Marigo Of The Forty Dragons
746 Words
The fairytale “Little Snow White” and the folktale “Marigo of the Forty Dragons” have the same basic plot of an evil queen who is jealous of her stepdaughter and wants to kills her. In both stories, the Queen has a magical object that that decides who the fairest is in the land, in Snow White it is a mirror and in Marigo it is the sun. When the Queen asks the object “who is the fairest of all” the object replies that Snow White and Marigo respectively are fairer then the Queen. The Queen is then enraged and sets upon killing her stepdaughter, when the Queen attempts to kill her, she fails the firsts two times but succeeds the third time. By looking at beauty as a commodity through which power can be gained, the Queen’s actions can be interpreted …show more content…
However, like in society, the principle of beauty is not decided by women themselves but by men. The male perspective in the stories is represented by the magical object, the mirror and sun “decide” who the most beautiful woman is.
Although, the two stories are similar there is one major difference between the two, which is gender roles. In Marigo the King has a more prominent role whereas in Snow White the King is barely mentioned. When Snow White is “rescued” by the dwarfs they tell her "if you keep house for us, and cook, make beds, wash, sew, and knit, and keep everything clean and orderly, then you can stay with us, and you shall have everything that you want" (Brothers Grimm 3). By agreeing to this she is put in a position of servitude. A woman is supposed to be responsible for everything in the house while the man, the dwarfs serving as the man in the story, is the protector and is the one who will be right in the end. They warn her not to let anyone in, but Snow White disobeys them. In doing this she disobeyed men, which leads to consequences like being poisoned and death in the end. This
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