Comparing Grimm’s Fairytale Snow White to Snow White, by Denise Duhamel

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As a child, I was told fairytales such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs every night before I went to sleep. Fairytales are an adventurous way to expand a child’s imagination and open their eyes to experience a new perspective. Modernizations of fairytales typically relate to a specific audience, such as adolescence, and put a contemporary spin on the old-aged tale. Instead of using whimsical themes heavily centered in nature, the contemporary poems connect with the reader in a more realistic everyday scenario. Also, many modernizations are written in poetic form to help reconstruct a flow in the piece and to develop or sometimes completely change the meaning from that of the original fairytale. Comparing Grimm’s Fairytale Snow White and the Seven Dwarves to the contemporary poem by Denise Duhamel, Snow White’s Acne, differences such as main character modifications, altered archetypes, and dissimilar intended morals can be interpreted and analyzed. These disparities renovate the tale, and bring forth current sociological issues such as an over-emphasis on beauty in adolescence and the results of heavy expectations in mother-daughter relationships.

Grimm’s brother’s tale, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is about a beautiful girl with snow-white skin and ebony hair who falls under the hands of an evil step mother, due to the tragic death of her mother during her birth. Snow White’s step-mother is most known for her famous line, “Oh mirror, mirror, on the wall. Who is the fairest of us all (Grimms, 180)” As the wicked stepmother watches Snow White develop into a beautiful child she is engulfed with envy. She order’s a huntsman to kill Snow White, but he is blinded by the maiden’s beauty and leaves her in the middle of a deep f...

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... and modernized intended morals. Eliminating Snow White’s beauty enables the reader to move away from the constrictions of a typical fairytale and connect more directly with the character. Also, the changed central archetype from “wicked step-mother” to “awkward teen” immediately takes the reader out of the magical castle and into a present-day classroom. Ultimately, Snow White’s Acne uses the above techniques to represent the unnecessary stress vanity and personal appearances create while portraying the typical awkward mother-daughter relationship during adolescence.

Works Cited

Denise Duhamel - Denise Duhamel Poems - Poem Hunter. "Denise Duhamel." Poemhunter.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 May 2015.

Grimm, Brothers. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Trans. Wanda Gag. New York:

Smithmark, 1999. Print.

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