Symbolism of Snow White

The famous story "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" by the Grimm Brothers has a lot of symbolism. While there are lots of articles about it, they focus on other tales and stories with a similar theme instead of the story itself. These are not just children's bedtime stories and also many people associate them with Disney films. The symbols in "Snow White" includes the poisoned apple, the number seven, the number three, mirror, glass coffin. The number three appears a lot. Snow White's mother wanted a child, and she was thinking about it when she accidently pricked her finger on the sewing needle. This is a symbol of conception. Three drops of blood fell onto the napkin she was sewing. She made a wish for a daughter to have three things, to be as white as snow with hair the colour of ebony and lips red as blood. White symbolises innocence and purity, even with the divine. We're told red means blood. Ebony is linked to the wood, as ebony trees are lucky and for protection. Later we learn she has a baby girl named Snow White and her wish was granted. This magical queen died in the traditional story, and was replaced by the stepmother, who became evil and cruel. Earlier on, and in some retellings, the first queen died and was reborn as the evil queen such as rebirth that again appears. Now the wicked queen tried to kill Snow White multiple times in the original story. The huntsman is ordered by the queen to kill Snow White and return her heart in a box. After Snow White flees and takes refuge with the home of the seven dwarfs, the evil queen learns about this and she attempts to kill Snow White again with three methods. Each time, she wears a disguise, first as a peddler woman selling laces, which she tightened around Snow White's waist and secondly she visits selling pretty combs that makes Snow White pass out. 

Finally the queen disguises herself as an old woman selling red apples. Apples are symbolic of love and wisdom. A poisoned apple is the opposite, it symbolises death, destruction and jealousy. In myths, apples are forbidden fruits, such as the one in the Garden of Eden, banishing humanity after eating it, then the Apple of discord in Greek mythology that some believed started the Trojan War, in Norse mythology are the apples of goddess Hel that are also apples of death. In Celtic legend a man was turned into an apple and a young woman ate it and became pregnant, resulting in the birth of a hero. Snow White takes a fatal bite and isn't woken up. It's not clear how much time passed as she's buried in an open glass coffin so everyone can see her beauty. The prince arrives and manages to wake her. First of all, he accidentally knocks over the coffin, but soon this changed to him kissing her. There is the kiss of life with the jolt of awakening, bringing Snow White back from death.

The number three is symbolic of life, death and rebirth. It's believed to represent the divine aspect of triple gods and goddesses, and the number three appears in Christianity as the Holy Trinity, while other religions have the sacred number three, including rituals and acts done in threes. This figure 3 in the story represents those things especially life, death and rebirth of Snow White as she returns from the dead three times. The red apple that kills Snow White, is the same colour as blood that helped create her. Also her blood red lips biting the red blood apple is the connection. The prince kisses her on the lips to wake her, dislodging the piece of apple from her throat, undoing a spell. In a sense, the apple was the queen's weapon and it failed because Snow White was reborn. It's believed that the main characters represent good and evil, which is the powerful message we find in the story. Number seven is another sacred number that appears a lot, as there are seven dwarfs, who become the guardians and protect Snow White. It's considered to be a lucky number. There's 7 days of the week, seven chakras, seven colours of the rainbow, seven sisters stars and seven wonders of the world. 

That was my view on the symbolism of Snow White. I shall do more on other fairy tales later. Check out reading more on a similar topic: Book The Wisdom of Fairy Tales by Robert Meyer

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