I have not read or seen Snow White in a very long time. When I first saw it I was little and never thought anything was wrong about how the story revolves so much around beauty. As I read it now, it shocks me how this story shows the importance of beauty in regards to your self-worth. I know times have changed a ton since when this story came out but the underlying message is still something that girls and women around the world face every day. This message (or pressure) tells girls to value themselves based on their appearance and how beautiful other people (the looking-glass) say they are.
This is a line from the story that takes place right when the huntsman (hired by the Queen to kill Snow White) changes his mind and doesn't kill her: "And as she was so beautiful the huntsman had pity on her".This line is so shocking because the huntsman only lets her live because of her beauty.
I don't really understand why the Queen wants to eat Snow White's heart. This part is especially disturbing as her jealously and need for beauty causes her to want the heart of a little girl. The notes at the end say that the Queen wanted to eat the heart to obtain some of Snow White's beauty.
It is very interesting how the annotations talk about why the coffin is clean. It says that the coffin is glass so that Snow White can continue to be "an object of male desire". I had never thought about why the coffin must be clear, but it makes sense that it would be so that people (men) could continue to look at her beauty even after her heart had stopped beating. This is a kind of creepy underlying thought as men are constantly staring at women in society. Even after Snow White is dead her beauty is continued to be shown off for the men's pleasure. It shows how men care about beauty and in this case, they don't care/are not sad at all that she is dead because beauty is most important in the story.
The Queen is killed in a particularly gruesome way. I knew that this version of the story was much darker than Disney's, but the overall plot line is the same. I think I was just surprised by how I never saw how aggressively the "ideal woman" is depicted. The story is very dark and shows Snow White as incapable to take care of herself as she either needs the dwarfs or the prince to keep her safe. Her job is to clean and cook for the dwarfs and stay in the house all day. Little girls, without knowing it are being shown what women (in society's mind) should be doing: cooking and cleaning and waiting for their prince to take care of them.
I also think it is very interesting how beauty is perceived in this story: light skin and dark hair. This is the epitome of beauty in the story and it is interesting today so many people today are constantly getting spray tans to make themselves darker and are getting highlights to lighten their hair. Beauty is very subjective but the Queen, as well as the looking-glass mirror, only show an objective view to what beauty looks like and who is considered beautiful.
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