White As Snow (Fairy Tale) Read Online Free

giddy and childish, wearing rags (Cinderella-style) at the start of the film, downtrodden but plucky. This gives Disney’s rendition of the tale its peculiarly American flavor, implying that what we are watching is a Horatio-Alger-type “rags to riches” story. (In fact, it’s a story of “riches to rags to riches,” in which privilege is lost and then restored. Snow White’s pedigree beauty and class origins assure her salvation, not her housekeeping skills.) Although the film was a commercial triumph and has been beloved by generations of children, critics through the years have protested the sweeping changes Disney Studios made, and continues to make, when retelling such tales. Walt himself responded, “It’s just that people now don’t want fairy stories the way they were written. They were too rough. In the end they’ll probably remember the story the way we film it anyway.”
    Regrettably, time has proved him right. Through films, books, toys, and merchandise recognized all around the world, Disney became the major disseminator of fairy tales in his century. “Disney’s vision,” writers Marina Warner, “has effected everybody’s idea of fairy tales themselves: until writers and anthologists began looking again, passive hapless heroines and vigorous wicked older women seemed generic. Disney selected certain stories and stressed certain sides to them; the wise children, the cunning little vixens, the teeming populations of the stories were drastically purged. The disequilibrium between good and evil in these films has influenced contemporary perceptions of fairy tale, as a form where sinister and gruesome forces are magnified and prevail throughout—until the very last moment where, ex machina , right and goodness overcome them.”
    Fortunately, writers and anthologists have been looking again at Snow White and other fairy tales, finding that there is much more to the old material than Disney would have us believe. Prompted by writers like Tanith Lee, Jane Yolen, Angela Carter, A. S. Byatt, Margaret Atwood, Robert Coover, Emma Donoghue, Robin McKinley, Gregory Maguire, and the poets mentioned above, fairy tales are being reclaimed from Disney cartoons and from shelves marked “children only,” explored and restored as a fascinating part of the world’s literary heritage. If Tanith Lee’s macabre new version of Snow White whets your appetite for other modern retellings, I also recommend the following: “Snow, Glass, Apples” by Neil Gaiman (published in Smoke and Mirrors , and in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror , Vol . 8 ) is a gorgeous version, lush and dark, from the “evil” queen’s point of view—as is Pat Murphy’s affecting version, “The True Story” (in Black Swan, White Raven ). Jane Yolen’s “Snow in Summer” (in Black Heart, Ivorv Bones ) is a modern Appalachian treatment of the story. Michael Blumlein’s “Snow in Dirt” ( Black Swan, White Raven ) is also a contemporary piece, satiric, clever, and strange. Donald Barthleme’s acclaimed novel Snow White is a brash, witty, rather raunchy work of experirnental fiction (first published in 1965, and somewhat dated, but still interesting). A. S. Byatt discusses the Snow White tale in her delicious essay “Ice, Snow, Glass” (published in Mirror, Mirror , on the Wall : Women Writers Explore Their Favorite Fairy Tales ); she also worked a related Grimms’ tale, “The Glass Coffin,” into her enchanting, award-winning novel Possession , and her short story “could” (published in Elementals : Stories of Ice and Fire ). You’ll find further information (and book recommendations) on three excellent fairy tale Web sites: Heidi Ann Heiner’s “Surlalune Fairy Tale Pages” ( members.aol.com/surlalune/frytales/ ), Kay E. Vandergrift’s “Snow White Page” ( www.scils.rutgers.edu/special/kay/snowwhite.html ), and Christine Daae’s “Introduction to Fairy Tales” ( www.darkgod-dess.com/fairy/ ).
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