Individual Presentation or Panel Title
Good Girls Don't Poison Apples: The Dichotomy of Agency in "Snow White"
Abstract
Snow White remains a tale told and retold through books, movies, TV shows, and reprints of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales. This paper explores the agency shifts between Snow White and the Wicked Queen in the original “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” edited by the Brothers Grimm. A rhetorical analysis of the fairy tale reveals that the Brothers Grimm polarize the roles of good and evil through Snow White and the Evil Queen respectively. This creates a dichotomy that disempowers young female readers who view the powerful Queen as evil, and the passive, submissive Snow White as good. This dichotomy continues to appear in modern media, even in media unrelated to "Snow White" and other fairy tales.
Location
Goodwin Private Dining Room
Start Date
21-4-2012 2:30 PM
End Date
21-4-2012 3:20 PM
Good Girls Don't Poison Apples: The Dichotomy of Agency in "Snow White"
Goodwin Private Dining Room
Snow White remains a tale told and retold through books, movies, TV shows, and reprints of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales. This paper explores the agency shifts between Snow White and the Wicked Queen in the original “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” edited by the Brothers Grimm. A rhetorical analysis of the fairy tale reveals that the Brothers Grimm polarize the roles of good and evil through Snow White and the Evil Queen respectively. This creates a dichotomy that disempowers young female readers who view the powerful Queen as evil, and the passive, submissive Snow White as good. This dichotomy continues to appear in modern media, even in media unrelated to "Snow White" and other fairy tales.