issues, the impact obtained is also examined in order to discover how each character make decisions in distinct ways. To detect conflicting loyalties, Parsons's  (1993) ethical framework is used as a theory to further the analysis by examining character's decision-making, which is influenced by their conflicting loyalties. The outcome of this thesis demonstrates the shared loyalty conflicts between the character's organizational loyalty and their personal or relational loyalty. Each character's varied point of view (POV) results in a unique pattern of decision-making, which is developed step-by-step by Parsons (1993). By compiling the analysis using TEEL methods, the decision-making pattern includes clarifying values to identify loyalty in question, implementing principle when putting on acts, and deciding which loyalty should be prioritized at the end.