Snow White: The Most Difficult Fairy Tale?
Having adapted several Grimm’s Fairy Tales for my new book, The Fairy Godmother’s Tale, the most challenging of them all was also one of the most famous: “Little Snow-White.”
The reason is right there in the title — in the original fairy tale, Snow White is a seven year old child.
It should be noted that “Little Snow White” comes to us from a time when betrothals to children were a common and accepted practice among noble families. In a place like the Holy Roman Empire, where principalities would revert to the Reich if a prince died without a male heir, this was a matter of basic long-term survival (and, with up to 300 principalities existing in the empire at any given time, this also helps explain the vast number of princes wandering around in fairy tales looking for brides).
However, our marriage practices do not come from the German nobility — we are far closer to the German peasantry, who tended to marry for love in their 20s, and often only once a couple could support a family. The idea of an adult prince falling in love with a seven year old girl is intolerable to us today, and for good reason.
But this creates a massive problem in adapting “Little Snow-White.” Much of the spirit of the fairy tale relies upon Snow White being a vulnerable child. Age her up, as most adaptations do, and you lose important elements of the story.
To understand this, we should start by breaking “Little Snow-White” down into its main elements, based on the most well-known version of the story:
- Snow-White. A seven year old princess whose mother died right after childbirth. She is described as being “as beautiful as the light of day.”
- The wicked queen. She is the stepmother to Snow White, is beautiful, and cannot stand anybody being more so. Once she is told that Snow White is more beautiful than she is, her heart turns to murder. She tells a huntsman to take Snow-White into the woods and kill her. After she learns that the huntsman let Snow-White go instead, she makes three attempts to kill her in the guise of an old peddler, the third of which — a poisoned apple — succeeds.
- The magic mirror. This is owned by the evil queen, and it always speaks the truth. It is the mirror that tells the queen that Snow-White is now the most beautiful person in the land, and it is the mirror that tells her that Snow-White is still alive, and where she can be found.
- The seven dwarfs. These are miners who live in a secluded house “beyond the mountains.” Snow-White takes refuge in it. When they come home, they discover her and take her in, effectively becoming her adoptive parents. When she is killed, they put her in a glass coffin, where she remains, appearing as though asleep, for an undisclosed amount of time.
- A passing prince. He is traveling with his servants and takes shelter in the dwarfs’ house, where he sees Snow-White in the glass coffin and becomes entranced by her. He convinces the dwarfs to give him the coffin, and as his servants carry the coffin away, Snow-White is jostled, knocking the piece of poisoned apple out of her mouth, and she wakes up. They marry, and during their wedding the wicked queen appears and is executed.
All of these elements work together in the original fairy tale, but a direct adaptation to the modern day would leave a bad taste in the reader’s mouth. So, at least one element has to be modified or lost.
As mentioned above, most adaptations (such as the original Disney animated movie and the upcoming live-action remake) solve the problem by just having Snow-White be a teenager or adult, making the prince who saves her less creepy. The problem is that this not only reduces her vulnerability (and therefore the jeopardy that she is in), but also destroys the parental role of the dwarfs. Instead, they become equals, and Snow-White is changed from a surrogate daughter into live-in domestic help. This, in turn, reduces the impact of the glass coffin. The glass coffin is a hard sell in any event (the dwarfs do not know that Snow-White is incorruptible when they put her in it), but it makes more sense and resonates far better for parents mourning the loss of a daughter than grief over the death of a servant.
One could preserve Snow-White’s age and the dwarf’s parental role by having the prince not fall into romantic love with Snow-White, but have a paternal love instead. This, however, is not very satisfying, and it leaves her being taken away from one group of adoptive parents dedicated to taking care of her and leaving her in the hands of a stranger. In fact, the prince not letting her return home to the dwarfs after she wakes up may be as problematic as romantic love for a seven year-old.
One could use a time skip — have Snow-White meet the dwarfs as a child but eat the evil queen’s poisoned apple as a teenager (and, indeed, this was my approach). The problem here is that you have to lose the magic mirror, as there is no way for Snow-White’s survival to remain hidden long enough while it is in play.
There are no good solutions with this fairy tale. In the end, when adapting Little Snow-White, you have to decide which elements are the most important, and cut away the ones that get in the way.
The Fairy Godmother’s Tale is now available in print and Kindle editions.
