Elizabeth Reneau, Grimm's Snow White Response

It had been ages since I had last time read, listened, or watched the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I had an image of sweet birds chirping and the beautiful, playful, and fairy tale version of Snow White dancing around my mind because of my past experiences at Disney. However, when I began to dive into reading the Grimm Brother’s version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs I realized my idea of the sweet little fairy tale was soon coming to a close with this dark, twisted story. The Grimm Brother’s version touches on hidden innuendos, children’s culture, societal normalcies of that era, and even gender roles issues rather than the butterflies and playful adventure of Snow White we see in children’s books.

An aspect of the Grimm Brother’s version of Snow White which caught my attention due to the different hidden innuendos inserted into the tale was the meaning behind the looking glass. Throughout Disney, the “mirror-mirror on the wall” or the looking glass had a scary connotation; however, with the Grimm Brother’s story, it represented something of envy, something of lust, and something of tainted beauty. The Queen was determined to succeed in becoming the fairest and most beautiful in the land. Her heart was not content until she had reached a certain level of beauty or destroyed anyone in her way of winning over the “male gaze.” Questioning worth based off of beauty and striving to become the fairest is something we see in society today. Bringing to life the struggles many women face today, but also producing a tale which allows for the questioning of beauty and the act of envy to be deemed as “okay” is one of the most twisted aspects of this fairy tale.

Another dark part of this fairy tale was the gender role and gender association represented in the Grimm tale. The text blatantly depicts gender role issues when the seven dwarfs told the young girl (Snow White) that if she will cook, clean, and do the chores of the house then she could dwell with them in their dwarf home. These gender assumptions about how women should handle themselves in society and do their “job” as a woman in the house contradicts many women empowerment movements today, but also shows the issue of the era in which this tale was written. Today, society is changing and women have been given more opportunity to dream big and take chances outside of what women are “supposed” to be doing inside the house.

Lastly, with the “killing” of Snow White, I feel as if the Grimm Brother’s spent too much time speaking on the two ways Snow White could die instead of focusing on how she woke from her sleep or “death.” The apple is necessary when it comes to the deception of the Queen and the “death” of Snow White. However, the comb incident was unnecessary and the lack of the explanation with her awakening needed to be examined more before producing the work. Together, all of these hidden innuendos and different details throughout Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs cumulate into a darker tale rather than the playful tale we see with the Disney version.