All About Snow White's Mother

Abstract

A reciprocal relationship between fairy tales and psychoanalytic theories is at the heart of this chapter and the focus is on the mother's point of view in the well-known tale type ‘Snow White’ (ATU709), from an interdisciplinary viewpoint. ¹ This tale type deals with the mother–daughter relationship, on the change the mother goes through as her daughter reaches adolescence.

I have chosen to focus on versions deriving from a Muslim-Arab source, most of them archived in the Israel Folktale Archives (IFA). My assumption was that versions of this tale type could provide fertile ground for a deep look into motherhood and its representation in the psyche, and the subjective experience of mothers in face of their daughters' puberty in particular.

I have found that through creative means, this story depicts feminine experiences that psychoanalytic theory has not yet conceptualised. I divided the process undergone by mothers into three phases: (1) A defining moment (2) A fantasy of reversal (3) A new horizon for feminine development in adulthood.

In midlife, women experience physical, mental and social changes that can feel devastating at first and may lead to destructive reactions. However, the process described in this chapter exemplifies how women in general and mothers in particular can develop as they age from denial of reality and sorrow about the loss of their beauty, youth and fertility, to acceptance of the change and a realisation that there is room for further development as a woman and as a mother.

Citation

Govreen, N. (2022), "All About Snow White's Mother", Rumson, L. and Bentham, A. (Ed.) Divergent Women (Emerald Interdisciplinary Connexions), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 141-152. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80117-678-120221009