Setting: Anytime, in the autocratic country where the freedom of thought is banned
Conflict: The boy argues a fish is actually a mermaid. Then the police comes to him to arrest because the country he lives doesn't allow citizens to imagine something freely. Eventually He is confined and tried to "correct" his thinking.
Climax: He decides to stop resisting the police however, he finally can't get rid of his own imagination. In the end of the story, he releases a fish into the sea but he see a mermaid in the sea. He tries to follow it walking into the sea. In the sea far from the coast, you can see two mermaids. One of them is him. He decides to live in the his imagination world. That implies suicide.
Symbol: Mermaid represents his imagination. Only when he believes in mermaid, mermaid could be mermaid. When he lose the ability of imagining something freely, mermaid would be a mere fish.
Irony: When he come back to his house and see a fish tank after undergoing brainwashing, he realizes that mermaid is actually a fish however, in the climax, mermaid appears in front of him again upon him releasing a fish into the sea. Desperate brainwashing becomes meaningless. This means vulnerability of thought formed by brainwashing.
Theme: The theme of this story is the danger and nonsense of restricting imagining something freely.
