“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?”
With lips as red as blood, skin as white as snow, and hair as black as wood, Snow White holds the title of the fairest one in the land. Snow White, who is innocent and beautiful, gets to live happily ever after while her Step Mother is killed off because of her wickedness. But is the wicked step mother really a villain? As Snow White is praised, the Stepmother is diminished. Snow White represents the perfect societal woman at the time: beautiful, submissive, and pure. The Stepmother on the other hand, is a rebel to these societal expectations of women; she is authoritarian, powerful, and independent-characteristics a patriarchal culture would neglect, and therefore consider wicked. However, even the wicked queen and all her power fall under societal pressures, as her desire to be the “fairest of them all” lead her to her downfall.
In Brothers Grimm version of “Snow White,” Snow White’s stepmother is described as proud and arrogant. She wants to have all the beauty and power in the land. Her desire to get rid of Snow White derives from the magic mirror’s insistence of her not being the “fairest one of all” (Grimm, 83). Beauty was considered a women’s best virtue, so significant that it …show more content…
She represents “the Angel in the house” (Gubar, Gilbert, 294). Snow White becomes symbolic for what a patriarchy expects from females, “childlike, docile submissive, the heroin of a life that has no story” (Gilbert, Gubar, 293). On the other hand, the wicked Queen represents the “monster woman,” she is illustrated as a “plotter, schemer, a witch, an artist, an impersonator, a woman of almost infinite creative energy, witty, wily, and self-absorbed” (Gilbert, Gubar, 293). The queen is a threat to societal roles; she threatens the patriarchy, which is also why the voice in the mirror would neglect her from being the “fairest of them
With lips as red as blood, skin as white as snow, and hair as black as wood, Snow White holds the title of the fairest one in the land. Snow White, who is innocent and beautiful, gets to live happily ever after while her Step Mother is killed off because of her wickedness. But is the wicked step mother really a villain? As Snow White is praised, the Stepmother is diminished. Snow White represents the perfect societal woman at the time: beautiful, submissive, and pure. The Stepmother on the other hand, is a rebel to these societal expectations of women; she is authoritarian, powerful, and independent-characteristics a patriarchal culture would neglect, and therefore consider wicked. However, even the wicked queen and all her power fall under societal pressures, as her desire to be the “fairest of them all” lead her to her downfall.
In Brothers Grimm version of “Snow White,” Snow White’s stepmother is described as proud and arrogant. She wants to have all the beauty and power in the land. Her desire to get rid of Snow White derives from the magic mirror’s insistence of her not being the “fairest one of all” (Grimm, 83). Beauty was considered a women’s best virtue, so significant that it …show more content…
She represents “the Angel in the house” (Gubar, Gilbert, 294). Snow White becomes symbolic for what a patriarchy expects from females, “childlike, docile submissive, the heroin of a life that has no story” (Gilbert, Gubar, 293). On the other hand, the wicked Queen represents the “monster woman,” she is illustrated as a “plotter, schemer, a witch, an artist, an impersonator, a woman of almost infinite creative energy, witty, wily, and self-absorbed” (Gilbert, Gubar, 293). The queen is a threat to societal roles; she threatens the patriarchy, which is also why the voice in the mirror would neglect her from being the “fairest of them