Blogpost 2: Snow White: Apple and Alchemy

“Lips red as blood, hair black as night, bring me your heart, my dear, dear Snow White.” 
-  Queen Ravenna; Snow White and the Huntsman

       

Just like any other fairy tale, the princess of the woods, Snow White, has her own unique story. Another fairy tale written by the famous Brothers’ Grimm; and one of the first Disney classics released back in December 1937, it was one of the major hits of fairy tale back in the generation. With its different story line and happy ending, it sure garnered a lot of interest and therefore is one of the famous classics made. Like any other fairy tale, it was always Disney to be the first to animate them out. And like any other Disney animation, this story was not an exception that has origins of a darker version.

Here we go again for another fairy tale dig up. Writing this kind of posts tires me and always results to procrastinating. As I have started this, there's no going back. But like the first one, as I went through research, there's a lot of interesting things that Snow White has to show. As a bit of a classic enthusiast, I conducted a little research on our little princess’ story; or as the Grimm’s call it by the original name, Little Snow White.

There are some interesting connections I had found out while conducting this research. One is with the two material elements in the story: the apple and the mirror.

I came across an article entitled “Venus: Snow White or Wicked Queen” written by Monica Davis from the site WisdomOfTheToga.com. 

The article was a compilation of different connections that the fruit apple has to different stories and also, to the goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite. The apple and the mirror were apparently the goddess’ symbols. And from that different connections from the apple came including the battle of who is the fairest in the story The Judgment of Paris back in Greek mythology; which is seen as the evil queen was talking to the mirror, demanding who is the fairest of the land.

According to her, she said that “Apple is a long generic term for many kinds of nuts, fruits and vegetables: tomatoes – love apples; cucumbers and potatoes — earth apples; melons – gourd apples. But “apple”, paired with a woman has a curiously powerful historical alliance. ” 

With that being said, and from the connections she stated in the site, there is a clear proof that the apple and the female has its own valuable importance being used in different times, such as the apple as a symbol of deception from the Bible when Eve forced Adam to eat it. The mirror, as one of Aphrodite’s symbols is therefore related to beauty. 

That was for Snow White’s connection to mythology. As I dig on further, there’s another connection that makes Snow White’s tale a bit more interesting.

I found an article entitled, “Guest Post: Snow White and the Philosopher’s Stone” written by John Patrick Pazdziora, from the site FairyTaleMagazine.com. 

According to this article, John was also digging about fairy tale stories and he came out with an interesting idea that Snow White has a connection to alchemy. Alchemy is this certain study of elements in science that involves transformation of substances into another substance but of greater value. Back in the Medieval Ages, alchemists are said to contain magical powers because of this certain field of study.

Back to Snow White, there is a sentence from the first paragraph of the original fairy tale:

“If only I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood in this frame.”

According to John, black, white, and red are the classic color spectrum in the literary alchemy. Each color represents a phase of the chemical process, the Great Work as the alchemists call it. Black is the nigredo stage or where the base metal is burned to cleanse it. White is the albedo where the purified element is washed repeatedly for the final stage, rubedo. It is the blossoming of a streak of red in the white metal; it is put into a container until the transformation is complete, symbolizing a burial in the coffin. And what this does to alchemy is that once this process is complete, it said that it possesses the power to transform all material substance into gold.

For Snow White, John stated Snow White as a philosophical orphan, “The nigredo is her loss of home and self-identification in the forest, that labyrinthine fairy tale symbol for peril, liminal space, and the transmigration between worlds. The albedo is her time with the seven dwarfs. The end of the calm albedo is signified by the arrival of the queen-crone, and specifically an apple that’s half white, half red.” 

With these that he stated, he went to a conclusion that Snow White is a possible alchemical tale. The way her tale comes full circle has similarities to the Great Work’s process, may it be intentional, or coincidence. 

I’m surprised how these connections occurred. And quite fascinated that it looks like the Grimms are not just story tellers, but philosophers as well. 

I’ve read another thing that the seven dwarfs represent the stages of being high. Like, drug-like high. But no, it’s not. For the dwarfs, an article entitled “The Philosophy Behind Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” written by Thais Campos from the site Suite101.com.

It said that they actually represent the seven planes of consciousness that philosophers believed in each person. According to the article, Snow White arrived at the dwarfs’ house with the place in a clutter of mess and decided to clean the whole place. This action symbolizes cleansing of one’s soul so the seven planes can be in harmony; making a pure soul. Same as the way the alchemy thing is discussed earlier; a process of cleansing and purification to make a something whole.  

Campos said that “These [seven] planes correspond to the physical realm (body, sensations, emotions and concrete mind) and spiritual realm (pure mind, intuition, will).” 

So having the seven dwarfs as characters for this story is not for fancy. Their significance had been proved as well as the number "seven", and there's a lot of explanations for that number.

To how and why these details are implied by the brothers’, maybe they are sending us a message. These details couldn’t possibly be put for no apparent reason. As John had said, “Maybe we don’t ask questions of fairy tales because they’re asking questions of us.” Based on the earlier studies and information that I had found, the way they made the story is not for a petty children’s fairy tale. Well, in its image, maybe they are. They are ‘fairy tales’ after all. But based on the Grimm’s structure, they don’t just make it as it is, they have different values they want to show, though it’s up to the readers if they are interested enough to search for it.