“Snow White” has variations ranging from family-oriented (Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) to macabre, Giambattista Basile’s “The Young Slave”. Yet every version shares the same core: origin, jealousy, expulsion, adoption, renewed jealousy, death, exhibition, resuscitation, and resolution.
The overtly common theme is the conflict between (step)mother/daughter. Some have described it as a feminine Oedipus complex. The evil stepmother cannot bear the thought that Snow White is more beautiful than she. Most versions banned Snow White to the forest, yet in “The Young Slave” the Baroness dressed her niece in rags, cut off her hair, and beat her daily. This version also varied in that the niece was not the product of a loving mother and father, but a fatherless child borne from a rose leaf that the mother ingested. The niece’s morbid threats of suicide made her unpleasing to me, and it wasn’t some handsome prince that releases her from slavery. Her uncle overhears her telling the story of life to a doll, and insists that she repeat it. The prince is nonexistent, and a handsome husband is mentioned only once at the end of the story.
The Brothers Grimm version, entitled “Snow White” is where the famous phrase is first used:
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who’s the fairest one of all?”
The evil Queen, who was Snow White’s stepmother, envied Snow White’s beauty so much that one day she ordered a huntsman to take Snow White out into the woods, kill her, and bring back her lungs and liver. The huntsman had pity, let Snow White live, and brought back the lungs and liver from a boar. This rendition is the first to mention the seven dwarfs and their affection for Snow White. In the end, the Queen dies at Snow White’s wedding by being forced to wear red hot iron shoes and dancing. Anne Sexton’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” mirrors the Brothers Grimm story in content, yet Sexton chose to retell the story in poetic form.
“Lasair Gheug, the King of Ireland’s Daughter” is the Scottish Gaelic version, placing manipulation and murder in the hands of the stepmother. Eventually, she feigns illness and tells the King (her husband) that the only way she will recover is if he brings her the heart and liver of his daughter. The King acts as if he is going to follow through, yet hides his daughter and gave his wife the heart and liver of a pig. The King sends his daughter off into the forest, where she meets and marries a Prince. Her stepmother discovers that Snow White is still alive and places a curse on her, thinking that she is dead. Snow white is enshrined in an iron casket, and her widower remarried. The new wife breaks the curse and Snow White comes back to life. Snow White’s father discovers the truth and the evil stepmother is burned to death. Snow White’s father takes the Prince’s second wife as his own. This is by far the most complicated version, and the idea that this was told in 1891 is incredulous.
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