Fairy Tales 2010

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Snow White as An Object

I know we have addressed this at length in class, but I can't help writing about how, in all the incarnations of the story, Snow White ends up as an object. This is most notable when she is in her glass coffin, and when her mother wishes for a child "white as snow, red as blood and black as the window frame" (which, in a side note, if taken literally would make her look completely unnatural). We see this especially in the earlier version of the Grimm's Snow White, and it is a concept central to Sexton's poem and the china-doll blue eyes of Snow White. I think it is safe to assume that Sexton is writing a commentary on the "fairy tale" version of Snow White, and after reading that poem I cannot really think of Snow White as anything other than a doll, a piece of art created in the medium of the human, rather than a beautiful human. Because of this fact I loved how the silent film began with the characters all represented as dolls, because I think it really holds well to the theme of Snow White as an object, not a person or even a character. I think this also highlights a tension in the stories, one that is obvious in the silent film and the Grimm's edited version: there is something uncomfortable about admitting that humans can be treated as objects, so in the film everyone but the stepmother recognizes Snow White as a wonderful person, and in the Grimm's story, the Prince really has romantic feelings for Snow White (or fell in love with her prior to her slumber, in other versions), he was not just obsessed with a dead girl in a glass coffin. Granted, I think history is a fine place to look for numerous examples of where humans have treated other humans as objects, so it is something the human psyche is capable of, it just does not seem to be something we really wish to discuss. In Sexton's version, and in the Gilbert and Guhbar writings, this issue of course is tackled head on as the patriarchal objectification of women, but in the silent film, all the characters are objects, so is not there the possibility anyone can be turned into an object, rather than a person?

No comments:

Post a Comment