A Brief History of Snow White: Its Relation to Christian Thought

One need not be a theologian or a literary critic to notice and appreciate the obvious Christian motifs present in many Fairy Tales. Although many of these Fairy Tales are known through their modern Disney retellings, most of these popular tales, those finding their conception in Europe especially, hold strong Christian values and beliefs. One powerful and easily discernible case is Snow White. This story, and its many branches and spin offs, boast strong Christian, albeit medieval, theological thoughts and beliefs. These elements are seen in the purity of Snow White and the antithetical and total depravity of the Step-Mother/Queen/Witch, as well as through a plethora of other, more obscure Christian imagery.

The blatant purity associated with Snow White allows for her to be a metaphorical, or arguably allegorical, Christ figure or representative. Although, unlike the Biblical Christ, Snow White is altogether immobile, she continues to radiate and exude innocence, naivete, and purity. Steve Swann Jones acknowledges that Snow White's life follows a sequence of "birth, jealousy, expulsion, adoption, renewed jealousy, death, exhibition, resuscitation, and resolution" (85). This sequence of events, Jones asserts, is "the reflection of a young woman's development". I believe this sequence to be representative of much more. Consider the life and upbringing of the Biblical Jesus. He is born and must flee due to Herod's jealousy; rejected and accepted; crucified, put on show and buried; raised from the dead and, ultimately, ascends to Heaven. Snow White appears to be closely related to the Biblical Christ in reference to her sequential life and blatant purity. One cannot help but notice the innate purity referenced by the name Snow White. According to Christian theology, Christ, as predicted by Isaiah, washes sinners and makes them "white as snow"(King James Bible, Isaiah 1:18).

Snow White's Step Mother/Queen, on the other hand, serves to hold the traits that belong to Eve instead of Christ. Consider how Giambattista Basile describes the Queen in his Snow White-type tale, The Young Slave, following the King's order to stay away from Lisa's tomb, a parallel character to Snow White. Basile writes that "[the Queen] began to feel suspicious, and impelled by jealousy and consumed by curiosity, which is woman's first attribute, took the key and went to open the room" (93). Basile stereotypes all women as being consumed by curiosity. This stereotype is firmly rooted in the innate curiosity of Eve as she listened to the Serpent in the Garden of Eden; this curiosity drives Eve to take the forbidden fruit just as the Queen is driven to disobey the King. The Queen, following her blatant disobedience, is cast out of her kingdom. Basile notes that the King "drove his wife away, sending her back to her parents" (94). This expulsion of the Queen mirrors Eve's (and Adam's) expulsion from the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3. The reference to the Queen's parents can also, though possibly a stretch, be seen, by the audience, as an acknowledgment of the Queen's theological lineage. Jesus, when rebuking the religious leaders of his day, references their "father the devil" as a means of signifying their wickedness (King James Bible, John 8:44). Basile, through this small reference, lays the foundation for further acknowledgment of the Queen's wickedness.

Although the Queen holds many future Eve-parallels, Snow White, although a seemingly exalted Christ-figure, is, as a woman, not exempt from the European Christian view of womanhood. In their well-known Snow White, the Brother's Grimm remind the readers that White is still a woman descending from Eve. They note that "[she] felt a craving for the beautiful apple, and ... she could no longer resist ... but no sooner had she taken a bite when she fell down on the ground dead" (100). White, like Eve, sees that the fruit is good for food and consumes it. For White, this move results in her temporary demise. For Eve, this consumption of forbidden fruit allows for the entrance and consequential inheritance of Sin in the world. This Original Sin, according to Christian theology, leads to death. In both cases, a curious woman consumes fruit and beckons death; these parallels, in the minds of European Christian audiences, are undeniable.

While not all of the Christian elements present within the Snow White-type, the foiled characteristics of the immaculate Snow White and the totally depraved Queen serve as metaphorical, and possibly allegorical insights into the thoughts and beliefs of both European Christian authors and audiences. These thoughts and beliefs, when contrasted with the evolution of the tales, culminating in modern Disney interpretations, allow for an historical analysis of what the base, or original audiences believed and how these beliefs were distilled through popular story-telling.