Wong 1

Katherine Wong
Professor McClure
Writing 39B
31 October 2016
Rhetorical Analysis Rough Draft
In the short horror story, Snow, Glass,

Apples, Neil Gaiman reverses the roles of the two

main characters in the traditional fairy tale, Snow White and the Seven

Dwarfs, to send a message

that in todays society female sexuality is perceived as a more useful and powerful tool than a
womans experience, maturity and intelligence. Bridget Whelan, professor of the University of
Louisiana at Lafayette, wrote an article, Power to the Princess: Disney and the Creation of the
20th Century Princess Narrative, that explains how Disneys retelling of fairy tales, specifically
Snow White and
the Seven Dwarfs, created an image of the ideal princess that young girls have
desired to become since its first release in 1937. Gaiman, however, takes this well-known
childhood fairy tale about a princess falling in love and creates a story that shares a message
about feminism in modern day society. In Cristina Bacchilegas article, Cracking the Mirror
Three Revisions of Snow White, she shares how authors similar to Gaiman have also written
subversions of Snow White

and the Seven Dwarfs in an effort to change how society views

women in contrast to how they are portrayed in Disney fairy tales. Gaimans version of this fairy
tale is unique because its genre is completely different from the original version. Gaiman uses
the expectations of the horror genre that are listed in Nol Carrolls article, The Nature of
Horror to support his claim about how women are perceived in our world today. By
implementing aspects of horror to his story, Gaiman is emphasizing that princesses are not

Wong 2
always the perfect role model that young girls aspire to grow up to be. The article Intro to Dark
Nights Dreaming also focuses on how people in society convince themselves that the distorted
image of life that is seen in horror stories is not a reflection of their own lifestyle and perceptions
of genders. Men, Women, and Chainsaws is another compelling article written by Carol J.
Clover that highlights the fact that there needs to be a change in our culture. Gaiman wants his
readers to be aware of the corruption that exists in our world when it comes to women using their
physical attributes and sexuality rather than their wisdom and knowledge to be successful in life.
In Gaimans short story, the roles of the antagonist and protagonist are interchanged with one
another as a resistance to the traditional roles in the original story. The reversal of the roles
supports Gaimans point of how a womans sexuality can overpower another womans
intelligence.
Gaiman reverses the roles of Snow White and the queen in a successful attempt to
challenge societys view on how women should act in todays world. He creates what Bridget
Whelan calls a progressive princess, which is a princess who rejects stereotypical behavior
from the past, behavior that was perpetuated by the first and second wave Disney princesses.
Such behavior includes characteristics considered to be unpalatable to contemporary feminists,
such as passivity, dutifulness, and subservience to male characters (29). Gaimans Snow White
is the opposite of submissive because she takes authority and controls her victims, both male and
female. She waits for her victims to approach her, and at the first sign of weakness she attacks. It
is important to note that the vulnerable action she seeks from her victims is not always sexual.
For example, the queen narrates, I had always been scared of the little princess, but at the
moment I warmed to her and, with my fingers, gently, I stroked her cheek. She looked at me and

Wong 3
smiledshe smiled but rarelythen she sank her teeth into the base of my thumb, the Mound of
Venus, and she drew blood (Gaiman). Snow White uses her physical attributes to make the
queen vulnerable. For instance, her smile makes the queen feel like she is safe. At this point,
Snow White senses that the queen has let her guard down, therefore this is the time for her to
attack.
Gaiman adds a layer of horror to bring the audiences attention to the fact that Snow
White is not just an ordinary little girl. The queen would not be scared of a six year old princess
unless she has characteristics of a horror monster. Nol Carroll explains how in works of horror,
the humans regard the monsters that they encounter as abnormal, as disturbances of the natural
order (52). The queen was shocked when Snow White bit her because it was out of the ordinary
for someone in their world to act like a monster, more specifically a vampire. Snow White
combines her physical features with her use of supernatural powers to take advantage of people
in order to get what she wants. As the story continues, Snow Whites actions intensify and she
learns that she can use her sexuality to take advantage of the men in her life.
In addition to using her tool of feminine sexuality to take advantage of the queen, Snow
White lures men, including her own father, the king, into gaining the power and success she
wants. The queen, who is more mature and experienced than Snow White, does not have the
ability to provide for her husband physically because he is having a sexual affair with his own
daughter. Looking at Snow White through the eyes of writers like Barthelme, Carter, and
Coover, then, involves more than renewing the narratives powerful image in the modern world,
it necessitates the cracking of that mirror so as to begin to imagine female initiation and its
narratives anew (Bacchilega 20). Gaiman is stripping Snow White of all of her personality traits

Wong 4
that she possesses in the original tale, and is creating a new character whose morals are the exact
opposite. She is no longer an innocent child, but a young woman who uses her sexuality for her
own personal benefits, even if it means hurting others in the process. In this case, the king suffers
greatly from Snow Whites actions. He died unshriven, his skin nipped and pocked from head
to toe with tiny, old scars (Gaiman). The audience can infer that the scars described come from
Snow White biting and sucking his blood. Slowly killing your father, as Snow White is doing, is
immoral and disturbing. Nol Carroll states, Things that are interstitial, that cross the
boundaries of the deep categories of a cultures conceptual scheme, are impure, according to
Douglas (55). Snow Whites actions fit perfectly into this description of a monster who is
impure. Her actions are literally killing her own father, and she does not care because all she
wants is to gain power and control. To the audience it may seem as though Snow White is only
targeting her family so that she can gain control of the kingdom, but later in the story the queen
witnesses her seducing and killing men in the forest so that she can gain strength.
Snow White uses her sexuality to lure men, and it works every time because these men
meet the expectations that are perceived by society today about how they view women as more
useful sexually than intellectually. In one particular scene, Snow White lures a monk using her
feminine qualities. In the story the monk comes across as desperate when it reads, He grinned,
as if it were a long time since he has seen another human and beckoned her over to him
(Gaiman). Snow White takes advantage of the monks sexual desire for a woman similar to how
women in todays society take advantage of mans lust for sex as described in the article Men,
Women and Chainsaws. King explains in the article, If The Stepford Wives concerns itself with
what men want from women, then Carrie is largely about how women find their own channels of

Wong 5
power, and what men fear about women and womens sexuality (3). In the same way, Snow
White deceives the men she seduces because when they first meet her they are unaware of her
supernatural powers. She knows that this is her own channel of power and uses her deception of
sexuality to trick men into thinking that that is all she wants from them, when really she is
looking to gain more from them.
Similar to how women in todays society use their sexuality in exchange for promotions
in the workplace or for social status, Snow White seduces men when they are at their weakest
point so that she has the ability to overpower them. Gaiman uses this tactic with Snow White to
prove that even though in society women are presumed to be inferior to men, he wants his
audience to know that not all women are willing to let this conventional image of them stand in
their way of getting what they want. The article Men, Women and Chainsaws further
emphasizes that authors, like Gaiman, are making an effort to bring awareness to the current
perception of women today and change the way people think:
...if we assume, in like with one-sex logic, that the sex of a character proceeds from the
gender of the function he or she represents, and that the gender of the function proceeds
from real-life perceptions of social and bodily differences, then it follows that when we
observe a consistent change in the surface male-female configurations of a traditional
story-complex, we are probably looking, however obliquely, at a deeper change in the
culture (Clover 16).
Unfortunately, the only way women can become superior in our society is through the use of
their sexuality. Gaiman is saying that there needs to be a change in our culture today. His
creation of Snow White in this twisted tale is intended to make the audience realize that women

Wong 6
should fight the belief that they are inferior to men, but they do not need to use their sexuality to
become superior to them.
Along with using sexuality to overpower men, Snow White illustrates how women are
willing to give their body up for what they want in exchange. In the story, the prince prefers
women to be completely submissive when he is having sexual relations with them. The queen
doesnt give him what he wants because she is too experienced and mature to act that way. Snow
White, on the other hand, is willing to let this man take advantage of her body in any way in
order for her to get want she wants in return. Gaimans use of contrast in behavior between Snow
White and the queen resembles a contrast of behavior in women today. In the article Intro to
Dark Nights Dreaming it explains how some people escape from the imminent reality of such
horrors by denying their existence and by clinging to a perpetual suspension of disbelief
(Magistrale 2). In society, people are convincing themselves that what they read in stories like
Snow, Glass, Apples isnt actually true in their own lives. Gaiman, though, is proving that these
scenarios occur in real life. Specifically, he is emphasizing how women, like Snow White, are
voluntarily giving up their bodies to men in exchange for power in social status.
I think it is important to note that Gaiman is not raising awareness of these societal views
on women so that the audience can feel bad about themselves. Instead, he is using these two
female characters in his story to let his audience know that this is what is currently taking place
in our world, and there needs to be a change. The point Gaiman is trying to make is that female
sexuality is being taken advantage of by not just men, but women as well. There is a
misconception that a womans physical attributes are more important and dominant than her
intelligence, maturity, and experience. Snow White represents the women who do not respect

Wong 7
themselves enough nor do they care what it takes to become successful. The queen, however,
represents women who would rather fail than let a man take away the knowledge and experience
they possess.

Wong 8
Works Cited
Bacchilega, Cristina. Cracking the Mirror Three Re-visions of Snow White. Duke University
Press, 1988.
Carroll, Nol. The Nature of Horror. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 1987.
Clover, Carol. Men, Women, and Chainsaws. Princeton University Press, 2015.
Gaiman, Neil. Snow, Glass, Apples. Dreamhaven, 1994.
Magistrale, Tony and Michael A Morrison. A Dark Nights Dreaming. University of South
Carolina Press, 1996.
Whelan, Bridget. Power to the Princess: Disney and the Creation of the 20th Century Princess
Narrative. Interdisciplinary Humanities, Volume 29, Issue 1, 2012.