After reading “Little Snow White” by the Brothers Grimm, here are a few of the things I first noticed…
1. I saw a few similarities with the Bible, I’m not sure whether I’m being over-analytical, or whether these are actually logical.
a. The whole red and white color scheme in the story reminded me of the idea of Jesus washing away our sins and making us clean/whole again. We can see this in Isaiah 1:18, “… Says the Lord, ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’”
b. The number 7 is pretty big in the Bible as well, with God creating the Earth in 6 days and resting on the 7th, and the 14th annotation makes this mention as well.
c. The whole idea of jealousy is pretty present in many Biblical stories as well, but the same jealousy that the Queen had upon Snow White reminded me pretty starkly of the jealousy that Joseph’s brothers had upon him in Genesis 37. Israel, Joseph’s father, loved Joseph more than any of his other 11 brothers, and they were all pretty upset and jealous about this; they conspired against him and sought to kill him, but instead sold him off to a merchant. This somewhat relates to the fact that Snow White’s mother sought to kill her, but instead of the huntsman killing her, he let her go. It is also similar because both Joseph’s brothers and the Huntsman killed a wild beast and made it appear as though Joseph/Snow White had been killed by an animal to Israel/Queen.
d. When the huntsman let Snow White go, the text said “it seemed as a stone had been rolled from his heart,” which reminded me of when Jesus was buried/resurrected, they had to roll a stone away from the tomb to find that he was missing, and when Daniel was put in the den of lions, they rolled a stone to seal the den.
e. All the annotations remind me of my study Bible.
2. There are SO many things that are wrong with the story at face value…
a. Snow White is 7 and her stepmother wants to kill her. She gets married I assume also while she is 7 (annotation 9)
b. Her stepmother openly and willingly eats ‘her’ heart and believes this will grant her Snow White’s beauty (*If she believed this and it was true, why didn’t she obtain the beauty of the wild boar???) (annotation 12)
c. I appreciate the fact that the Dwarfs would not part with Snow White for any amount of gold but then just decide to give it to the prince for free?? Also, the prince was okay with just carrying around a dead body of a girl to look at???
d. If a person is not breathing for “long, long time,” shouldn’t she be dead? Also in this version, she didn’t wake up with a kiss, but because a bump in the road dislodged the apple from her throat… sometimes fairytales don’t make sense, and that makes sense because it’s a fairytale so it’s okay :)!
3. Some questions I have after reading this…
a. The text mentioned that birds came to weep for Snow White, “first an owl, then a raven, and last a dove.” I wonder if the birds have any significance, either in their appearance or the order in which they appeared?
b. I wonder whether Snow White ever got to see the Dwarves again after she got married?
c. Why exactly did the Queen need to dance with red-hot iron slippers?
d. I wonder why the Queen just had to keep asking the mirror who the fairest of them all was… isn’t that what the husband’s job is for?
i. This somewhat relates to today and how people are always seeking approval on their looks from others, especially on social media with likes and comments.
4. There are so many sexual undertones in this text, some that I didn’t expect, but it’s always that way in adult writing isn’t it. I didn’t previously know that the looking glass in this story represented a “male gaze” which objectified the female, which was interesting to look at, along with seeing the dwarfs as pre-adolescent and underdeveloped which is why they were sexually unthreatening to Snow White. It was also weird to think about how annotation 27 mentions that “a girl must be awakened to womanhood by a man,” in this case the King’s son? Anyways… a big no-no was how the Dwarfs automatically put Snow White into a “womanized” role in order to stay with them, meaning doing chores around the house. While this was not okay then, and is not okay now, overlooking this would mean we are being ignorant to the prejudices of previous times. One thing I hate to say I thought of was if the Dwarfs were sexually threatening (as opposed to unthreatening) I wonder whether they would have allowed Snow White to stay instead as a sex slave?
Anyways, I look forward to seeing the movie and how that differs from this story (I imagine the movie is much more child-friendly).
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