Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs

Few people can grow up within today's society without knowing the tale of Snow White. From the Grimm Brothers to Disney, it has been told and retold to children throughout the ages. However, what is often overlooked are the true meanings within the story. Fairytales typically have underlying messages that can be found written between the lines, generally in terms of the key themes. Snow White discusses the themes of envy and beauty, and shows how humans' obsessions can lead to their own downfall as well as the harm of others. When focusing on the relationship between Snow White and her step-mother the Queen, it is evident that the combination of these two themes results in a power struggle in which beauty

The old version of Snow White contains dark and violent stories and harsh elements that were not proper for kids. However, the Snow White that is familiar today is very friendly and well adapted for children. The original story of Snow White is written by the Grimm Brothers in the 19th century at German. In several of the Grimms’ stories, it contains various odd scenes and violent parts. According to the Disney version of Snow White the queen tells the huntsmen to bring the heart of Snow in order to check whether she is dead or not. However, in the Grimm version of Snow White, the queen, which is the witch, sells a corset to Snow and makes her try on the corset and squeeze her by tightening it. Also, in the original version, it is not the prince’s

A fairytale that almost everyone knows is Cinderella. Cinderella is about a young girl whose father decides to remarry after her mother dies. The women who he remarries is evil with two evil daughters. As Cinderella's father is out of town for various things the evil step-mom makes Cinderella do all the chores. They treat her like a servant rather than someone apart of the family. Since Cinderella has no friends she becomes friends with animals who help her complete her daily chores. One day they receive an invitation to a ball. Cinderella is allowed to go if she completes a set of chores but Cinderella ends up staying home while her stepmother and stepsisters go to the ball. Cinderella's fairy godmother shows up and makes her beautiful (changes her dress, etc) but says she has to be home at midnight because her beautiful dress will disappear and she'll go back to her old self. She goes to the ball and the prince falls in love with her but she has to leave at the strike of midnight. As she is running out of the ball she loses one of her glass slippers. The prince searches town for Cinderella. He then finally finds her and they live happily ever after.

To start my criticism, I am going to start at the fact that the whole fairy tale is based on beauty, starting from Snow White’s original mother wishing her child to have very specific things, and in doing so generalizing the word beauty. They portrayed the character of Snow White to be extremely naïve and stupid. She got tricked by her step-mother three times, while wearing three different old woman disguises. After Snow White woke up from the coffin, the prince fell in love with Snow White and immediately demanded that she marry him, portraying that woman are obedient to men. Snow White instantly agrees to the prince, portraying to the young, impressionable audience that a woman’s goal in life is to get married and be a housewife. Snow White is portrayed as very naïve, and that she cannot comprehend many matters other than cooking and cleaning. She got tricked by her step-mother three times, each

One of the common archetypes found in Snow White, is the evil stepmother/witch. This role fits the character Zeena. In the original version of Snow White and the novel, Ethan Frome, both Zeena and the Wicked Queen both fulfill the role of “an older

“Magic Mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?” the Evil Queen inquiries (1). In the novella Ethan Frome, Mattie Silver (Snow White) surpasses the beauty of every living organism in Starkfield. Zenobia Frome correlates herself with the Evil Queen. Furthermore, Zeena, a hypochondriac in the eyes of Ethan Frome, is used as a foil for Mattie Silver. In the dark and gloomy tale of Ethan Frome, the story emerges as an inverted fairytale. The “fairy maiden” anthropomorphizes into a greater evil than the Evil Queen, herself. Snow White was known for her pale skin, red lips, and her beautiful voice. Alike Snow White, Edith Wharton sedulously attaches red and light with Mattie Silver, symbolizing her with a red scarf. Ethan Frome and Zeena are associated with dark and grim colors blending in with their haggard surroundings. Ethan is in awe when he sees Mattie, his silver lining. Zeena envies Mattie indirectly in the story and goes out of her way to make her seem like a horrendous person. Moreover, Zeena emerges as the powerful Evil Queen in Ethan Frome that successfully wins. Thus, in Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton taints the classic fairytale to become a disastrous tragedy of two lovers.

In fairy tales the hero is often the male. Women often succumb to their naivety and are left to rely on men to be rescued. Furthermore, domestic duties are present in many tales. For instance, in Cinderella, although she is incredibly brilliant and beautiful, she is reduced to a house servant for her evil

The fairy tale Snow White is a story about two women. One, the evil stepmother, schemes

The queen had a magical mirror that always told her she was the fairest of the land until her stepdaughter turned seven. This made the queen envy Snow White, as she was just above her in the noble classes, and therefore refused to be below her in any shape or form. Furthermore, colonialist work is noticed when Snow White lived with the seven dwarfs and was continually visited by her evil stepmother. The dwarfs lived alone in the words clearly separated form society, and as an act of western domination, the queen often trespassed on their land in attempt to kill Snow White. In addition, problematic post-colonial identity is presented in the queens disguise as it pulled on Snow Whites heart strings forcing her to open the door, putting herself in harms way. This shows social classes and ones appearance is strongly regarded when one decides if someone nearby is of aid or misfortune.

Whether Female antagonists within fairy tales are portrayed in a positive or negative light their roles within the stories are very important if not crucial to the development of the protagonists. Karen Rowe in “Feminist and fairy tales” explains the divide between different female antagonists. Female antagonist come in all forms, Faeries, ogresses, evil queens, and evil witches step mothers and or step sisters. For the most part these characters are often divided between good and evil, or light and dark, but what is often realized, is that there isn’t much of a combination between the two groups in which an antagonist falls in between both categories. In this essay I will lay out the thematic roles of these different types of female antagonist’s portrayed within fairy tales.

Snow White was kind to the Wicked Queen. She did not wish any evil on her even after she sent her in the woods to die. Snow White only wished for the love of her step mother.

In fairy tales, female characters are objects, and their value centers around their attractiveness to men. Since fairy tales rely on cultural values and societal norms to teach morals or lessons, it is evident that fairy tales define a woman’s value in a superficial way. Fairy tales teach that, typically, beauty equates to being valuable to men because of their fertility and purity; whereas, ugliness equates to being worthless and evil, including being ruined because of their lack of virginity. Descriptions readers see from fairy tales like “Rapunzel,” and “Little Snow-White” revolve around the women’s, or girl’s, physical appearance, and both stories play out to where the women remain in a state of objectification. In addition, they are damsels

The older mentality for the female was that their purity on the inside reflected their countenance on the outside. Thus, Snow White, being the fairest, was also the purest of them all. The plot relies heavily on the queen trying to remove Snow White. Yet, even though this is important to the queen, to the readers there is still the question of why. Why was it so important for the queen to be the fairest of them all when she had the highest status for a woman? The Grimm Brothers claim it was her envious heart at work, that her vanity filled every want and whim she had. They Portray her as Aphrodite, beautiful and fair for sure, but ready to destroy any girl who might take her place.

Despite gender, living conditions or cultural backgrounds most people grow up reading or hearing stories of heroism and damsel in distress scenarios. Anne Sexton turns stereotypes on their head in her satirical poems of classic fairy tales, including Snow White and The Seven Dwarves and Cinderella. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves tells the tale of a young princess with hair as black as coal and skin as pale as snow, whose life is thrown into turmoil at the hands of her overbearing stepmother. Cinderella tells the story of a young girl who she spends her life is yearning for the prince’s ball, and similar to Snow White, Cinderella’s stepmother is influencing her life, however she is a positive character throughout the story. This sheds light on the stepmother in Snow White’s piece as despite the fact that Snow White’s stepmother clearly does inherently evil things, a re-reading demands a re-examination of why. It is throughout these tales’ where stepmothers are only trying to protect their children from the world around them, however in Snow White an outside motive, the beauty provided by the mirror and the pride manifested by poison, creates a barrier between the queen and her stepdaughter, thus giving her the title “Evil”.

Throughout the animation history, people have been constantly striving to achieve perfect realism. Walt Disney’s Snow white and the seven dwarfs (1937) is one of the earliest attempts in capturing realism and achieving the ‘life like’, introducing new techniques such as roto-scoping in characters and multiplane cameras to create 3 dimensional depth. Therefore there are many flaws regarding techniques, style and narrative despite how much effort and care was put into its making. The scenes when snow white meets the dwarfs, sings into the well, and when the Queen transforms into the evil witch; clearly demonstrates how realism is achieved and why impact the issue of realism. With reference to Paul Wells’ conceptions of ‘hyper-realism’ and ‘orthodox animation’, the issues of realism within the film will be discussed in the latter.