Stewart’s Snow White is nothing like the charmingly goofy princess of Disney’s live-action Enchanted or the spunky yet vulnerable Snow White in the ABC series Once Upon a Time. More like a serious cousin to the spirited and radiantly youthful Snow White of Singh’s campy film Mirror Mirror, she is ready for action. She becomes a “pure and innocent” warrior princess, an angelic savior who channels Joan of Arc and Tolkien’s Aragorn as well as the four Pevensie siblings from C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, to save the kingdom of her late father (stabbed to death by the queen on their wedding night). Everyone is armed, and swords, scimitars, axes, snares, and shields feature as prominently in this film as they do in Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Romance is edged out by the racing energy of horses speeding through dramatic landscapes and by expertly choreographed combat scenes. This is a Snow White designed to appeal to viewers of all ages, and to men and women alike.
If we are to follow the wisdom of psychologists and the self-help experts, it becomes evident that fairy tales have powerful therapeutic benefits, helping us stage our fears and desires in symbolic form and work through anxieties, both personal and cultural. But occasionally we encounter a spectacular example of what appears to illustrate the toxic effects of reading fairy tales, and one such case can be found in the life of Alan Turing, father of theoretical computer science. When Turing went to see Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs a year after its Hollywood debut, he fell under the spell of the scene in which the wicked queen labors in her underground hide-out, preparing the poisonous brew that will put her stepdaughter into a coma. According to his running partner Alan Garner, Turing would go over the scene in detail, describing the apple as red on one side, green on the other (the wicked queen actually starts with a green apple, which is turned red). More important, he would ritually chant the couplet: “Dip the apple in the brew / Let the Sleeping Death seep through.” On June 8, 1954, Turing’s landlady discovered his inert body. At the side of his bed: half an apple, and in the kitchen: a jam jar with a cyanide solution. In some ways, this is the true Turing enigma, a posthumous challenge from the man who established the foundation for artificial intelligence to those who defend the uses of enchantment as well as all the positives of reading fairy tales and watching their cinematic adaptations.
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1. Steven Swann Jones, The New Comparative Method: Structural and Symbolic Analysis of the Allomotifs of Snow White (Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1990), p. 32.
2. Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (New York: Knopf, 1976), p. 201.
3. Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination (New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1979), p. 16.
4. Ibid., p. 38.
5. Ibid., pp. 38–39.
6. Elisabeth Bronfen, Over Her Dead Body: Death, Femininity, and the Aesthetic (New York: Routledge, 1992), pp. 104–05.
7. Richard Holliss and Brian Sibley, Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and the Making of the Classic Film (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987), p. 14.
8. Ibid., p. 14.
9. 55 Favorite Stories Adapted from Disney Films. A Golden Book (n.p.: Western, 1960).
10. From Snow White, illus. Rex Irvine and Judie Clarke (n.p.: Superscope, 1973).
11. From Storytime Treasury (New York: McCall, 1969).
12. “Mouse & Man,” Time, December 27, 1937, p. 21.
13. Holliss and Sibley, Walt Disney’s “Snow White,” p. 65.
14. V. F. Calverton, “The Snow White Fiasco,” Current History (June 1938): 46.
GIAMBATTISTA BASILE
The Young Slave†
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There was once a Baron of Selvascura who had an unmarried sister. This sister used to go and play in a garden with other girls her own age. One day they found a lovely rose in full bloom, so they made a compact that whoever jumped clean over it without touching a single leaf, should win something. But although many of the girls jumped leapfrog over it, they all hit it, and not one of them jumped clean over. But when the turn came to Lilla, the Baron’s sister, she stood back a little and took such a run at it that she jumped right over to the other side of the rose. Nevertheless, one leaf fell, but she was so quick and ready that she picked it up from the ground without anyone noticing and swallowed it, thereby winning the prize.
Not less than three days later, Lilla felt herself to be pregnant, and nearly died of grief, for she knew that she had done nothing compromising or dishonest, and could not understand how it was possible for her belly to have swollen. She ran at once to some fairies who were her friends, and when they heard her story, they told her not to worry, for the cause of it all was the rose-leaf she had swallowed.
When Lilla understood this, she took precautions to conceal her condition as much as possible, and when the hour of her deliverance came, she gave birth in hiding to a lovely little girl whom she named Lisa. She sent her to the fairies and they each gave her some charm, but the last one slipped and twisted her foot so badly as she was running to see the child, that in her acute pain she hurled a curse at her, to the effect that when she was seven years old, her mother, whilst combing out her hair, would leave the comb in her tresses, stuck into the head, and from this the child would perish.
At the end of seven years the disaster occurred, and the despairing mother, lamenting bitterly, encased the body in seven caskets of crystal, one within the other, and placed her in a distant room of the palace, keeping the key in her pocket. However, after some time her grief brought her to her grave. When she felt the end to be near, she called her brother and said to him, “My brother, I feel death’s hook dragging me away inch by inch. I leave you all my belongings for you to have and dispose of as you like; but you must promise me never to open the last room in this house, and always keep the key safely in the casket.” The brother, who loved her above all things, gave her his word; at the same moment she breathed, “Adieu, for the beans are ripe.”
At the end of some years, this lord (who had in the meantime taken a wife) was invited to a hunting-party. He recommended the care of the house to his wife, and begged her above all not to open the room, the key of which he kept in the casket. However, as soon as he had turned his back, she began to feel suspicious, and impelled by jealousy and consumed by curiosity, which is woman’s first attribute, took the key and went to open the room. There she saw the young girl, clearly visible through the crystal caskets, so she opened them one by one and found that she seemed to be asleep. Lisa had grown like any other woman, and the caskets had lengthened with her, keeping pace as she grew.
When she beheld this lovely creature, the jealous woman at once thought, “By my life, this is a fine thing! Keys at one’s girdle, yet nature makes horns!1 No wonder he never let anyone open the door and see the Mahomet2 that he worshipped inside the caskets!” Saying this, she seized the girl by the hair, dragged her out, and in so doing caused the comb to drop out, so that the sleeping Lisa awoke, calling out, “Mother, mother!”
“I’ll give you mother, and father too!” cried the Baroness, who was as bitter as a slave, as angry as a bitch with a litter of pups, and as venomous as a snake. She straightaway cut off the girl’s hair and thrashed her with the tresses, dressed her in rags, and every day heaped blows on her head and bruises on her face, blackening her eyes and making her mouth look as if she had eaten raw pigeons.3
When her husband came back from his hunting-party and saw this girl being so hardly used, he asked who she was. His wife answered that she was a slave sent her by her aunt, only fit for the rope’s end, and that one had to be forever beating her.
Now it happened one day, when the Baron had occasion to go to a fair, that he asked everyone in the house, including even the cats, what they would like him to buy for them, and when they had all chosen, one one thing and one anoth
er, he turned at last to the slave. But his wife flew into a rage and acted unbecomingly to a Christian, saying, “That’s right, class her with all the others, this thick-lipped slave, let everyone be brought down to the same level and all use the urinal.4 Don’t pay so much attention to a worthless bitch, let her go to the devil.” But the Baron who was kind and courteous insisted that the slave should also ask for something. And she said to him, “I want nothing but a doll, a knife and a pumice-stone; and if you forget them, may you never be able to cross the first river that you come to on your journey!”
The Baron bought all the other things, but forgot just those for which his niece had asked him; so when he came to a river that carried down stones and trees to the shore to lay foundations of fears and raise walls of wonder, he found it impossible to ford it. Then he remembered the spell put on him by the slave, and turned back and bought the three articles in question. When he arrived home he gave out to each one the thing for which they had asked.
When Lisa had what she wanted, she went into the kitchen, and, putting the doll in front of her, began to weep and lament and recount all the story of her troubles to that bundle of cloth just as if it had been a real person. When it did not reply, she took the knife and sharpened it on the pumice-stone and said, “Mind, if you don’t answer me, I will dig this into you, and that will put an end to the game!” And the doll, swelling up like a reed when it has been blown into, answered at last, “All right, I have understood you! I’m not deaf!”
This music had already gone on for a couple of days, when the Baron, who had a little room on the other side of the kitchen, chanced to hear this song, and putting his eye to the keyhole, saw Lisa telling the doll all about her mother’s jump over the rose-leaf, how she swallowed it, her own birth, the spell, the curse of the last fairy, the comb left in her hair, her death, how she was shut into the seven caskets and placed in that room, her mother’s death, the key entrusted to the brother, his departure for the hunt, the jealousy of his wife, how she opened the room against her husband’s commands, how she cut off her hair and treated her like a slave, and the many, many torments she had inflicted on her. And all the while she wept and said, “Answer me, dolly, or I will kill myself with this knife.” And sharpening it on the pumice-stone, she would have plunged it into herself had not the Baron kicked down the door and snatched the knife out of her hand.
He made her tell him the story again at greater length, and then he embraced his niece and took her away from that house, and left her in charge of one of his relations in order that she should get better, for the hard usage inflicted on her by that heart of a Medea5 had made her quite thin and pale. After several months, when she had become as beautiful as a goddess, the Baron brought her home and told everyone that she was his niece. He ordered a great banquet, and when the viands had been cleared away, he asked Lisa to tell the story of the hardships she had undergone and of the cruelty of his wife—a tale which made all the guests weep. Then he drove his wife away, sending her back to her parents, and gave his niece a handsome husband of her own choice. Thus Lisa testified that
Heaven rains favors on us when we least expect it.
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† Giambattista Basile, “The Young Slave,” in The Pentamerone, trans. Benedetto Croce (London: Bodley Head, 1932). Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
1. The husband or wife is cuckolded.
2. The body of Mahomet was rumored to have been preserved in a coffin suspended between heaven and earth. The baron, it is implied, has been worshiping a false god.
3. Dripping with blood.
4. All have the same privileges (reflects a time in which using the urinal was considered a luxury).
5. Princess and sorceress of Colchis who helped Jason obtain the Golden Fleece and murdered her two sons when she was betrayed.
BROTHERS GRIMM
Snow White†
Once upon a time in the middle of winter, when snow flakes were falling from the sky like feathers, a queen was sitting and sewing by a window with a black ebony frame. While she was sewing and looking out at the snow, she pricked her finger with a needle, and three drops of blood fell onto the snow. The red looked so beautiful against the white snow that she thought to herself: “If only I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood of the window frame.” Soon thereafter she gave birth to a little girl, who was as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as ebony, and she was called Snow White. The queen died after the child was born.
A year later the king married another woman. She was a beautiful lady, but proud and arrogant and could not bear being second to anyone in beauty. She had a magic mirror, and when she stood in front of it and looked at herself, she would say:
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who’s the fairest one of all?”
The mirror would reply:
“You, oh queen, are the fairest of all.”
Then she was satisfied, for she knew that the mirror always spoke the truth.
Snow White was growing up and becoming more and more beautiful. When she was seven years old, she was as beautiful as the bright day and more beautiful than the queen herself. One day the queen asked the mirror:
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who’s the fairest one of all?”
The mirror replied:
“My queen, you are the fairest one here,
But Snow White is a thousand times more fair than you!”
When the Queen heard these words, she trembled and turned green with envy. From that moment on, she hated Snow White, and whenever she set eyes on her, her heart turned as cold as a stone. Envy and pride grew like weeds in her heart. Day and night, she never had a moment’s peace. One day, she summoned a huntsman and said: “Take the child out into the forest. I don’t want to have to lay eyes on her ever again. You must kill her and bring me her lungs and liver as proof of your deed.” The huntsman obeyed and took her out into the woods, but just as he was pulling out his hunting knife and about to take aim at her innocent heart, she began weeping and pleading with him. “Alas, dear huntsman, spare my life. I promise to run into the woods and never return.”
Snow White was so beautiful that the huntsman took pity on her and said: “Just run away, you poor child.”
“The wild animals will devour you before long,” he thought to himself. He felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his heart, for at least he did not have to kill her. Just then a young boar ran past him, and the huntsman stabbed it to death. He took out the lungs and liver and brought them to the queen as proof that he had murdered the child. The cook was told to boil them in brine, and the wicked woman ate them up, thinking that she had eaten Snow White’s lungs and liver.
The poor child was left all alone in the vast forest. She was so frightened that she just stared at all the leaves on the trees and had no idea what to do next. She started running and raced over sharp stones and through thornbushes. Wild beasts darted near her at times, but they did her no harm. She ran as far as her legs could carry her. When night fell, she saw a little cottage and went inside to rest. Everything in the house was tiny, and indescribably dainty and spotless. There was a little table, with seven little plates on a white cloth. Each little plate had a little spoon, seven little knives and forks, and seven little cups. Against the wall were seven little beds in a row, each made up with sheets as white as snow. Snow White was so hungry and thirsty that she ate a few vegetables and some bread from each little plate and drank a drop of wine out of each little cup. She didn’t want to take everything away from one place. Later, she was so tired that she tried out the beds, but they did not seem to be the right size. The first was too long, the second too short, but the seventh one was just right, and she stayed in it. Then she said her prayers and fell fast asleep.
After it was completely dark outside, the owners of the cottage returned. They were seven dwarfs who spent their days in the mou
ntains mining ore and digging for minerals. They lighted their seven little lanterns, and when the cottage brightened up, they saw that someone had been there, for some things were not the way they had left them.
The first one asked: “Who’s been sitting on my little chair?”
The second asked: “Who’s been eating from my little plate?”
The third asked: “Who’s been eating my little loaf of bread?”
The fourth asked: “Who’s been eating from my little plate of vegetables?”
The fifth asked: “Who’s been using my little fork?”
The sixth asked: “Who’s been cutting with my little knife?”
The seventh asked: “Who’s been drinking from my little cup?”
The first one turned around and saw some wrinkles on his sheets and said: “Who climbed into my little bed?”
The others came running and each shouted: “Someone’s been sleeping in my bed too.”
When the seventh dwarf looked in his little bed, he saw Snow White lying there, fast asleep. He shouted to the others who came running and who were so astonished that they raised their seven little lanterns to let the light shine on Snow White.
“My goodness, oh my goodness!” they exclaimed. “What a beautiful child!”
They were so delighted to see her that they decided not to wake her up and let her continue sleeping in her little bed. The seventh dwarf slept for one hour with each of his companions until the night was over.
The Classic Fairy Tales_Norton Critical Edition Page 16
