Jealousy Snow White
Jealousy in 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. ” Throughout the story of Snow-White jealousy is omnipresent. The major evidence of jealousy is the daily ritual of the queen in which she consults her magic mirror on who is the most beautiful person in the kingdom.
As she says, “Looking-glass upon the wall, who is the fairest of us all? ” she repeatedly expects to be in her favor. One day she is outraged when it appeared that Snow-White surpassed her. This information drove the queen to hate Snow-White and generates jealousy and soon she ordered her death. By looking at beauty as commodity through which power can be gained, this action can be interpreted as a mean for the queen to preserved her power through beauty. The stepmother is very narcissistic and obsessed with power, she constantly wants to be the center of all the attention.
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She is afraid that snow white will gradually take her place as the most beautiful woman in the kingdom. As a result, she fears that Snow-White could use her beauty in order to usurp power from the queen and surpasses her. After all, snow white was young and beautiful, and the queen would only deteriorate with time. In the story, the pride of the queen was to be the most beautiful of the kingdom. Indeed, “Pride pumped in her like a poison. ” Until one day, the mirror replied “queen you are full fair, its true but snow white is fairer han you. ” This statement is a turning point among the story. She becomes green with envy and obsessed by the desire of killing Snow-White. Jealousy seized the queen one more time as she could not stand not to be the best. This time, more than her rank and the fear to loose her power, she is loosing her own pride and is jealous about the fact that she is not THE most beautiful woman. She was very obsessed to be the fairest, she believed in her mirror and was enraged that, “snow-white was a thousand time fairer than the queen would never be. Her extreme jealousy towards snow-white pushed her to madness, and non-human behaviors. She eats the heart and liver of a beast believing that they are snow-white’s organs. Another interpretation we can give to the story could be what Snow-White represents to the King’s eyes. Snow-white is the daughter of the King and the former queen. This is making the queen particularly jealous in two ways. First, she is probably annoyed that she is the daughter of another queen and that herself doesn’t have any child. It is an opposition of blood between stepmother and stepdaughter.
In the other hand, the jealousy comes from that snow white will naturally generates interest to the king as she is his daughter. The queen would not want to share her husband with her stepdaughter. To sum up, jealousy of the queen in the story of snow white is absolutely outrageous. The obsession of the queen and her extreme jealousy leads her to madness and crime. She commits act of cannibalism and repeatedly attempt to kill Snow-White. Her sins took her to her own downfall as she is the one that finally dies in the story. The story teaches us a lesson, not to be vain, and be blessed with what you have instead.
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Jealousy Snow White. (2018, Feb 13). Retrieved from https://phdessay.com/jealousy-snow-white/
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