Snow White became a part of the Grimm Brothers' fairy tales in 1812 and was made into a classic, feature length film by the Walt Disney company in 1937. Exactly 200 years later, Mirror, Mirror comes out this weekend (starring Julia Roberts) and Snow White and the Huntsman comes out June 1; as audiences watch the new adaptations (one a comedy, one a drama) the 1937 Walt Disney version is the one most will mentally reference as the film progresses to spot changes and similarities, inwardly considering Walt Disney's to be the original; what might seem to be changes to the story could, in fact, be citations of the original story which Disney himself changed to create his world that we all know so well.
Little Snow White, the original Grimm Brothers' tale, can be read here for free; it's only a couple of pages and quite interesting. As we review Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, I will be referencing significant changes Disney made to the story (I had originally intended to also post on the 1997 film Snow White: A Tale Of Terror which has some interesting aspects to it, and I will mention it from time to time, but not specifically post on it; it is available for instant viewing on Netflix).
Everyone.
The Great Depression was in full-swing, and there was unprecedented unemployment and food lines; like Snow White, most Americans were hoping for that thrill of true love that would get the heartbeat going again and lead the country out of the dark times. But an economic and historical analysis doesn't explain why the film is so timeless; we might argue it's the great artistry of the illustrations, but with advances in computer animation nearly every day, wouldn't that make Snow White seem old and worthless? (Not that I would ever argue that).
What is Snow White doing at the wishing well?
Praying.
Her night she spends at the cottage of the seven dwarfs she prays at her bedside, and then she prays again (making her wish known to God) before biting into the poisoned apple (which is what saves her from the poison of the apple). When we pray, it's important that we don't think we are dropping our prayers into an empty well, rather, that the Spirit who is Holy not only hears our prayers, but was the one who prompted us to make the prayer to begin with. Perhaps the strangest line in this song, "I'm hoping, and I'm dreaming of, the nice things, he'll say," is also the most damning, literally, because the Magic Mirror tells the queen nice things, i.e., the things she wants to hear, but Snow White is longing for the nice things that are the truth.
The Prince, then, is God, the True Lover of our soul because He is the creator of it. When we finally get deep enough within ourselves, we see God there, too. Then He leaves us, and there's darkness and we don't see Him again until after the long sleep has ended (but that's further on). We can know that Snow White is truly in a state of Grace with her Creator because, after she has run away from Him (this is the typical fear that prophets and Biblical figures show when approached by God, remember, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God,") is that instead of running to change her clothes, like most women would do, she straightens her dress, but she is not afraid of being seen in the humble clothes of the scullery maid; it's because of her humility that she is attractive to the prince, to her God and Creator, unlike the queen.
Taker her into the forest where she can pick wild flowers, the queen tells him, and there you will kill her! The picking of ht wild flowers symbolizes of course the pleasures of the world, the appetites, because the forest and what happens there, is the fall from grace. The reason it's a "huntsman" doing it is because of the way the devil "hunts for our souls" (as the Lenten entreaty says, "The Lord will save us from the hunter's snare"). The queen is fully enslaved to the Magic Mirror, and the queen believes the Huntsman to be as enslaved to her, so it''s not that she trusts him (because that would be a virtue) it's that she trusts in her power to frighten him into doing her bidding.
This is the text of the original Little Snow White from the Brothers Grimm: Then she summoned a huntsman and said to him, "Take Snow-White out into the woods. I never want to see her again. Kill her, and as proof that she is dead bring her lungs and her liver back to me." The huntsman obeyed and took Snow-White into the woods. He took out his hunting knife and was about to stab it into her innocent heart when she began to cry, saying, "Oh, dear huntsman, let me live. I will run into the wild woods and never come back." Because she was so beautiful the huntsman took pity on her, and he said, "Run away, you poor child." He thought, "The wild animals will soon devour you anyway," but still it was as if a stone had fallen from his heart, for he would not have to kill her. Just then a young boar came running by. He killed it, cut out its lungs and liver, and took them back to the queen as proof of Snow-White's death. The cook had to boil them with salt, and the wicked woman ate them, supposing that she had eaten Snow-White's lungs and liver.
I think for two reasons. One, it shows the real bestiality of the queen, because back then, the lungs and liver of an animal were regularly eaten as food so it displays what the queen thought of Snow White (and all people in general, animals, not people); but of course, in thinking of others as animals, it shows what an animal she is. Secondly, the spiritual significance: the lungs permit us to take in "the breath of life" (the kiss the prince will give to Snow White at the end of Disney's version) and the liver is vital for detoxification and cleansing, as well as metabolism, so we can get rid of toxins within us (sin and our appetites to sin) nor can we digest food, that is, the Food of God, the Bread of Life and the Word of God by which we are called to live. So, the queen is not only wanting to kill Snow White physically, but kill her spiritually as well.
We can be confident that this scene illustrates Snow White's compassion because, to those who have compassion, compassion will be shown, and the huntsman shows Snow White compassion in letting her live and telling her what the evil queen intends for her. As the huntsman comes to kill Snow White, his eyes turn green, meaning, in carrying out his orders to execute Snow White, he sees her as the queen sees her ("green with envy"). When Snow White realizes the huntsman is going to kill her, she screams but doesn't beg for her life the way she does in the Brothers Grimm version; Snow White is resigned to her fate, but this also provides a chance to humanize the huntsman and his penance shows he is still human even while the queen is not.
Why does Snow White getting lost in the woods happen this way? Are the woods really that bad? The illustration lets us know where we are on the spiritual map, in the natural progression of the spiritual life. The earlier encounter with the prince is the romance stage, the seduction spoken of in the Song of Songs written by Solomon. After the Lord is certain that we have fallen in love with Him, He leaves us, but we forever have the image of His Face and Love upon our hearts; He wants us to prove that we love Him more than anything else, and He wants to prove to us that He Loves us more than all of our sins. Snow White, working as the scullery maid at the castle, was pure there, pure enough to see the Face of God within her own heart, but she's released into the world so that the Dark Night of the Soul can begin and she can be even further purged.
The queen is allowed to exist up to this point because--unwittingly--she is the means of Snow White's perfection. Snow White hasn't done anything wrong, she has tried to become spiritually perfect, and the more a soul tries to become spiritually perfect the more God wants to help them along their way. What Snow White is being healed of are the wounds from Original Sin and the senses (St. John of the Cross calls it the "purification of the senses") and how they can lead the soul astray from God (Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz will also have to go through "the dark forest" before she can conquer the Wicked Witch).
To some degree, it elevates the struggle women fight interiorly to overcome temptations and purify themselves so as to fulfill their destinies; but who thinks that's what is really meant when women today put on armor and lead the charge against the foe? This brings us to the conflict, between the interior world women are meant to conquer first, and the political world that is the temptation to conquer. Women cannot achieve any good in the world anywhere, unless they have first achieved good within themselves. There is a dramatic difference between the "battle cry" of the Feminists and the war of suffering of femininity; Snow White represents the later. (This is a topic we will be referring back to all year).
This part of the story offers an interesting difference between the Grimm Brothers' version and Walt Disney's version. The Grimm Brothers' version reads that, as Snow White ran through the forest, She ran as far as her feet could carry her, and just as evening was about to fall she saw a little house and went inside in order to rest. Inside the house everything was small, but so neat and clean that no one could say otherwise. There was a little table with a white tablecloth and seven little plates, and each plate had a spoon, and there were seven knives and forks and seven mugs as well. Against the wall there were seven little beds, all standing in a row and covered with snow-white sheets.
venial sin and imperfections. She exhibits the traits of each of the dwarfs at some point (she's bashful with the prince; she stutters like Doc with the huntsman, she's sleepy at the cottage; she's happy without realizing the sadness of the world [more on this below] and then she's pessimistic [Grumpy] without remembering the happiness of the world [so there's a lack of balance to her moods, she lacks the serenity and peace the saints possess]). This part of Snow White's spiritual progression is what St. John of the Cross refers to as the purgation of the spirit and is intended to bring the soul into perfect, loving union with God Himself. How does Snow White accomplish this with the dwarfs?
As we said, they are projections of Snow White and the traits she must overcome within herself so she can battle the queen and enter into the final stage of spiritual perfection. That the dwarfs are miners seals the deal because the mine is another representation of the contemplative life, inner-reflection, the jewels we find when we "mine our selves and identities" instead of seeking after passing treasure in the world (like the queen).
Just like Snow White earlier singing into the well, now, through the dwarfs, she sings into the mine, the deepest part of her soul, where the greatest dirt is, but also the greatest treasure. Each of the dwarfs have a job to do in the work fo the mine andin the work of the soul. Doc, in taking the jewels to closely exmaines them, employs the gift of discernment (distinguishing between good and bad) and Dopey, in sweeping up the jewels of no value, perhaps (in spiritual terms) does the greatest service because in our real life, how often do we cling to what we think is a jewel, but is really worthless? Even harmful to us? Dopey-the-child-like has the simple faith that throwing out the bad just leaves more room for more good.
names on the beds, she laughs at what funny names they are, but the name is the identity, and as we know, the dwarfs fulfill those names perfectly; since they are projections of Snow White, she's getting at good look at who she herself really is (but is not intended to be by God). "I'm a little sleepy myself," she says, admitting her own resemblance, and she falls asleep. This isn't being sleepy over doing housework, this is being sleepy "of the spiritual life," and because beds are likened to coffins (the temporary coffin we go to each night before the eternal coffin) this sleep foreshadows the deeper sleep in the glass coffin towards the end.
Bashful holds up the goldenrod to Sneezy and Sneezy sneezes all over the place; this indicates the dwarfs, turning upside-down everything that has been done for us by God and how we "sneeze" it all out. We aren't looking at the freedom we now have as a result of whatever it was being taken out of our lives, or cleaned, we look at what we have lost, as Lot's Wife looked back at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. When they discuss Snow White staying with them, it's the gooseberry pie that wins them over (their appetites) not that she needs help. This is how we know they are children: absent from them are the serious mortal sins of adulthood (like the queen's) but absent from them, too, is the advanced holiness to which we are all called.
Again, when Doc says, realizing "it" is upstairs, he tells the dwarfs, "One of us has to go down and chase it up"; meaning, spiritually, that they know there are "monsters" down in the lower passions which have to be brought to the light of the reason so it can be expunged; them locking out and attacking Dopey refers to our inability to discern because we do exactly the same thing when we get rid of the good things within us and hold onto the bad things. The idea of getting "it" when "it's sleeping" doesn't always work because (whatever "it" is within us that has to be gotten rid of, we never know what "it" is until it's awake and showing itself).
Dopey eating the soap in Disney's version makes an interesting juxtaposition against the Grimm Brothers' version and Snow White: A Tale of Terror. In both those editions, the queen eats what the huntsman brings her in place of Snow White's organs. In Disney's version, the same case of illustrating the queen's insatiable appetites is apparent when she's given the heart of a pig and yet she doesn't know the difference because that's what her own heart looks like: pigs symbolize the appetites, and uncontrollable appetites, that she's given the heart of a pig right at this point, indicates that her appetites for being fairest in the land are fueled and beyond satisfaction (killing Snow White won't be enough for her at this point).
"I'll go in a disguise so complete, no one will ever suspect," but the truth is, no one ever doubts it's the queen because the old hag she turns into is exactly the way everyone thinks she really looks and everyone can recognize the type of evil deed she does as her being the only one capable of doing something so awful. It's one more proof of the queen's arrogance and vanity that she believes she can outsmart everyone.
Each of these ingredients to "changing the queen," as said, doesn't change the queen at all, rather, she's reciting what she has all ready become but because she abused the Magic Mirror by using knowledge for worldly pursuits instead of for spiritual gain, she doesn't recognize herself, she's as blind to herself as Dopey when he has all that soap in his eyes. The mummy dust to make her old, is the going back to pagan tradition, before Christ, when man was not "reborn" by the coming of the Messiah, but still old in the old Original Sin. The queen has to "age" her voice with an old hag's cackle because anyone that would laugh at someone's death instead of mourning them is a hag, which means witch, a woman married to the devil.
The reason is it the "scream of fright used to whiten her hair is because the white hair has no color in it, color being indicative of some virtue, but white hair is hair that is dead, and hair symbolizes the thoughts, so the queen's ability to think is as dead and decomposed as a white corpse because the queen cannot scream with fright over the crime she is about to commit. The blast of wind, to fan her hair: wind can be associated with the Holy Spirit because it is pure and clean, blowing away toxic vapors, for instance; however, when the queen calls upon it, it's the destructive powers from hell that can make her hair crazy, i.e., her thoughts, so she will be bent on destruction (the wind will be blowing when she falls to her death).
The queen seeing her reflection in the chalice of the potion (not the chalice of Christ) is the first time she has looked at herself throughout the film despite having a mirror. The queen taking the cup in both hands symbolizes that she is fully willing to do the deed and has no hesitations about drinking the potion and carrying on her plan; Snow White will take the poisoned apple in both her hands before she takes the bite. (An interesting comparison in the Grimm Brothers' version, the queen only puts on make-up to become a beggar woman, but Disney wanted to show how thoroughly rotten the queen was by bringing out all her hidden traits.
The shattering of the glass of the cup as she drops it imitates the shattering of the inner mirror and our ability to reflect and turn back (Snow White: A Tale of Terror and Snow White and the Huntsman show the queens looking into the mirrors as the glass shatters and goes all over the place). Her hair turns from black to white, that is, one stage of death (black) to a deeper stage of death (white like a corpse). Her hands shriveling show what she has done with her hands, her deeds, have withered her because they have drained her of life. Her voice changes because, unlike Snow White who uses her voices to sing (pray to God) the queen uses her voice to command people to praise her (the Magic Mirror and the Huntsman).
The "sleeping death," like so many aspects of the spiritual life, is a dual symbol: it can mean the death from not being able to be awakened from your appetites to hear the Call of Christ, but it also means, as we shall see, that it's the final stage of spiritual perfection, the sleep of the soul before Christ calls it to awaken (the first 30 years of His life on earth was like the "sleep of death," death to the senses and appetites, but above all, death to your own will).
When we cut back to Snow White, they are doing as people should be doing: rejoicing in each other and taking a break from their labors, instead of nurturing wounds and fear like the queen does. When Happy sings, "I washed my feet today and I can't do nothing with them!" that's a reference to Happy's death of the will (his feet) because they have been cleansed of his own will to do God's will (that's why he can't do anything).
In the original Grimm Brothers version, the queen does present an apple to Snow White, but only after two previous attempts have failed. She first sells Snow White a body lace and straps her so tightly she cannot breathe; the dwarfs come home, unbind her and she can breathe again; then the queen tries a poisoned comb that the dwarfs find and remove so Snow White revives again. She presents Snow White an apple on the third time, half of the apple red, the other half white, but only the red part is poisoned. The queen eats some of the apple herself so Snow White also partakes and the piece of apple is lodged in her throat.
The bodice laces symbolize the attempt at killing Snow white through her vanity, making her so conscientious about her beauty and appearance that she stops being natural (being able to breathe) and worries only about how she will look (this device was used in Pirates of the Caribbean Curse of the Black Pearl with Elizabeth Swan). But Snow White not only recovers from this trial, she is stronger for it, as with all spiritual trials. Secondly, because a woman's crowning beauty is her hair, the queen tempts Snow White into vanity again with the poison of primping her hair; why does the queen chose to employ these devices? Being vain herself, these are traps that would work on the queen, so she thinks they will work on Snow White.
This apple is only half-poisoned, half being white, the other half being red, and the queen gives Snow White the red half and eating the white part herself. What is poison for one person isn't necessarily poison for another (for example, sleep can be a sin for some people if they willingly take too much to avoid doing other things, but avoiding sleeping can become a sin because not taking rest can become an act of pride). The queen's sins are so serious and numerous that eating the white apple (white as a corpse) is not deadly to her, but eating the red part (the appetites) is deadly to Snow White. Why? It blocks her windpipes so she can't breathe (this was used in Snow White: A Tale of Terror) and not being able to take in the breath of life (God created Adam by breathing Life into him) means you cannot receive life from God, you become a vegetable.
The queen's cackling about Snow White being buried alive is because, the queen herself is "buried alive" under all her sins. Not knowing anything about love (especially not Love) the queen has no idea how easy it will be for her plan to fail. When the queen is leaving the castle, there is a thick fog, and it looks like just in the day or so since Snow White has been gone from the castle, decay has all ready started to set in; this could be my imagination, but it certainly seems possible because fog is a great sign of confusion and not being able to "see" through fog indicates a lack of spiritual sight.
This is the kind of question long nights of philosophy society meetings are made of, but my own answer is no; Snow White can only be accountable for her own actions and she cannot presume to know and thereby judge what is in someone else's heart, thereby, even though it brings harm to her, God brings a greater good from it than the evil that was done. We all have free will, to bring glory to God and eternal salvation to ourselves, or to take us along the path of damnation, and given that every single word, thought and act we made will be judged and either benefit us or condemn us, it's best to always uphold every virtue in every circumstance.
In the Grim Brothers' tale, Snow White and the prince get married, and invite the stepmother to the wedding: After putting on her beautiful clothes she (the queen) stepped before her mirror and said: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, Who in this land is fairest of all? The mirror answered:You, my queen, are fair; it is true. But the young queen is a thousand times fairer than you. The wicked woman uttered a curse, and she became so frightened, that she did not know what to do. At first she did not want to go to the wedding, but she found no peace. She had to go and see the young queen. When she arrived she recognized Snow-White, and terrorized, she could only stand there without moving. Then they put a pair of iron shoes into burning coals. They were brought forth with tongs and placed before her. She was forced to step into the red-hot shoes and dance until she fell down dead.
In both versions, the dwarfs cannot bury her, so she is put in a glass and gold coffin with her name on it. This is the final stage of the spiritual journey, the last accomplishment which must be achieved by the soul destined for spiritual perfection: pure contemplation. The coffin, of course, is death, and that is the inner-most death of the soul, the complete death of the will which is laboriously arrived at by continual contemplation (the glass as an image of reflection) and her sleep is the sing of the working of the soul rather than the working of the physical body. That her name is upon the coffin assures us that this is the final stage of Snow White's individuation for the fulfillment of her destiny, the purification of her being that she and she alone can achieve.
In conclusion, Walt Disney's 1937 version gave audiences a choice regarding how to understand the Great Depression and their own place within it: the United States had become an old hag, no longer the fairest government and country in all the world, but poor and dying, or the Depression could be understood as the time of sleep and rejuvenation, like Snow White's contemplation in the glass coffin, and America was a young country, it just needed some time to advance in virtues, and then the kiss of life would restore us to the destiny to which we have been called. Without a doubt, both Mirror, Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman (June 1 release date) will encode commentary about the government and economy today; what they will say exactly, we can't know until we've seen them, but knowing what has been said before, will deepen our participation in the conversation and help us to decide who is the fairest in all the land.
Little Snow White, the original Grimm Brothers' tale, can be read here for free; it's only a couple of pages and quite interesting. As we review Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, I will be referencing significant changes Disney made to the story (I had originally intended to also post on the 1997 film Snow White: A Tale Of Terror which has some interesting aspects to it, and I will mention it from time to time, but not specifically post on it; it is available for instant viewing on Netflix).
Everyone.
The Great Depression was in full-swing, and there was unprecedented unemployment and food lines; like Snow White, most Americans were hoping for that thrill of true love that would get the heartbeat going again and lead the country out of the dark times. But an economic and historical analysis doesn't explain why the film is so timeless; we might argue it's the great artistry of the illustrations, but with advances in computer animation nearly every day, wouldn't that make Snow White seem old and worthless? (Not that I would ever argue that).
The face of the Magic Mirror. Is it really a face? We know the eyes are the window of the soul, so for a mirror that can "see" so much, his eyes are hollow, he has no eyes are all, bearing a closer resemblance to a mask, rather than a face, and this mask with no eyes is what the queen sees when she looks into her magic mirror, whereas when Snow White looks into the well, she sees not only her face, but her heart's desire and the face of the prince, her true love. The colors comprising the mask of the Magic Mirror is the exact opposite of Joseph's coat of many colors (each color symbolizing a different virtue in his soul) and reveals his vices and the queen's. At the top, closest to the brain, is blue again, the color of depression; then the eyes are outline in yellow/gold and purple. Both colors are meant to denote royalty, but the queen has made herself the pinnacle of royalty instead of God, hence she sees herself as being above all others, including God. That the nose is also purple and outlined in gold means that she has "a nose for trouble" and this is why she consults the Magic Mirror everyday to find if there is one fairer than she, she wants to find trouble before trouble finds her. The cheeks, wherein our state of the soul can be determined (by how we blush or smile or grow pale), are green, and where green is usually the color of hope and rebirth, in this case they refer to that which is rotting and dying. The purple mouth I will discuss below. The yellow/gold chin invokes the saying "take it on the chin," and yellow is being referred to here as the color of cowardice (such as a yellow-streak), so instead of being able to take insults lightly, the queen takes everything in a cowardly way, and responds as a bully. |
Praying.
Her night she spends at the cottage of the seven dwarfs she prays at her bedside, and then she prays again (making her wish known to God) before biting into the poisoned apple (which is what saves her from the poison of the apple). When we pray, it's important that we don't think we are dropping our prayers into an empty well, rather, that the Spirit who is Holy not only hears our prayers, but was the one who prompted us to make the prayer to begin with. Perhaps the strangest line in this song, "I'm hoping, and I'm dreaming of, the nice things, he'll say," is also the most damning, literally, because the Magic Mirror tells the queen nice things, i.e., the things she wants to hear, but Snow White is longing for the nice things that are the truth.
When you truly see yourself, you truly see God with you. |
Taker her into the forest where she can pick wild flowers, the queen tells him, and there you will kill her! The picking of ht wild flowers symbolizes of course the pleasures of the world, the appetites, because the forest and what happens there, is the fall from grace. The reason it's a "huntsman" doing it is because of the way the devil "hunts for our souls" (as the Lenten entreaty says, "The Lord will save us from the hunter's snare"). The queen is fully enslaved to the Magic Mirror, and the queen believes the Huntsman to be as enslaved to her, so it''s not that she trusts him (because that would be a virtue) it's that she trusts in her power to frighten him into doing her bidding.
The emblems on the back of the queen's throne speaks volumes about what she values. There are the peacock feathers surrounding the throne--the opposite of an aureola, a halo signifying holiness--and symbolizing instead pride and vanity. (The peacock feathers encircling the queen are used on the costume of Julia Roberts' in Mirror, Mirror). It's the two serpents that are really important, because of the serpent in the Garden of Eden causing the Original Sin, it has always been associated with Satan, and that's from whom the queen gets her power. Her throne is made of wood, rather strange for such a vain queen, yet it illustrates for us again how she is usurping Christ's royalty for her own: the throne of Christ is the wood of the cross, but the queen wants nothing to do with that. |
I think for two reasons. One, it shows the real bestiality of the queen, because back then, the lungs and liver of an animal were regularly eaten as food so it displays what the queen thought of Snow White (and all people in general, animals, not people); but of course, in thinking of others as animals, it shows what an animal she is. Secondly, the spiritual significance: the lungs permit us to take in "the breath of life" (the kiss the prince will give to Snow White at the end of Disney's version) and the liver is vital for detoxification and cleansing, as well as metabolism, so we can get rid of toxins within us (sin and our appetites to sin) nor can we digest food, that is, the Food of God, the Bread of Life and the Word of God by which we are called to live. So, the queen is not only wanting to kill Snow White physically, but kill her spiritually as well.
We can be confident that this scene illustrates Snow White's compassion because, to those who have compassion, compassion will be shown, and the huntsman shows Snow White compassion in letting her live and telling her what the evil queen intends for her. As the huntsman comes to kill Snow White, his eyes turn green, meaning, in carrying out his orders to execute Snow White, he sees her as the queen sees her ("green with envy"). When Snow White realizes the huntsman is going to kill her, she screams but doesn't beg for her life the way she does in the Brothers Grimm version; Snow White is resigned to her fate, but this also provides a chance to humanize the huntsman and his penance shows he is still human even while the queen is not.
Why does Snow White getting lost in the woods happen this way? Are the woods really that bad? The illustration lets us know where we are on the spiritual map, in the natural progression of the spiritual life. The earlier encounter with the prince is the romance stage, the seduction spoken of in the Song of Songs written by Solomon. After the Lord is certain that we have fallen in love with Him, He leaves us, but we forever have the image of His Face and Love upon our hearts; He wants us to prove that we love Him more than anything else, and He wants to prove to us that He Loves us more than all of our sins. Snow White, working as the scullery maid at the castle, was pure there, pure enough to see the Face of God within her own heart, but she's released into the world so that the Dark Night of the Soul can begin and she can be even further purged.
The queen is allowed to exist up to this point because--unwittingly--she is the means of Snow White's perfection. Snow White hasn't done anything wrong, she has tried to become spiritually perfect, and the more a soul tries to become spiritually perfect the more God wants to help them along their way. What Snow White is being healed of are the wounds from Original Sin and the senses (St. John of the Cross calls it the "purification of the senses") and how they can lead the soul astray from God (Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz will also have to go through "the dark forest" before she can conquer the Wicked Witch).
Original theatrical poster for Disney's first, feature-length film. |
This part of the story offers an interesting difference between the Grimm Brothers' version and Walt Disney's version. The Grimm Brothers' version reads that, as Snow White ran through the forest, She ran as far as her feet could carry her, and just as evening was about to fall she saw a little house and went inside in order to rest. Inside the house everything was small, but so neat and clean that no one could say otherwise. There was a little table with a white tablecloth and seven little plates, and each plate had a spoon, and there were seven knives and forks and seven mugs as well. Against the wall there were seven little beds, all standing in a row and covered with snow-white sheets.
venial sin and imperfections. She exhibits the traits of each of the dwarfs at some point (she's bashful with the prince; she stutters like Doc with the huntsman, she's sleepy at the cottage; she's happy without realizing the sadness of the world [more on this below] and then she's pessimistic [Grumpy] without remembering the happiness of the world [so there's a lack of balance to her moods, she lacks the serenity and peace the saints possess]). This part of Snow White's spiritual progression is what St. John of the Cross refers to as the purgation of the spirit and is intended to bring the soul into perfect, loving union with God Himself. How does Snow White accomplish this with the dwarfs?
As we said, they are projections of Snow White and the traits she must overcome within herself so she can battle the queen and enter into the final stage of spiritual perfection. That the dwarfs are miners seals the deal because the mine is another representation of the contemplative life, inner-reflection, the jewels we find when we "mine our selves and identities" instead of seeking after passing treasure in the world (like the queen).
Just like Snow White earlier singing into the well, now, through the dwarfs, she sings into the mine, the deepest part of her soul, where the greatest dirt is, but also the greatest treasure. Each of the dwarfs have a job to do in the work fo the mine andin the work of the soul. Doc, in taking the jewels to closely exmaines them, employs the gift of discernment (distinguishing between good and bad) and Dopey, in sweeping up the jewels of no value, perhaps (in spiritual terms) does the greatest service because in our real life, how often do we cling to what we think is a jewel, but is really worthless? Even harmful to us? Dopey-the-child-like has the simple faith that throwing out the bad just leaves more room for more good.
names on the beds, she laughs at what funny names they are, but the name is the identity, and as we know, the dwarfs fulfill those names perfectly; since they are projections of Snow White, she's getting at good look at who she herself really is (but is not intended to be by God). "I'm a little sleepy myself," she says, admitting her own resemblance, and she falls asleep. This isn't being sleepy over doing housework, this is being sleepy "of the spiritual life," and because beds are likened to coffins (the temporary coffin we go to each night before the eternal coffin) this sleep foreshadows the deeper sleep in the glass coffin towards the end.
Bashful holds up the goldenrod to Sneezy and Sneezy sneezes all over the place; this indicates the dwarfs, turning upside-down everything that has been done for us by God and how we "sneeze" it all out. We aren't looking at the freedom we now have as a result of whatever it was being taken out of our lives, or cleaned, we look at what we have lost, as Lot's Wife looked back at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. When they discuss Snow White staying with them, it's the gooseberry pie that wins them over (their appetites) not that she needs help. This is how we know they are children: absent from them are the serious mortal sins of adulthood (like the queen's) but absent from them, too, is the advanced holiness to which we are all called.
Again, when Doc says, realizing "it" is upstairs, he tells the dwarfs, "One of us has to go down and chase it up"; meaning, spiritually, that they know there are "monsters" down in the lower passions which have to be brought to the light of the reason so it can be expunged; them locking out and attacking Dopey refers to our inability to discern because we do exactly the same thing when we get rid of the good things within us and hold onto the bad things. The idea of getting "it" when "it's sleeping" doesn't always work because (whatever "it" is within us that has to be gotten rid of, we never know what "it" is until it's awake and showing itself).
Dopey eating the soap in Disney's version makes an interesting juxtaposition against the Grimm Brothers' version and Snow White: A Tale of Terror. In both those editions, the queen eats what the huntsman brings her in place of Snow White's organs. In Disney's version, the same case of illustrating the queen's insatiable appetites is apparent when she's given the heart of a pig and yet she doesn't know the difference because that's what her own heart looks like: pigs symbolize the appetites, and uncontrollable appetites, that she's given the heart of a pig right at this point, indicates that her appetites for being fairest in the land are fueled and beyond satisfaction (killing Snow White won't be enough for her at this point).
We can compare this book to the book in the opening of the film; whereas the white and gold denoted the royal wisdom, the alchemy signs and dust and dirt upon the book let us know this is forbidden knowledge, at the same time that we all ready know the queen has traded in her "queenly raiment" (of the soul) for the peddler's cloak and cackle, because this is really the exact same thing as The Picture Of Dorian Gray: all her sins and crimes have amassed to finally "unveil" her and she her how she truly is. |
Each of these ingredients to "changing the queen," as said, doesn't change the queen at all, rather, she's reciting what she has all ready become but because she abused the Magic Mirror by using knowledge for worldly pursuits instead of for spiritual gain, she doesn't recognize herself, she's as blind to herself as Dopey when he has all that soap in his eyes. The mummy dust to make her old, is the going back to pagan tradition, before Christ, when man was not "reborn" by the coming of the Messiah, but still old in the old Original Sin. The queen has to "age" her voice with an old hag's cackle because anyone that would laugh at someone's death instead of mourning them is a hag, which means witch, a woman married to the devil.
The reason is it the "scream of fright used to whiten her hair is because the white hair has no color in it, color being indicative of some virtue, but white hair is hair that is dead, and hair symbolizes the thoughts, so the queen's ability to think is as dead and decomposed as a white corpse because the queen cannot scream with fright over the crime she is about to commit. The blast of wind, to fan her hair: wind can be associated with the Holy Spirit because it is pure and clean, blowing away toxic vapors, for instance; however, when the queen calls upon it, it's the destructive powers from hell that can make her hair crazy, i.e., her thoughts, so she will be bent on destruction (the wind will be blowing when she falls to her death).
The queen seeing her reflection in the chalice of the potion (not the chalice of Christ) is the first time she has looked at herself throughout the film despite having a mirror. The queen taking the cup in both hands symbolizes that she is fully willing to do the deed and has no hesitations about drinking the potion and carrying on her plan; Snow White will take the poisoned apple in both her hands before she takes the bite. (An interesting comparison in the Grimm Brothers' version, the queen only puts on make-up to become a beggar woman, but Disney wanted to show how thoroughly rotten the queen was by bringing out all her hidden traits.
The shattering of the glass of the cup as she drops it imitates the shattering of the inner mirror and our ability to reflect and turn back (Snow White: A Tale of Terror and Snow White and the Huntsman show the queens looking into the mirrors as the glass shatters and goes all over the place). Her hair turns from black to white, that is, one stage of death (black) to a deeper stage of death (white like a corpse). Her hands shriveling show what she has done with her hands, her deeds, have withered her because they have drained her of life. Her voice changes because, unlike Snow White who uses her voices to sing (pray to God) the queen uses her voice to command people to praise her (the Magic Mirror and the Huntsman).
As the queen herself says, "What lies on the skin is, the symbol of what lies beneath." |
Walt Disney made this film in 1937; it's possible that a Clark Gable film from 1933 called The White Sister influenced this scene between Snow White and Dopey, where he pretends to be a prince. If you will notice, the beams form a cross in the upper, right-hand corner, because Snow White's true love is her True Lover, Christ, and she's still longing to be with him; an earthly lover would be as ridiculous to Snow White as Dopey dressed up trying to "measure up" to Christ's standard. |
In the original Grimm Brothers version, the queen does present an apple to Snow White, but only after two previous attempts have failed. She first sells Snow White a body lace and straps her so tightly she cannot breathe; the dwarfs come home, unbind her and she can breathe again; then the queen tries a poisoned comb that the dwarfs find and remove so Snow White revives again. She presents Snow White an apple on the third time, half of the apple red, the other half white, but only the red part is poisoned. The queen eats some of the apple herself so Snow White also partakes and the piece of apple is lodged in her throat.
The bodice laces symbolize the attempt at killing Snow white through her vanity, making her so conscientious about her beauty and appearance that she stops being natural (being able to breathe) and worries only about how she will look (this device was used in Pirates of the Caribbean Curse of the Black Pearl with Elizabeth Swan). But Snow White not only recovers from this trial, she is stronger for it, as with all spiritual trials. Secondly, because a woman's crowning beauty is her hair, the queen tempts Snow White into vanity again with the poison of primping her hair; why does the queen chose to employ these devices? Being vain herself, these are traps that would work on the queen, so she thinks they will work on Snow White.
This apple is only half-poisoned, half being white, the other half being red, and the queen gives Snow White the red half and eating the white part herself. What is poison for one person isn't necessarily poison for another (for example, sleep can be a sin for some people if they willingly take too much to avoid doing other things, but avoiding sleeping can become a sin because not taking rest can become an act of pride). The queen's sins are so serious and numerous that eating the white apple (white as a corpse) is not deadly to her, but eating the red part (the appetites) is deadly to Snow White. Why? It blocks her windpipes so she can't breathe (this was used in Snow White: A Tale of Terror) and not being able to take in the breath of life (God created Adam by breathing Life into him) means you cannot receive life from God, you become a vegetable.
The queen's cackling about Snow White being buried alive is because, the queen herself is "buried alive" under all her sins. Not knowing anything about love (especially not Love) the queen has no idea how easy it will be for her plan to fail. When the queen is leaving the castle, there is a thick fog, and it looks like just in the day or so since Snow White has been gone from the castle, decay has all ready started to set in; this could be my imagination, but it certainly seems possible because fog is a great sign of confusion and not being able to "see" through fog indicates a lack of spiritual sight.
This is the kind of question long nights of philosophy society meetings are made of, but my own answer is no; Snow White can only be accountable for her own actions and she cannot presume to know and thereby judge what is in someone else's heart, thereby, even though it brings harm to her, God brings a greater good from it than the evil that was done. We all have free will, to bring glory to God and eternal salvation to ourselves, or to take us along the path of damnation, and given that every single word, thought and act we made will be judged and either benefit us or condemn us, it's best to always uphold every virtue in every circumstance.
In the Grim Brothers' tale, Snow White and the prince get married, and invite the stepmother to the wedding: After putting on her beautiful clothes she (the queen) stepped before her mirror and said: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, Who in this land is fairest of all? The mirror answered:You, my queen, are fair; it is true. But the young queen is a thousand times fairer than you. The wicked woman uttered a curse, and she became so frightened, that she did not know what to do. At first she did not want to go to the wedding, but she found no peace. She had to go and see the young queen. When she arrived she recognized Snow-White, and terrorized, she could only stand there without moving. Then they put a pair of iron shoes into burning coals. They were brought forth with tongs and placed before her. She was forced to step into the red-hot shoes and dance until she fell down dead.
Just looking at her makes the case to embark on the difficulties of the spiritual journey so you don't end up like her. |
In conclusion, Walt Disney's 1937 version gave audiences a choice regarding how to understand the Great Depression and their own place within it: the United States had become an old hag, no longer the fairest government and country in all the world, but poor and dying, or the Depression could be understood as the time of sleep and rejuvenation, like Snow White's contemplation in the glass coffin, and America was a young country, it just needed some time to advance in virtues, and then the kiss of life would restore us to the destiny to which we have been called. Without a doubt, both Mirror, Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman (June 1 release date) will encode commentary about the government and economy today; what they will say exactly, we can't know until we've seen them, but knowing what has been said before, will deepen our participation in the conversation and help us to decide who is the fairest in all the land.
0 comments:
Post a Comment