Preview

True Beauty of Snow White

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1541 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
True Beauty of Snow White
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a formulaic fairy tale with its typical events and characters, but consists of the hidden theme of women being inferior to men and symbols and themes expressing how outer beauty is usually chosen over inner beauty in modern time. Whether this impression of present time is considered to be true from personal opinions, society has definitely given credibility to the perceived idea. The major issue with this idea is that many young children, usually girls, watch such fairy tales such as Snow White and the true meaning is indefinitely overlooked.
In the modernized version of the fairy tale Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, it is the basic ins and outs of a typical Walt Disney fairy tale. There is a beautiful, young princess whose mother has died of whatever causes, the father marries the evil, envious step mother who works to get rid of the daughter, or in this case kill her off completely. The queen orders a servant to kill her and have her heart in hand, but the huntsman couldn’t bring himself to do so. After bringing a boar’s heart back to the queen, she soon finds out from the magical mirror that Snow White is alive and well. Snow White finds shelter in the seven dwarves’ house and they are willing to provide for the beautiful young girl. Meanwhile, the queen disguises herself as an evil witch on three occasions with the intentions on killing Snow White, being successful on the last try. Here’s when the dwarves place Snow White’s body in a glass coffin, a prince finds her, awakes her with a magical kiss, takes her away to marry her, and of course everyone lives happily ever after. As a result of the revised version of the fairy tale, Snow White’s story is known by nearly everyone. Very few actually know the original tale which is a bit more gruesome and calls for a more mature audience. In this version of the fairy tale, rivalry, intentional murder, and sexual ripening are made more effective. Instead of the evil
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Compare And Contrast The Crystal Casket And Disney Snow White
    • 241 Words
    • 1 Page

    Compare And Contrast The Crystal Casket And Disney Snow White

    When comparing the Disney Snow White and The Crystal Casket, there are many differences in the stories but they do have a couple qualities that are the same in both. In both stories the main antagonist is the stepmother, unlike in some of the other stories. Although in this story the stepmother hates her step daughter for no apparent reason except for the fact that stepmothers are supposed to hate their stepdaughters in this story. The stepmother does not treat her stepdaughter well in this story. The main point being that the daughter is sent every day to the terrace to water a pot of basil, which is very dangerous since she could fall into a large river below. When ten days has past after the daughter, Ermellina, was taken by an eagle, the…

    • 241 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Gender Roles In Lemony Snicket's A Bad Beginning
    • 476 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Gender Roles In Lemony Snicket's A Bad Beginning

    Fairy tales help to establish gender roles at a young age to characterize and represent the ideals, values, and roles that each gender should succumb to. Females are taught to be kind, sweet, week, honest, self-sacrificing, and beautiful. On the other hand, males are taught to be courageous, brave, saviors, and wise. Many of these characteristics are shown in Snow White. However, in lemony Snicket’s, A Bad Beginning, the novel challenges many of these ideas by providing the reader with alternate views to gender roles. This is shown through the main protagonist, Violet.…

    • 476 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The princess paradox critique
    • 614 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The princess paradox critique

    In the author's article he presents the idea that girls should follow a more independent manner rather than the stereotype of princess who needs saving in modern films. With evidence from movies like Ella Enchanted where the princess is escaping the binds of having to marry her prince, rather than wait to be saved by her prince it is clear the author supports more feminist themes for modern fairytales.…

    • 614 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    In Defense Of Princess Culture Analysis
    • 1046 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In Defense Of Princess Culture Analysis

    Disney movies have become the new family amusement. This films are made for young children because of what they demonstrate. When children watch Disney movies, especially young girls, it can affect their understanding on how they should act at a young age. Snow White is a tale about a young beautiful girl who lives with her stepmother, the queen. Snow White’s beauty triggers her stepmother to be jealous of her, and the queen orders for the murder of her innocent stepdaughter. Later she discovers that Snow White is still alive and hiding in a cottage with seven friendly little miners. Disguising herself as an old-women, the queen brings a poisoned apple to Snow White, who falls into a death-like sleep that can be broken only by a kiss from the prince. Today's new lifestyle is teaching young girls that their beauty is more valuable than…

    • 1046 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Mikkijoiner's Little Snow-White
    • 479 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Mikkijoiner's Little Snow-White

    In the story, this is evident when Snow-White is specially treated on multiple occasions ― for obvious reasons. The first, is when the huntsman, who is tasked with killing Snow-White , hesitates after her pleading “because she was so beautiful”. As a result, she is spared and allowed to flee. The second occurrence is when the seven dwarfs returned home only to learn that their home had been intruded upon by Snow-White. In modern times, regardless of identity, this would be condemned and considered an act of crime. However once again, instead of being reprimanded, the dwarfs exclaimed “This child is so beautiful”, disregarding her intrusion as “they did not wake her up, but let her continue to sleep there in the bed”. In all cases regardless of her character, she is spared and specially treated because beauty in this story is regarded as the most…

    • 479 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Walt Disney Gender Stereotypes
    • 77 Words
    • 1 Page

    Walt Disney Gender Stereotypes

    From dazzling dresses, to happy ever afters, the Walt Disney corporation has little girls around the wold choosing princess as their future occupation. What the fairy godmothers left to tell us, is that the gender stereotypes depicted in these motion pictures are the poison apples girls are being fed. It’s time that we gaze behind the twirling creatures and the enchanted lands, to realize that the princesses shown are not the best role models for little girls.…

    • 77 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    How To Write A Critical Book Report On Where The Girls Are Douglass
    • 1956 Words
    • 8 Pages

    How To Write A Critical Book Report On Where The Girls Are Douglass

    In Where the Girls Are Douglas takes you through the life of a typical girl growing up during a feminist revolution from childhood to adulthood. She gives an in depth look at what was going on in the world and how it affected a young girl turning into a woman. Starting in Fractured Fairytales Douglas explores how from the very start young girls are bombarded with images of how women should be and how they should not. Little girls grow up with the mentality that they must emulate the perfect women in fairy tales and grow up to be the fairest of them all. “We learned, though these fairy tales, and certainly later through advertising, that we had to scrutinize ourselves all the time, identify our imperfections, and learn to eliminate or disguise them, otherwise no one would ever love us”(Douglas 31). Disney had created a standard for girls and women that was nearly impossible to achieve. Looking, acting, dressing and appearing perfect all while being selfless and suffering in silence was what was expected of women and young girls. If young girls chose not to live up to the ‘Cinderella standard’ they were left with only one alternative role to fill, “… older, vindictive, murderous stepmothers or queens wearing too much eyeliner and eye shadow”(Douglas 29). They were women in power and Disney…

    • 1956 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Pregnancy In Snow White
    • 1858 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Pregnancy In Snow White

    Snow White’s father knew that she would be very beautiful, and he knew that people might try to take advantage of her. So he taught her math, science, reading, cunning, and bravery. In short, Snow White was beautiful and brilliant. She knew her stepmothers evil plan from the start. She caught glimpses other stepmother’s jealous face staring at her as Snow White brushed her strong, black hair. She heard her stepmother arguing with her odd talking mirror every morning. Snow White expected this. As she sat in her potato sack, she thought of how to get out. When the huntsman released her, she was ready to appeal to the man. As he raised his hatchet, Snow White feigned tears and cried, “No please. Dear huntsman, I know that my stepmother chose you because you are so strong and noble, but please spare me. My mother was the most beautiful woman in the kingdom, and died sadly giving birth to me. She passed her curse of beauty to me. My stepmother fell victim to the curse of jealousy. Please don’t kill me.” Taking a look at the girl’s wondrous face and taking her pleas to heart, the huntsman let her…

    • 1858 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Perrault Cinderella
    • 1294 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Perrault Cinderella

    Folklore, modern media, and historical events within the western world have shown us time and time again that women are meant to be the fairer and weaker of the two sexes; while reiterating the idea that men are strong, valiant, and ultimately the saviors of all women. This notion has been used to fortify the difference between the two genders, asserting the claim that women cannot save themselves or each other, and can only find their “happily ever after” with the help of a man. Perrault’s “Cinderella: or The Glass Slipper,” is the story of a mistreated, but kindhearted, girl who eventually marries a prince and goes on to live happily ever after. Within Perrault’s “Cinderella,” women are illustrated as powerful, and are the sole characters that drive the plot. While the male characters within the story remain flat and generally unimportant, therefore challenging the gender dichotomy that has depicted women as demure, and men as being critical in the lives of women.…

    • 1294 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Snow White Analysis
    • 1103 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Snow White Analysis

    The Queen was jealous of Snow White due to the fact that Snow White was fairer than she was. This exemplifies how women may constantly plot up against one another to claim the trait they feel rightly belongs to them. The Queen does everything in her power to kill Snow White so that she may become the fairest in the land. When she finds out that her hired huntsman did not complete the task of stabbing Snow White’s heart, she takes measures into her own hands First, she disguises herself as an old woman selling pottery and bodices. Snow White let's her in, only to have the Queen lace her bodice too tight to the point of suffocating her. The dwarves come home to see that she is unconscious and unlaces her and Snow White awakens and breathes regularly. Meanwhile, inside the palace the Queen looks at the mirror and asks the question as she did numerous times, “Mirror Mirror who is the fairest of them all?” The mirror answers truthfully and still answers Snow White, beyond the mountains with the seven dwarves is still a thousand times fairer than you.” This angers the queen immensely, thus for the second time she goes to the dwarves cottage in an attempt to kill Snow White. At this point, with the assistance of witchcraft the queen creates a poisoned comb and then disguises herself as a different elder woman and walks…

    • 1103 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Amelia Earhart Gender
    • 1547 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Amelia Earhart Gender

    In Gilbert and Gubar’s The Queen’s Looking Glass, the pair use classic fairytale stories to convey the extent to which women are hindered by the male sex. G&G discuss different aspects of the story Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and how it conveys either “submissive femininity” (40) or monstrous rage. The two argue that the seven dwarves themselves are actually Snow White’s “dwarfed powers” (40), and that they also educate Snow White in lessons of “service, selflessness, [and] domesticity” (41). Although Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is only a fairytale, the concept G&G establish conveys the “realm of domesticity” (40) which society deems is best suited for the female. The education that G&G discuss illustrates the concept of “women’s work”(41), or what jobs are best fit for the female sex to perform, the jobs which have been gendered over time through stereotyping. Joan Acker elaborates on this in Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations, by stating that gendering occurs in “divisions of labor, [and] allowed behaviors” (146). A study conducted by Annette Jinks and Eleanor Bradley “assessed the attitudes of 100 newly recruited student nurses to gender and nursing stereotypes” (122), which revealed that when nursing is observed as a profession, “70% of the student nurses… agreed that nursing was female dominated” (123). The nursing field has become saturated by females because of the stereotype that “female nurses are seen as handmaidens to doctors” (123). A handmaiden, or “female servant,” is meant to be submissive to the master (Merriam-Webster). This connotation of the word enhance the idea that nursing is feminine because the nurse is under the order of the doctor. This type of submissive service leads the female to become, what G&G would describe as, a “housekeeping angel” (41), or someone only…

    • 1547 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Gender Roles In Walt Disney's Fairytales
    • 194 Words
    • 1 Page

    Gender Roles In Walt Disney's Fairytales

    The authors, researchers at the american folklore society, use data from the immense archives of Disney's vast fairytale publications to evaluate gender characteristics that have formed within the creation of these publications. The chapter within the journal explains the creation method of the folklore and how the gender roles were created due to the time period and the infrastructure that the writing took place under. The gender roles, especially those pertaining to the stereotypical monolithic role that has been very present within these fables and how they have been passed through the time and youth. They have found that gender stereotypes, especially concerning women have been wrongfully represented within many of walt Disney's fairytales. The heroines that are evaluated by the american folklore society see that within Walt Disney's Fairytales these women have to be perfect and have no defects. They found this data through comparing and contrasting different fairytales and what exact time-period the stories were written in.…

    • 194 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    The Brothers Grimm Version Of Walt Disney's Snow White
    • 1411 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The Brothers Grimm Version Of Walt Disney's Snow White

    The Brothers Grimm version is a crude and barbaric telling of the story of Snow White. Their version of Snow White has the evil stepmother who makes not one but three attempts to kill Snow White. Once all attempts eventually fail the evil stepmother goes to the wedding “were they put a pair of iron shoes into the fire until they glowed, and she had to put them on and dance in them. Her feet were terribly burned, and she could not stop until she had danced herself to death” (National Geographic’s 04 March 2011). This Brothers Grimm version was not a child’s fairy tale. It was meant for a mature audience, and therefore one could take the liberty to tell a dreadful…

    • 1411 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Snow White Stereotypes
    • 168 Words
    • 1 Page

    Snow White Stereotypes

    In Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Snow White is portrayed as an immature, naive princess who depends on her seven male friends and a prince for her survival. What could have easily been the story of a young girl’s journey to personal discovery turns into the portrayal of women’s domesticity: Snow White is seen cleaning the home of the seven dwarves, accepts a gift from a stranger and is criticized for taking it without the permission of her male friends, and of course, to top it all, requires true love’s kiss from her Prince Charming in order to stay alive.…

    • 168 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Jealousy Snow White
    • 734 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Jealousy Snow White

    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 between the lines, generally in terms of the key themes. Snow-White discusses the theme of jealousy, and shows how humans' obsessions of material can lead to their own downfall as well as the harm of others. When focusing on the relationship between Snow-White and her stepmother the Queen, it is evident that the jealousy inside the story results in a power struggle in which beauty and pride are seen as the basis for the stepmother’s envy towards Snow-White. “This gave the queen a great shock, and she became yellow and green with envy, from that hour her heart turned against Snow-White, and she hated her.”…

    • 734 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics