Snow White

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Snow White (or Snow-White, and in German, Schneewittchen) is the title character of a well known fairy tale known from many places in Europe, the most known version being the one collected by the Brothers Grimm. The German version features elements such as the mirror and the seven dwarfs. In non-German versions the dwarfs are generally robbers, while the talking mirror is a dialog with the sun or moon. In a version from Albania, collected by Johann Georg von Hahn and published in Griechische und albanesische Märchen. Gesammelt, übersetzt und erläutert (1864), the main character lives with 40 dragons. The sleep is caused by a ring. The start of the story also has an interesting twist in that a teacher urges the heroine to kill her own mother so that the teacher can take her place. The origin of the tale is debated; it is likely no older than the Middle Ages. Many scholars think it originated somewhere in Asia.

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Story

Once upon a time, a queen was doing needle work while staring outside her window at the beautiful snow. It was because of her distracted state that she pricked her finger on her needle and a drop of blood fell on some snow that had fallen on her windowstill. As she looked at the blood on the snow she said to herself, "Oh how I wish that I had a daughter that had skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as ebony". Soon after that, the queen gave birth to a baby girl who had skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as ebony. They named her Princess Snow White, but sadly, the queen died after giving birth to Snow White. Later, the king takes a new wife who is beautiful but very proud, and possesses evil powers. She also possesses a magic mirror, to whom she would often ask "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?", and to which the mirror would always reply, "You are". But soon after Snow White becomes seven (which is the official age that a girl becomes a maiden) when she asks her mirror, it responds, "Queen, you're the fairest where you are, but Snow White is more beautiful by far".

The Queen is jealous, and orders a huntsman to take Snow White into the woods to be killed. She demands that the huntsman return with Snow White's lungs and liver as proof. The huntsman takes Snow White into the forest, but finds himself unable to kill the girl. Instead, he lets her go, and brings the queen the lungs and liver of a wild boar. (In the Disney movie, these are replaced by a heart.)

Snow White discovers a tiny cottage in the forest, belonging to seven dwarfs, where she rests. Meanwhile, the Queen asks her mirror once again, "Who's the fairest of them all?", and is horrified when the mirror tells her that Snow White, who is alive and well and living with the dwarfs, is still the fairest of them all.

Three times the Queen disguises herself and visits the dwarves' cottage where Snow White is staying to try to kill her. First, disguised as a peddler, the Queen offers colorful stay-laces and laces Snow White up so tight she faints and the Queen takes her for dead. Snow White is revived by the dwarves when they loosen the laces. Next the Queen dressed as a different old woman combs her hair with a poisoned comb. Snow White again collapses, and again the dwarves save her. Lastly the Queen makes a poison apple, and in the guise of a country woman offers it to Snow White. She is hesitant, so the Queen cuts the apple in half, eats the white part — which has no poison — and gives the poisoned red part to Snow White. She eats the apple eagerly and immediately falls into a deep, magical sleep. When the dwarfs find her, they cannot revive her; and so they mourn and place her in a glass coffin, thinking that she has died. (The Disney version only adopts the poison apple plot, and the queen meets her demise as she is chased by the dwarves.)

Image:SnowWhite.png Time passes, and a prince travels through the land and sees Snow White in her coffin. The prince is enchanted by her beauty and instantly falls in love with her. He begs the dwarfs to let him have the coffin. The prince and his men carry the coffin away, but as they go they stumble, the coffin jerks and the piece of poison apple flies out of Snow White's mouth, awakening her. The prince then declares his love and soon a wedding is planned. (In the Disney version, the cure for this deep sleep was love's first kiss. The Prince takes a revived Snow White away, and the film ends.)

The vain Queen, still believing that Snow White is dead, again asks her mirror who is fairest in the land and yet again the mirror disappoints by responding that "You, my queen, are fair; it is true. But the young queen is a thousand times fairer than you".

Not knowing that this new queen is indeed her stepdaughter, she arrives at the wedding, and her heart fills with the deepest of dread when she realizes the truth.

As punishment for her wicked ways, a pair of heated iron shoes are brought forth with tongs and placed before the Queen. She is then forced to step into the red-hot shoes and dance until she falls down dead.

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Other Versions

The story in Russian writer Alexander Pushkin's 1833 poem The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights is similar to that of Snow White, with knights replacing dwarves.

A 1916 silent film with the title Snow White was made by Famous Players-Lasky Corporation and produced by Adolph Zukor and Daniel Frohman. Directed by J. Searle Dawley, it was adapted to the screen by Jessie Graham White from his play Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The film starred Marguerite Clark as Snow White, Creighton Hale as Prince Florimond and Dorothy Cumming as Queen Brangomar/Mary Jane.

Image:Stamp-ctc-snow-white-disney-movie.jpg A 1933 Betty Boop cartoon, Snow-White, was adapted from this story, as was the famous 1937 Disney animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. In the Disney version, Snow White wakes from her enchanted sleep as soon as the Prince kisses her, similar to Sleeping Beauty. That version is distinctly parodied in Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs.

Snow White is an important character in the Fables comic book. As presented there, she is an amalgam of the two characters that share this name — she is very touchy about her adventures with the dwarfs, is the first ex-wife of Prince Charming, and has a sister named Rose Red from whom she was estranged for some time. She was assistant mayor of Fabletown for many years, succeeding to the post after Ichabod Crane was fired for sexually harassing her. Because of Prince Charming replacing Old King Cole as mayor, as well as her giving birth to the (mostly) non-human-appearing children of Bigby (the Big Bad Wolf), she moved from the New York City Fabletown to the "Farm" upstate, where non-human-appearing Fables must live.

The story was very loosely adapted by Mercedes Lackey into her Elemental Masters novel The Serpent's Shadow, turning the main character into the Eurasian Doctor Maya Witherspoon, who must suffer the multiple stigmas of being a medically-qualified half-caste female (in other words, most of her problems stem from being not white) in turn-of-the-century London; the seven dwarves are transformed into animal avatars of various benign Hindu deities.

In 1961, the story was parodied in the film Snow White and the Three Stooges, starring Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Joe "Curly-Joe" DeRita. This film is widely regarded by fans of the Three Stooges as their worst feature film. In the film, the dwarfs had gone on vacation and lent Moe, Larry and Curly Joe the use of their cottage. The three are traveling entertainers, along with a young man who was born a prince, but lost his memory in an assassination attempt that was thwarted by the Stooges. The prince suffers amnesia and the Stooges "adopt" him and raise him to manhood; but he is only shown as a boy in a flashback segment. The prince ends up marrying Snow White, played by real life Olympic figure skating champion, Carol Heiss. The film is also a musical and features many ice skating scenes. There are few other things that differ from the original story, such as Count Oga (villainous henchman of the Wicked Queen), a magic sword that transports the Stooges to various places and a carriage chase scene.

There have also been a few anime adaptations of the story. Nippon Animation told the story of Snow White in three episodes of its 1987 TV series Grimm Meisaku Gekijo (released in English as Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics). In 1994, the Tatsunoko animation studio adapted the story into a 52-episode TV series, Shirayuki-hime no Densetsu ("The Legend of Princess Snow White"), aired in Japan on NHK. Tatsunoko's production incorporated several "prelude" episodes emphasizing the romance between Snow White and her prince before launching into the story proper.

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Snow White And Rose Red

There is another Brothers Grimm tale called Snow-White and Rose-Red which also includes a character called Snow White. However this Snow White is a completely separate character from the one found in this tale. For more information about the other Snow White, see the Snow-White and Rose-Red article. The original German names are different: Schneewittchen (the Princess) and Schneeweißchen (together with Rosenrot). There is actually no difference in the meaning, but the first name is more influenced by the dialects of Lower Germany while the second one is the Higher German version.

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See also

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Further reading

  • Grimm, Jacob and William, edited and translated by Stanley Appelbaum, Selected Folktales/Ausgewählte Märchen: A Dual-Language Book Dover Publications Inc. Mineola, New York. ISBN 0-486-42474-X
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External links

de:Schneewittchen fa:سفیدبرفی و هفت کوتوله fr:Blanche-Neige he:שלגיה ושבעת הגמדים is:Mjallhvít it:Biancaneve e i sette nani ja:白雪姫 nl:Sneeuwwitje sv:Snövit zh:白雪公主 (小說) pt:Branca de Neve

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