Me after reading "Little Snow
White"....
It had been a
while, maybe even younger than 7 years old (oh, don't worry that is not the
last time I will mention 7) that I last recall Snow White. Yes, I did have the
recollection of the dwarves, the mirror, and the evil queen who tries to poison
her daughter. However, Grimm just turned something that seemed happy and
"semi-pure" in my head into something that was quite nightmarish and
revolting. His version of the tale revealed to me strong messages of
inequality, jealously, and in similar notions to inequality, the ideal of
perfection.
For starters,
I don't know about anyone else, but if I pricked my finger with a needle and it
started bleeding, I would clean that wound out and get a Band-Aid on ASAP.
Though, Grimm wants the Queen to examine her blood and have a strong,
metaphorical revelation that starts the tale for us. In starting the tale with
this imagery, I couldn't help but start to build some skepticism for what was
to come.
Anyways, this
tale follows a strong foundation by building and reinforcing typical gender
relationships for the time period. The mirror on the wall is there to establish
a situation in which the women sees herself and must recognize her
imperfections in order to fit the understanding of an "ideal women".
Since the Queen lacks a lot of stability and love for herself, she seeks the
mirror for reassurance of her beauty. In some ways, this continues to be a
pattern in modern society. Many seek the reassurance from social media to create
their understanding of their beauty, and when that societal “ideal” is not met
jealousy and envy take hold.
So, Grimm takes this social construct of beauty
and has the Queen go after a 7-year-old girl. Not only does she send someone to
kill her and bring back her heart, she just eats that thing up like, “Oh yeah
just salt it and let me soak up the beauty”. Sign 1 of being a maniac. But
since that heart proved to be false, the Queen still will do anything at any
cost to kill Little Snow White. In this tale she really starts to become some sort
of Sales Solicitor and just keeps trying to kill Little Snow White. Literally
it took you 3 tries to poison a little 7-year-old, that is just sad and messed
up.
Lastly, a little bit more on the analytical side,
I was keeping in mind the audience of this tale and what Grimm’s intention may
have been when writing this. Mainly, seeing Little Snow White as a 7-year-old
girl, she was already obliged by men to clean their house in order for her
protection. Grimm’s may have been trying to tell his audience of adults that
women must be subjugated to domestic activities and fit the sexual desire of
the man (Sorry to break it to you Mr. Brothers Grimm, but that ain’t it chief).
Overall, Grimm’s tale shook me. The annotation were
helpful, but sometime felt like a bit of stretch. Though, I did begin to truly
see how messed up this version of the tale was, and how Disney filtered some of
these ideas, but still managed to keep some of them for his benefit.
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