19 pages • 38 minutes read
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
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Symbols & Motifs
The Mirror
The queen’s mirror represents the male gaze and its control of female actions. While the queen seemingly operates as the ruler of her kingdom, with the power to cast Snow White out and order her death, in reality she is beholden to the mirror’s opinion of her, and all of her actions are a result of the mirror’s all-powerful declarations of beauty. The queen derives all of her meaning from the mirror’s opinions of her. After hearing it tell her she is the fairest, “pride pumped in her like poison” (Line 33). Physical beauty as the dominant value for women literally kills the queen in the Snow White tale. Because a woman’s physical appearance is the only thing that the men with power in this world value, Snow White also must eventually give in to the mirror at the end of the poem, emphasizing her inability to escape the cycle.
The “Miraculous Revivals”
Over the course of the poem, Snow White “revives miraculously” three separate times, all at the hands of men. Each time, Sexton uses the word “miraculously,” and with each repetition, the reader better understands her cultural critique and the ridiculousness of Snow White’s predicament. The speaker’s tongue-in-cheek tone highlights the absurdity of assigning a miracle to each of these revivals; all the men must do is undo a bit of lace, take out a comb, or drop her coffin to dislodge the apple. The humor in these three revivals underscores the absurdity of Snow White’s lack of agency and criticizes the power society affords men. While the men are powerful, they are ultimately inept: The dwarfs should be able to revive Snow White the third time, but they are too focused on her outward appearance to do so and end up preparing her body for a glorified burial. The men who revive her the third time do so from dumb luck, as they drop her glass coffin. By repeating the phrase three separate times, Sexton casts an absurd light over the entire story, reiterating the stupidity of the fairy tale’s gender roles.
The Wolves
The wolves in the fourth stanza represent the threat of male sexuality and the possibility of sexual violence against Snow White. As she wanders in the forest, Sexton writes, “At each turn there were twenty doorways / and at each stood a hungry wolf, / his tongue lolling out like a worm” (Lines 53-55). The wolves, dangerous creatures capable of violence, are everywhere; Snow White cannot encounter a single passage that does not include a wolf gazing upon her with sexual lust. Sexton’s descriptions of their tongues like worms suggest male genitalia, emphasizing that the wolves are gazing upon Snow White in a sexual way, foreshadowing Snow White’s inescapable fate as a beautiful, sexual object belonging to the prince. While Snow White does not explicitly experience sexual violence over the course of the poem, she has no consent in the marriage in the final stanza: She becomes the Prince’s bride merely because the dwarfs gave her to him, and his men “saved” her by dropping the coffin and dislodging the apple.
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