Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good…

Snow White and the Queen

Warning: The following material may alter your perception of this Fairy Tale. Reader discretion advised!

Snow White’s mother is trying to kill her. Poor thing.

Everyone thinks the victim in this story is Snow White, but the real casualty is the Queen, and she is suffering from a lot of bad press as well as a serious mental illness.

The story is pretty thin. A Queen wishes to have a beautiful child. As the girl grows older, the mother is slowly filled with a jealous rage. When the child is seven the Queen orders her death. The girl escapes to the woods where she meets the Seven Dwarfs. Consulting her magic mirror the Queen discovers that her first effort failed. Her rage grows even stronger and she sets out to do the job herself. Using magic potions, she disguises herself as an old crone and offers the young girl enticements created to kill her. Finally, the Queen succeeds and once again becomes “…fairest of them all.”

Some time later the Queen learns from her magic mirror that there is now another young woman who surpasses her in beauty. This unknown girl is about to marry a neighboring prince. The Queen agonizes whether to attend the wedding but she cannot stop herself from seeing who might be more beautiful than she. She travels to the nearby kingdom only to learn it is the wedding of Snow White and her Prince. The Queen is seized, tortured for her deeds and dies.

Well so much for being “…the fairest in the land.”

In fairy tales Beauty is the ultimate currency. Those who have it are granted whatever they need. Those without it are left with little or nothing for their pains. But as with all gifts from the gods, beauty cuts both ways. The Queen as a young woman was the most beautiful in all the land and very proud of that. She would speak frequently to her magic mirror who would constantly remind her of her status. After pricking her finger on a wintry day she sees the exquisite image of red drops of blood against the pure white of the snow surrounded by the black frame of the window. She yearns for a child that would have these stunning qualities. And Snow White is born.

Beauty longs for beauty. In her ardent desire to enshrine that moment of beauty, the Queen brings it into the world. Beauty begets beauty. Alas, beauty may abound all around us but only one person can be named most beautiful.

By the time the young girl is seven her beauty has surpassed her mother’s. The mirror dutifully reports this and the seeds of envy are sown. From that moment the Queen can find no peace. Believing that the young child has taken from her the only currency she had jealousy fills her heart. The rage continues to grow until there is nothing left but a great desire to destroy her child, to end this rivalry, root out her competition. She orders a huntsman to take Snow White out into the woods and kill her.

How did this happen? The child is an innocent victim, but the mother is a victim too. If you live in a world that grants great power and acclaim for a single trait, then having it or worse losing it would preoccupy the best of us. In modern terminology the Queen is losing her identity, her place in the world. She has only one quality and that absorbs her completely. Without it, she is nothing.

In keeping with this motif, the huntsman takes young Snow White out to the woods. While there, “he took pity on her because she was so beautiful...” The quality that was going to get her killed was the same quality that spared her life. Currency indeed.

The Queen is quite simply obsessed. As a young woman she was constantly before her mirror, seeking endless reassurances of her beauty. When she sees the gorgeous tableau of red, white and black at her window she needs to see that beauty fully realized. Beauty surrounds her, drives her and ultimately consumes her. As her young daughter grows ever more attractive, the Queen can get no rest. She is tormented by thoughts of being eclipsed.

The original meaning of the word obsess is besieged. The mind is bombarded by more and more uncontrollable thoughts and emotions. Intrusive and often unwanted these urges make a person anxious, desperate. The Queen is mad with her compulsions. The Disney version of Snow White gives us powerful graphic images of how far the Queen’s obsession has taken her. Surrounded by potions, ancient books filled with spells and of course, a blood-curdling crow, the Queen diabolically concocts different compounds that will completely erase her beautiful skin, her hair, her voice and the shape of her body. In her madness she has destroyed her own beauty in order to destroy Snow’s.

Each time, the Queen travels over the mountain to the house of the Seven Dwarfs she brings a token of beauty – a comb, a ribbon and finally an apple too beautiful to resist. Each time Snow White, being her mother’s daughter, can’t help herself and takes the deadly items. She is warned over and over again by the dwarfs but much like her mother, her own vanity compels her actions. Beauty calls for adornment. It calls out to be seen. It calls out to be consumed. Snow White falls dead and the Queen’s work is done.

Upon returning home she consults the mirror once again. This time he assures her that she is indeed “…the fairest of them all.” The Queen is content and declares, “Now I'll have some peace because once again I'm the most beautiful woman in the land.”

Of course obsessions can’t be resolved this way. Mental illness doesn’t just stop. Her rest is short lived. It is not long before two things happen. A wedding invitation arrives and her mirror tells her that the new bride is now the “…fairest of them all.”

She is horrified and once again besieged with jealousy and rage. She is also afraid. Unable to stop herself, her tormenting thoughts drive her to go to the wedding. She has to see the young queen. She has to see what kind of beauty could surpass hers. Possibly she knows what she will find, possibly she knows her end is imminent, possibly she no longer has a choice. Her obsession with Beauty brings her to her final destination. It brings her to her death.