Female Power and Corruption: Snow White and the Evil Queen through the Ages

Abstract

The Evil Queen is a staple character in many fairy tales, but perhaps one of her most famous incarnations is as Snow White's evil stepmother. In order to gain a better understanding of the dynamics of gender and morality in this story, this chapter analyses three different versions of the fairy tale Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: the Brothers Grimm's nineteenth-century text, Disney's 1930s film adaptation, and The Snow Queen's Shadow, a contemporary novel based loosely on a mix of well-known European fairy tales. The chapter explores what, exactly, marks the Queen as evil in the different versions, how her morality interacts with questions of gender and cultural context, and how the different versions portray the relationship – and often the moral dichotomy – between the Evil Queen and Snow White.

Citation

Faber, S. (2022), "Female Power and Corruption: Snow White and the Evil Queen through the Ages", Le Clue, N. and Vermaak-Griessel, J. (Ed.) Gender and Female Villains in 21st Century Fairy Tale Narratives (Emerald Studies in Popular Culture and Gender), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 89-100. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80117-564-720221007