Snow White Again

Please don't murder me because I'm pretty.

Hello, reader. For those of you keeping score at home, I covered Snow White back in June of 2016, but there's a lot more to talk about with this story, so I decided to do that again this week. The Grimm Brother version of Snow White might be more brutal than you remember, so go ahead and give it a look. Then, read below as I examine the story.

First, I want to take a look at the mirror in this story. How was it judging who was most beautiful in the land? I don't think the mirror was an objective judge in this case, since it seemed to be enslaved to the queen. Even if the mirror was objective, what standard of beauty would put a seven year old child as more beautiful than an adult woman? I know that children can be pretty, or even beautiful, but I don't understand why would one compare children and adults in the same category. I'm beginning to wonder if the mirror had ulterior motives with its judgement of this beauty contest.

While the mirror might be trying to use the queen, she seems to be a very crafty lady. Once she finds out that Snow White is still alive, she uses not one, but three plans to try to kill the girl after her initial plan failed. It is interesting to me that the queen never argues that she might be prettier than Snow White. The first two times the queen tries to kill her stepdaughter, the queen says something about how Snow White was pretty. Beauty is such a subjective thing that it makes me wonder why the queen accepts the mirror's judgement without question. Then again, perhaps the queen put a spell on the mirror so that it had to tell the truth about these things. Clearly, the queen cared about being beautiful more than anything else, so it's not out of the question, although it seems a bit over the top to me.

Finally, although he has the smallest appearance in this tale, I wonder about the prince. He was coming into the forest just to spend the night at the dwarves house. If they are such good friends, how did he never meet Snow White before? Or was Snow White with the dwarves for so little time? I prefer to think the prince was neglecting his friends, because otherwise he married a child. Either way, the dwarves were fond enough of this prince to give Snow White's body to him. Once Snow White woke up and agreed to be married to him, I wonder who first broached the subject of inviting her stepmother. I also wonder which of them suggested she should be tortured and murdered at their wedding. Snow White seems too sweet and kind for this, but she could be rightfully angry with her stepmother for attempted murder. The prince is more unknown, so I think it is more likely that he suggested it. Either way, that's a conversation I would have liked to read in this story.

The moral of this story is if you're going to kill your stepdaughter, make sure you do it right, or she'll kill you. Alternatively, if you're on the run from your family, take refuge in the first house you see and everything will be fine.

Questions? Comments? Do you have an alternate moral? Let me know! Don't forget to check back next week to read my modern version of Snow White.