Violence In Snow White

Throughout the years there have been numerous versions of the common Snow White story. A few of these renditions include Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by Walt Disney, Little Snow White by the distinguished Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree, “The Young Slave” by Giambattista Basile, The Crystal Casket, and lastly Maria, the Wicked Stepmother, and the Seven Robbers. Each story has become unique through the adaptations made to them over the years while continuing to hold onto their roots. Two of the places where this combination of similarity and uniqueness is shown is in the amount of violence portrayed in each story as well as in the attributes and actions of the main antagonistic character.
While each story has their own
Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves features an antagonist who is a monarch, the stepmother of the protagonist, Snow White, and a witch. She is beautiful, vain, ruthless, and deceiving. She tries to kill Snow White twice which results in her death by falling off a cliff. In Grimm’s Little Snow White the antagonist is a monarch and the stepmother of the protagonist, Snow White. She is beautiful, but also vain, proud, arrogant, and envious. She is cunning and persistent seeing how she attempts to murder Snow White four times because she was more beautiful. At the end of the story Snow White takes vengeance on the Queen by forcing her to dance in red hot shoes until she dies. The antagonist, Silver-Tree, in Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree is a monarch, an exceptional sailor, and the mother of the protagonist, Gold-Tree. Silver-Tree is vain and persistent considering that she attempts to kill her own daughter three times because she was more beautiful. In the end she dies by drinking her own
She is cruel, jealous, and persistent considering that she attemps to kill Ermellina multiple times. The story does not describe her fate. In Maria, the Wicked Stepmother, and the Seven Robbers the antagonist is a teacher and the stepmother of the protagonist, Maria. She is unfriendly,evil, persuasive, and persistent since she tried to dispose of Maria on three different occasions. She also has an unknown fate. In “The Young Slave” the main antagonist is the baron’s wife who is the protagonist’s, Lisa’s, aunt through marriage. She is disobedient, jealous, and curious. She tortures Lisa, showing her inner cruelty, and is sent back to her family at the end of the story.
All three of these stories have some similarities and some differences in reference to the antagonistic character. None of them say that the antagonist died in the end. Two of the antagonists are teachers, one of which being very persuasive. “The Young Slave” is different in that her fate is described.
All six of these stories portray the main antagonist to be a woman who is related to the protagonist in some way. Each one except for “The Young Slave” describes the antagonist trying to dispose of the protagonist. They are all cruel and