As a story that contains a lesson about human nature, “The Fisherman and His Soul” can be considered an allegory. In writing the story, Wilde sought to tell a symbolic tale in which a person must reckon with both the positives and negatives of prioritizing romantic love over love for themselves.
In this way, the fisherman represents the human impulse to fall in love and lose oneself in a romantic partner. The Soul symbolizes the parts of a person that they neglect when their focus is aimed toward the one they love. That the Soul ultimately becomes cruel and sabotages the Fisherman’s relationship with the Mermaid is meant to demonstrate how neglecting parts of oneself for a romantic partner will result in resentment, ultimately leading the romantic relationship to fail. In this way, Wilde encourages readers to prioritize themselves before getting lost in a romantic relationship.
At the same time that “The Fisherman and His Soul” is an allegory for the challenges of romantic love, it also functions as an allegory for the particular challenges of queer love (especially at the time in which Wilde was writing). In this reading of the story, the Fisherman and the Mermaid represent a queer couple that society as a whole—and especially the Priest as a representative of the Church—judge as improper and sinful. It is notable that, though the Priest refuses to give the couple a proper burial, he ultimately comes to honor them after witnessing the beauty of the flowers that grow from their graves. In this way, Wilde communicates the lesson that queer love is no less beautiful or honorable than any other type of love.
This reading of the story is supported by the fact that Wilde was living as a queer man in a homophobic society, as well as the fact that “The Little Mermaid” by Hans Christian Anderson, which this story is based on, is itself likely an allegory for queer desire (as Anderson himself was a queer man in his own homophobic society).
