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Snow White

Journey to Womanhood. Snow White. Fairy tales are a medium often used to teach or enlighten children of the process of growing up, such as “how to become domesticated, respectable, and attractive to a marriage partner” (Baker-Sperry and Grauerholz 714).

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Snow White

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  1. Journey to Womanhood SnowWhite

  2. Fairy tales are a medium often used to teach or enlighten children of the process of growing up, such as “how to become domesticated, respectable, and attractive to a marriage partner” (Baker-Sperry and Grauerholz 714).

  3. In the story of “Snow White”, the reader is taken on a young girl’s journey to marriage, which symbolizes the development of “sexual roles, behavior, and psychology” of women (Lieberman 384).

  4. The Process of Physical Maturation The story begins with a queen sewing at a window wishing she had a child who was “as white as snow and as red as blood and as black as the wood of [her] window frame,” and “a little while later she gave birth to a daughter” (Grimm 147).

  5. The Process of Physical Maturation:The Significance of the Colors The colors black, white, and red depict the cycle or process of reaching maturation, “or a transformation…that involves a movement through death, purification, and rebirth” (Girardot 290).

  6. The Process of Physical Maturation:The Color Black Death occurs within the first paragraph of the tale. This is necessary because it shows an aspect of womanhood that the character Snow White is unable to complete – giving birth, for Snow White only reaches the age of marriage. Therefore, “the birth of the child requires the death of the mother as the completion of the old, and the start of the new, life cycle” (Girardot 286).

  7. The Process of Physical Maturation:The Color White From the beginning of the story until she reaches the age of seven, Snow White is pure and innocent, which is represented by the color white. At this point of her life “she is a ‘blank page’ upon which her author can write” (Bacchilega 4).

  8. The Process of Physical Maturation:The Color Red Red is probably the most important of all the three colors, for it is the color that represents menstrual blood or sexual maturity; the color is constantly turned to “as the transforming and regenerative agent” (Girardot 283).

  9. The Process of Physical Maturation: The Color Red • For example: • Before Snow White is born, her mother pricks her finger and three drops of blood stain the snow on the window sill. “This is the first reference to the significance of menstrual blood,” and transports the Queen to the next stage in life – motherhood (Girardot 285).

  10. The Process of Physical Maturation:The Color Red • As well as: • The red cheek of the apple, which Snow White eats and is poisoned by, represents the completion of Snow White’s journey to womanhood. At this point she is sexually mature and while under the effects of the poisoned apple, her prince finds her and carries her to the next phase in life – marriage.

  11. The Process of Social Maturation: Up until the age of seven Snow White is still a child, but once she reaches the age of physical beauty, “she must give up her comfortable innocence” (Girardot 288).

  12. The Process of Social Maturation: In tribal lore young women often left home in order to learn the ways of domesticity; this is marked in the story by Snow White retreating to the home of the dwarves (Girardot 282).

  13. The Process of Social Maturation:Life with the Dwarves When Snow White first wanders upon the dwarves home she sees that “inside the house everything was tiny, but wonderfully neat and clean,” making them good examples of housekeepers from Snow White to learn (Grimm 149).

  14. The Process of Social Maturation:Life with the Dwarves The Dwarves explain to Snow White that she can stay “if [she] will keep house for [them], and do the cooking and make the beds and wash and sew and knit, and keep everything neat and clean” (Grimm 149). By requesting these things out of Snow White the dwarves are expressing the need for her to learn the tasks of womanhood.

  15. The Process of Social Maturation:Life with the Dwarves Snow White gains insight about how to be weary of strangers from the Dwarves. They warn her, “Watch out for your stepmother. She’ll soon find out you’re here. Don’t let anyone in” (Grimm 150). This is a lesson that every child should be taught before they reach adulthood.

  16. The Process of Social Maturation:Example Provided by the Mother In the beginning of the story Snow White’s mother is sewing, “practicing one of the traditional female arts” (Girardot 285). Here the reader sees the expectations of the society of which she lives.

  17. The Process of Social Maturation:Example Provided by the Mother The Queen ‘s wish to have a baby is also an instance of her “mimetically reproducing one of [the king’s] ideas of what woman ‘is,’” meaning that she is living up to the social expectations of her womanhood (Bacchilega 4).

  18. The Process of Psychological Maturation Fairy tales reflect the conflicts and concerns of society, which suggests that “the fairy tale draws on a communality of human experience” (Barzilia 516).

  19. The Process of Psychological Maturation:The Freudian theory As a girl becomes a woman she is confronted by many self image issues; “beauty, or the pursuit of beauty, occupies the central role in many women’s lives” (Baker-Sperry and Grauerholz 712).

  20. The Process of Psychological Maturation: The Freudian theory “Snow White” is a tale that revolves around the competition between a stepmother and stepdaughter being named the “fairest of the land.” It is thought that “the woman endowed with the greater portion of beauty has a better chance of seducing the king,” creating an oedipal conflict in the story (Barzilai 518).

  21. The Process of Psychological Maturation: The Freudian theory According to Sigmund Freud, physical beauty, which creates a woman’s sense of “femininity,” is something that is only valued by women because women have penis envy. “They are bound to value their charms more highly as a late compensation for their original sexual inferiority” (Barzilai 518).

  22. The Process of Psychological Maturation: The Freudian theory After the queen orders the huntsman to kill Snow White, she proceeds to eat what she assumes is the little girl’s organs. According to the Freudian theory, this is the queen’s way of trying “to incorporate Snow White’s attractiveness, as symbolized by her internal organs.”

  23. The Process of Psychological Maturation: The Freudian theory Ultimately, by using the Freudian theory to analyze the psychological maturation in women, the reader learns that the primary focus in a woman’s life is whether she looks good or not. Both female characters realize the importance of physical beauty, and the reader can see how physical beauty remains the driving force throughout the characters’ lives.

  24. The Process of Psychological Maturation:The Feminist theory In fairy tales female characters are depicted as two archetypes: the angel and the monster. “Snow White epitomizes an image of femininity” through her passivity and nurturing . The queen, Snow White’s opposite, is characterized as rebellious, a trait not valued in women of patriarchal societies (Barzilia 519).

  25. The Process of Psychological Maturation:The Feminist theory In accordance to a feminist reading of “Snow White,” Snow White and the queen are two parts of the same personality. The story revolves around the psychological battle of a woman trying to decide what characteristics she should exhibit in her adult life: “passivity and tractability as opposed to inventive and subversive activism” (Barzilia 520).

  26. The Process of Psychological Maturation:The Feminist theory – The Angel “Snow White” was written in order to teach young girls how to act in a patriarchal society, and men valued women who demonstrated domesticity and passivity. Snow White’s character is thought to be “the angel” or the desired type of female, because she exhibits the desired traits of a woman.

  27. The Process of Psychological Maturation:The Feminist theory – The Monster The queen, on the other hand, is not thought to be the ideal woman. She is given negative characteristics, such as pride, bossiness, and envy. After the mirror pronounces Snow White as “fairest in the land,” “every time [the queen] laid eyes on Snow White…she hated her…” (Grimm 148). Such negative characteristics are never associated with Snow White, and the queen us “most often deemed as ‘wicked’” (Brazilia 523).

  28. The Process of Psychological Maturation:The Feminist theory Therefore, the feminist lesson of the tale of “Snow White” is the psychological battle of a woman deciding whether she wants to be good woman or a bad woman. It is the “ achievement of psychic integration, of balanced selfhood within the patriarchy” ( Brazilia 521).

  29. The Process of Psychological Maturation:The difference between mothers “Snow White” also creates two different views of mothers. The first queen, Snow White’s biological mother, wishes for Snow White. She wants to be a mother, which is a trait of a good woman. The second queen, Snow White’s stepmother, resents the child once Snow White is deemed more beautiful, which is a trait of a bad woman.

  30. The Process of Psychological Maturation:The difference between mothers The two queens symbolize a change in personality that is brought on by an older woman losing her beauty and brought on by the “alterations that occur within a woman as a result of her own experiences in the maternal role” (Brazilia 526).

  31. The Journey to Womanhood “Snow White” is a tale that has been told to children for centuries and is sure to remain a favorite amongst its audiences. It is the story of a young woman finding herself in the world, and it conveys to its readers the difficulty a girl undergoes while she is becoming a woman, for it has been thought that it is“more of a challenge to grow up female than it is to grow up male” (Hallett 140).

  32. Works Cited Bacchilega, Christina. "Cracking the Mirror Three Re-Visions of "Snow White"" Boundary 2 15.3 (1988): 1-25. JSTOR. Web. 10 Feb. 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/303243>. Baker-Sperry, Lori, and Liz Grauerholz. "The Pervasiveness and Persistence of the Feminine Beauty Ideal in Children's Fairy Tales." 26 Gender and Society 17.5 (2003): 711-26. JSTOR. Web. 10 Feb. 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3594706 >. Barzilai, Shuli. "Reading "Snow White": The Mother's Story." Signs 15.3 (1990): 515-34. JSTOR. Web. 10 Feb. 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3174426>.

  33. Works Cited Lieberman, Marcia R. "Some Day My Prince Will Come": Female Acculturation through the Fairy Tale." College English 34.3 (1972): 383-95. JSTOR. Web. 10 Feb. 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/375142>. Girardot, N.J. "Initiation and Meaning in the Tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." The Journal of American Folklore 90.357 (1977): 274-300. JSTOR. Web. 10 Feb. 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/539520>. Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. “Snow White.” Folk and Fairy Tales. 4th. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2008. Print. 147-53. Hallet, Martin, and Barbara Karasek. Folk and Fairy Tales. 4th. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2008. 139-53. Print.

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