Hello, hello, I’m back from my holiday. (and have been for over two weeks.)
Today I have a guest post from Kendra to kick off the Magical Mirrors co-release of Snow white retellings. She’s going to explain what Snow White is. Because sometimes we need someone to explain a fairy-tale we’ve heard since forever. (I’m not trying to be sarcastic here, but somehow it feels like it.)
Kendra has not only one, but two Snow White retelling in this release. One is The Seven Drawers which I haven’t read yet, and the other Is Red as Snow, a delightful little story that turns Snow White upside down in a way I haven’t seen before.
Now before you read what Kendra has to say, there’s a giveaway of paperbacks of five of the books in the Magic Mirrors tour over here. You can find also links to what everyone else is saying about Red as Snow, and more about the blog tour below. Now, over to Kendra:
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall…
Greetings and solutions!
Kendra E. Ardnek here, and I decided to set out on a grand search this year to discover the grandest truth there is to discover:
What is Snow White?
It’s a fairy tale, I know, and a pretty iconic one at that. After all, Snow was the first Disney Princess, and the Once Upon a Time TV series decided to center its main plotline around Snow White and her family. But what, truly, is the heart of this tale.
What does it mean?
To do this, I did two things. 1st: I wrote two retellings of the tale. 2nd: I recruited five other authors to show me retellings that THEY had done of the tale and see if I could glean more information from their findings.
And this is what I’ve gathered:
Snow White is a tale of Beauty. Its role in society, the dangers it can have, and the blessings it can give.
Snow White is a tale of Betrayal. The woman who should be the mother figure instead doing the exact opposite and trying to kill the poor girl.
Snow White is a tale of Bonding. When Snow is alone in the forest, she finds a band of unlikely allies in the seven dwarfs.
Snow White is a tale of … I’m going to stop with the B’s now. Snow White is a tale of Sacrifice. Not something really obvious in the tale itself, but it was a theme that was very popular among the retellings I read.
Snow White is, though, ultimately a tale of victory. A girl who triumphs over her stepmother’s cruelty and trickery. And the plethora of ways that I see that accomplished in retellings of this tale is absolutely beautiful.
And I’m just scratching the surface. There’s so much more to discover in this lovely tale, and these seven retellings show many sides of it.
Kendra out.
Excellent post! You’ve definitely captured the essence of what Snow White is.
She has indeed.