Liu 1

Jiani (Anny) Liu

27382828
Writing 39A
20 Feb 2016

RA Final Draft
The Rise of Female Power: Gaimans Choice of Woman Characters in Snow, Glass, Apples
In Neil Gaimans Snow, Glass, Apples, Gaiman expresses his progressive value toward
females power and criticizes the conventional debasement of womens capability, by remoulding the two classical female characters from the traditional fairytale of Snow White.
Originally released in 1994, Snow, Glass, Apples is a story written based on the Brother Grimms
classical childrens tale, Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs. Although the main plot goes
similarly to the original Snow White story, Snow, Glass, Apples tells it in a total different
perspective. Instead of Snow White, the story is narrated from the view of her stepmother, the
Queen, who is usually seen as the evil villain of the tale. In his version of story, Gaiman depicts
the Queen as a heroine who wants to save her kingdom from a cold-blooded monster, not the
vicious witch who is jealous of Snow Whites beauty. Meanwhile, Snow White is no longer the
kind, submissive princess with a warm heart, but a bloodthirsty monster who killed her own
father as her prey. Both of the two female figures have a two-sided nature: princess from
conventional fairytale, character of art-horror. The interweave of two genres, fairytale and
horror, emphasizes the contrast between the fusty stereotype of heroine figures and the
contemporary ascendant conception of females. The princess builds her power upon both her
monstrous features and her feminine characteristics; the Queen shows her strength through her

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progressive personalities, even though she still contains some qualities of traditional female
heroes. The reason behind this setting can be found in Power To The Princess, an academic
article written by Bridget Whelan, who is a famous novelist and writing professor from
University of Louisiana at Eafajette. According to Whelan, throughout the nineteenth and early
part of twentieth century, stillness and passivity were seen as crucial elements for a successful
female, which was a common value that can be widely found in girls books at the time. (p. 22)
As a result, to contend with the mainstream idea against feminism, Snow, Glass, Apples provides
an inverse perspective that shows women can be powerful as well. In Gaimans story, the
princess is no longer compliant and a slave of love, but capable enough to manipulate males; the
queen is not the shallow crone anymore, but a wise and brave ruler of the kingdom. The overturn
of the two household female characters indicates Gaimans rejection towards the fogyish
conception about what ideal females should be like and his pursuit of the strength that belongs to
women.
By monsterizing her as a threatening vampire, Neil Gaiman turns the princess in his story into
an embodiment of extreme power, overriding the convention of desired females. Through out
history, princess figures in fairytale commonly reflex what kind of female traits the public craves
for. In the original Snow White, especially in the well-known Disney version of the story, Snow
White is depicted as meek, compliant and amenable. Commenting on early Disney Princesses
including Snow White, Bridget Whelan quotes Deborah OKeefs in Power To The Princess: It
was "desirable" for girl-heroines ...to have a sweet voice so low it could hardly be heard. It was
good for a girl- heroine to be misty, lisping, and inaudible, and even better for her to be dead (p.
23-24). It is obvious that at the time, only condescending women will be praised and labeled as
heroine. However, in Snow, Glass, Apples, the concept of princess is tightly connected with

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monstrosity. According to The Nature Of Horror written by Nol Carroll, one of the most
outstanding contemporary philosophers in philosophy of art, the monster in art-horror should be
an extraordinary character in an ordinary world. (p. 52) Also, a horror monster should be both
threatening and impure. (p. 54) Snow White in Neil Gaimans story meets both of the conditions.
Although the story happens in a magical land with witches, Snow White is yet an extraordinary
monster; her act of drinking blood is still abnormal. When the Queen, the representation of the
normalcy in the story, is first attacked by Snow White, she began to shriek, from pain and from
surprise. It is not difficult for readers to deduce that Snow White is the eerie and unacceptable
one in the story world. The threat and impureness Snow White creates are also undeniable. She
will torture human through sex and mental control. When she is preying on the king, her own
father, he becomes more and more feeble everyday: He could no longer make love as a man
makes love; and he would not permit me to pleasure him with my mouth: the one time I tried, he
started, violently, and began to weep. I pulled my mouth away and held him tightly, until the
sobbing had stopped, and he slept, like a child. Weep, sobbing shows that the king, who
used to be a strong adult male, is now panicky and delicate under the shadow of the princess, not
only because the princess is sucking his energy away and makes him dying, but also because
what the queen dose to pleasure him reminds him of the sex torturing he suffered from the
princess. Thus, Snow White is both threatening and impure, because of the overwhelming power
she has and because she, a young girl, will hunt on adult males through sexual actions; there is
no doubt about her nature of monstrosity. Overthrowing the outdated stereotype of princess,
Gaimans Snow White is a highly formidable monster that can seduce and manipulate her prey to
gain what she wants; she is even more powerful than any male. This Snow White is a symbol for

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peoples increasing awareness that women can be more than frail princesses; they can be
incredible powerful as well, even in a monstrous way.
Besides her extreme abnormalcy, Snow White in Snow, Glass, Apples still follows some
traditions of fairytale princess, but those traits become contributions of her monstrous strength as
well. In the original tale Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, Snow White is portrayed as skin
white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as ebony. Accordingly, the Snow White from
Snow, Glass, Apples is presented as her eyes were black as coal, black as her hair; her lips were
redder than blood." Nevertheless, different from the pure and innocent mien of the classical
Snow White, the appearance of Gaimans Snow White creates a more gothic feeling: the contrast
between black and white, and red lips with sharp teeth underneath. Although she still shares
common facial features with the well-know princess, Gaimans Snow White takes advantage of
them by using them to contribute to her creepiness. In Power To The Princess, Bridget Whelan
discusses that the early images of femininity in childrens literature contain passiveness,
prettiness, patience, industrious and quietness. (p. 27) Gaimans Snow White, on the one hand,
tends to have those traits in some way: she is pretty and taciturn. One the other hand, those
characteristics become parts of her monstrosity at the same time: she looks mysterious because
she rarely talks, she pretends to be industrious to capture her prey, and she waits for her revenge
chance patiently. In the scene that the Queen is first attacked by her, she is extremely quite and
makes herself seem innocent to gain the Queens trust. She shows up with no sound or sign, and
the only thing she has said through the whole scene is Im hungry. She pretends to be
submissive: she is not picky about the food the Queen gives her, and she nodded when the
Queen asks her whether the food is good or not. Her deceptive appearance leads the Queen to
consider her as a normal girl and relax vigilance towards her: [The Queen] had always been

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scared of the little princess, but at that moment [the Queen] warmed to her and, with [the
Queens] fingers, gently, [The Queen] stroked her cheek. However, once the princess has won
the trust from her prey, she will release her bloodthirsty nature: She looked at [the Queen] and
smiled she smiled but rarely then she sank her teeth into the base of [the Queens] thumb,
the Mound of Venus, and she drew blood. The conventional princess features she own is
actually used to serve her goal of hunting. This inconsistence between the traditionally desired
female features and how are they being utilized in Snow, Glass, Apples suggests Neil Gaimans
mockery toward those obsolete ideas about women. Princesses used to be depicted as quiet,
compliant and patient because in this male-dominated, the public wants docile females who are
easy to be controlled. However, Gaimans Snow White proves how incorrect they are: a woman
can still seem to be quiet and docile, but uses her feminine traits as a part of her power.
Providing readers with an image of a progressive female who is brave and wise, the Queen,
the narrator of the story, whom readers can associate themselves with, is a role model for all
readers to understand what an exemplary contemporary heroine should be like. In Snow, Glass,
Apples, the Queen takes the place where the princess should be in the original Snow White story,
and becomes the positive female character of it. In addition, the Queen still contains some
positive traits of a conventional ideal woman: she is a submissive wife who is loyal and obsessed
with her husband, the king. Describing the first time the Queen met the King, Neil Gaiman
mentions the right of kings twice: [The King] asked for the best of what [The Queen] had; a
kings right, it was and [The King] took all he wanted from [The Queen], the right of kings.
The best of what I had indicates that the King must have taken away something significant
from the Queen. With it the help of the context that they have spent the night together in her
cottage, it is not difficult for readers to realize that what the King has taken is the Queens love,

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her heart, and more importantly, her virginity. The use of asked for and took all he want
shows the Queen is so obedient to the King that she is willing to give out the best she has, under
the dominative power of the King. However, her compliance is an evidence for her love, not for
her weakness. When she encounters a crisis, she will use her own knowledge and strength to
solve it, rather than expecting a prince to save her. She will not wait for the man she loves to
protect her; moreover, when her loved one is killed, she tries to take revenge on the murder. Her
revenge is not blind and bold, but careful and well-planned. When she first sends out hunters to
get the princesss heart, she let them leave the princesss body in the forest, which is a dark
place, the border to many kingdoms; no-one would be foolish enough to claim jurisdiction over
it. Obviously she chooses this dark place on purpose to make sure no one will find the
princesss body or exercise justice over her death due to her carefulness. Although it turns out the
Queen fails to get rid of the vampire princess, she does not give up. She is scared of the monster,
but she still chooses to take her responsibility to protect her people, and the kingdom she loves.
When her civilian comes to her and askes her to solve the crisis of the kingdom, her psychology
is described as I had to, although she terrified me. I was the queen. Gaiman directly points out
that she is terrified. However, I was the queen expresses a strong sense of duty by using
straightforward sentence structure to emphasize her identity, that is, the queen, the ruler of the
kingdom, the person whose duty is to sacrifice. In summary, Gaiman portrays his positive human
character in this story as a compliant wife, as well as a wise, brave, calm and responsible female
leader. In The Nature Of Horror, Nol Carroll illustrates the role of positive human character in
art-horror: The characters of works of horror exemplify for us the way in which to react to the
monsters in the fiction. Our emotions are supposed to mirror those of the positive human
characters (p. 53). Therefore, by using the Queen as a media, Gaiman is teaching his female

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readers how to act as a real progressive heroine, and also teaching his male readers that real
heroines should be much more powerful than those pretty, quiet, but delicate princesses they
used to know.
In conclusion, the whole story of Snow, Glass, Apples is a reflection of the change of peoples
attitude towards female. By blending the fairytale genre and horror genre together, and
constantly contrasting the convention of heroines with the contemporary concept of ideal
females, Neil Gaiman promotes his opinion about the strength of women to his readers, with the
overturn of classical female characters in fairytale. Nowadays, with the development of our
society, the public gradually starts to wake up and see more charming traits women have in
addition to just compliance, quietness, and stillness. It is highly likely for a princess to become a
terrifying monster; it is also possible for an evil stepmother to become a brave queen. The
concept of heroine is no longer fixed, but flexible. Females can be successful in many ways, as
long as they find the best way to express their power.

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Citation List

Neil Gaiman. Snow, Glass, Apples, 1994

The Dreaming, https://thedreaming.moteofdust.com/1999/10/10/snow-glass-apples/
Bridget Whelan. Power To The Princess: Disney and the Creation of the 20 th Century
Princess Narrative. UniversityofLouisiana at Eafajette, 2012
Nol Carroll. The Nature Of Horror. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 46,
No. 1. (Autumn, 1987), pp. 51-59. American Society for Aesthetics, 1987