The Evil Queen (), also called the Wicked Queen or simply the Queen, is a fictional character and the main antagonist of "Snow White", a German fairy tale recorded by the Brothers Grimm. In the Grimm's story, the Queen is obsessed with being "the fairest in the land". When the Queen's magic mirror reveals that the young princess Snow White is considered more beautiful than her, the Queen decides to kill Snow White using witchcraft. When this attempt fails, Snow White is rescued and the Queen is executed for her crimes. A stock character of this type also appears in a number of other fairy tales and legends.
The Grimms' tale is didactic, meant as a warning to young children against the dangers of narcissism, pride, and hubris, and demonstrates a triumph of good over evil. In some revisions, however, the Queen has been reworked or portrayed more sympathetically, serving as the protagonist, antihero, or tragic hero. Her many variants in adaptations notably include the Disney version.
Brothers Grimm tale
Story
In the original tale from 1812, the Evil Queen wishes to have a beautiful child, and Snow White is born. In the later 1819 edition, she marries the King following the death of his first wife, Snow White's mother. In all versions, she is obsessed with her own beauty, and the Queen stands before a magic mirror every morning to confirm that she is the most beautiful, thus validating her vanity. One morning, the mirror informs her that the seven-year-old Princess Snow White, has surpassed her in beauty "a thousand times". Furious, the Queen formulates a plan to kill Snow White. The Queen orders her Huntsman to lure Snow White into the forest to murder her. The Queen tells him to bring back the child's lungs and liver as proof that the princess is dead. However, the Huntsman takes pity on Snow White and instead, he brings the Queen the lungs and liver of a wild boar. The Queen or (in some retellings) a cook prepares the lungs and liver, believing them to be Snow White's organs, and the Queen eats them.
After questioning her mirror again, the Queen discovers that Snow White has survived and found sanctuary with the Seven Dwarfs. Intending to kill Snow White herself, she takes on the disguise of an old peddler woman. Under this guise, she visits the dwarfs' house and sells Snow White laces for a corset. The Queen intentionally laces the corset too tight in an attempt to suffocate Snow White. When this fails, the Queen returns again, this time as a comb seller, and tricks Snow White into using a poisoned comb created through the art of witchcraft. When the comb also fails to kill Snow White, the Queen proclaims, "Snow White shall die… even if it costs me my life!" She again visits Snow White, disguised as a farmer's wife, and gives her half of a red, beautiful apple that had been poisoned, which places Snow White in a deep sleep. However, Snow White is awakened by a kiss from a Prince from another kingdom and they invite the Queen to their wedding. Although she fears what will happen, the Queen's jealousy drives her to attend. At the celebration, she is forced to put on red-hot iron shoes and dance until she drops dead.
Origins and evolution
In the first print edition of the Brothers Grimm story from their 1812/1815 collection Kinder- und Hausmärchen ("Children's and Household Tales"), the Queen is Snow White's biological mother. At the beginning of the story, she is sewing at an open window when she pricks her finger with her needle, causing three drops of red blood to drip onto the white snow on the black ebony windowsill. She then wishes to have a daughter with skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony, and she later gives birth to Snow White (Snow Drop). In subsequent versions after 1819, this was changed; the text was added to include that Snow White's mother died and the King remarried.Cay Dollerup, Tales and Translation: The Grimm Tales from Pan-Germanic Narratives to Shared International Fairytales, page 339. According to Jack Zipes, that change was made because the Grimms "held motherhood sacred". According to Cashdan, a "cardinal rule of fairy tales" mandates that the "heroes and heroines are allowed to kill witches, sorceresses, even stepmothers, but never their own mothers". Zipes' 2014 collection of Grimm fairy tales in their original forms reinstated the Queen as Snow White's mother. This revision was likely the work of Wilhelm Grimm. In the Brothers' original (unpublished) Ölenberg Manuscript (1810), the Queen herself abandons Snow White in a forest after taking her there to pick flowers, and ends up being punished by the returning King after he revives their daughter.Stone, Kay. "Three Transformation of Snow White". The Brothers Grimm and Folktale. Ed. James M. McGlathery, with Larry W. Danielson, Ruth E. Lorbe, and Selma K. Richardson. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1988.
The wicked stepmother was not unknown in German versions predating the Brothers Grimm's collection. In 1782, Johann Karl August Musäus published a literary fairy tale titled "Richilde" which reimagined the folktale from the villain's point of view. The main character is Richilde, arrogant Countess of Brabant, who as a child received the gift of a magic mirror invented by her godfather Albertus Magnus. Many elements of the Grimms' Snow White appear in this story, including the wicked stepmother, the magic mirror, the poisoned apple, and the punishment of dancing in red-hot shoes. The Grimms knew of Snow White (1809), a play by their contemporary and rival Albert Ludwig Grimm (no relation to the Brothers Grimm), which according to Zipes "treated the Queen more gently".
Equivalents to the Evil Queen can be found in Snow White-like tales from around the world. In the Scottish Gaelic oral tale "Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree", the Queen is named Silver-Tree and is the heroine's biological mother. A talking trout takes the place of the Queen's mirror and the huntsman figure (often her lover in non-Grimm versions) is the princess's own father.Kay F. Stone, Some Day Your Witch Will Come, page 67. The villain's relationship with Snow White can also vary, with versions from around the world sometimes featuring wicked sisters, wicked sisters-in-law, or a wicked mother of the prince. One early variation of the tale was Giambattista Basile's "The Young Slave" (1634). In this telling the heroine's mother is unintentionally involved in putting her to sleep. She is then awoken by her cruel and jealous aunt who treats her like a slave. Furthermore, the Evil Queen's tricks also vary from place to place. In Italy, she is found using a toxic comb, a contaminated cake, and a suffocating braid. In France, she is found using a poisoned tomato. There are many more examples. The Queen demands varying proof from the huntsman. In Spain, Snow White can be found needing to stop a bottle of blood with her toe; in Italy, it is the princess's intestines and blood-soaked shirt.Maria Tatar, The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales, pages 233-234.
Oliver Madox Hueffer noted that the wicked stepmother with magical powers threatening a young princess is a recurring theme in fairy tales; one similar character is the witch-queen in "The Wild Swans" as told by Hans Christian Andersen.Oliver Madox Hueffer, The Book of Witches. According to Kenny Klein, the Celtic enchantress Ceridwen of the Welsh mythology was "the quintessential evil stepmother, the origin of that character in the two tales of Snow White and Cinderella".Kenny Klein, Through the Faerie Glass, page 124.
Violence and sanitisation
In the classic ending of "Snow White", the Evil Queen is put to death by torture. However, such extreme punishment is often considered inappropriate for children. Already the first English translation of the Grimm's tale, written by Edgar Taylor in 1823, had the Queen choke on her own envy upon the sight of Snow White alive. An 1871 English translation by Susanna Mary Paull "replaces the Queen's death by cruel physical punishment with death by self-inflicted pain and self-destruction", as it is instead her own shoes that become hot due to her anger. Many modern revisions of the fairy tale also change the gruesome classic ending in order to make it less violent. As Sara Maitland wrote, "We do not tell this part of the story anymore; we say it is too cruel and will break children's soft hearts".Sara Maitland, From the Forest: A Search for the Hidden Roots of Our Fairy Tales, page 195.
Alternative endings may have the Queen, for example, instantly drop dead "of anger" at the wedding or in front of her mirror upon learning of Snow White's survival, fall victim to her own designs going awry (such as through touching her own poisoned rose), die by nature (e.g., falling into quicksand on her way back to the castle after poisoning Snow WhiteRuth Solski, Fairy Tales Using Bloom's Taxonomy Gr. 3-5, page 15.), killed by the dwarfs during a chase,Van Gool, Snow White, page 39. destroyed by her own mirror,Nelson Thornes, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, page 32. run away into the forest never to be seen again,Richard Holliss, Bedtime Collection Snow White, page 82. or simply banished from the kingdom forever.Elena Giulemetova, Stories, page 71. In some versions, the Queen is merely prevented from committing further wrong-doings and does not die, but is banished or disappears; in others, she may die by accident. Fawzia Gilani-Williams's Snow White: An Islamic Tale, for instance, has Snow White forgive her evil witch stepmother entirely, making her repent and redeem herself, as part of the book's religious lessons for children.
Such revisions have been considered a softening of the original text and many today feel the story has become too "sanitized". Sheldon Cashdan, Professor of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts, argues that in accordance with the logic of fairy tales, the Queen could not be allowed to flee or merely be locked up, as fairy tale narrative demands that "the reader needs to know that the death of the witch is thorough and complete, even if it means exposing young readers to acts of violence that are extreme by contemporary standards". Conversely, writers such as Hueffer have expressed sympathy for the queen, or, like psychology professor Sharna Olfman, have removed the violence when reading the story to children, while also acknowledging that verbal storytelling lacks "graphic visual imagery".Sharna Olfman, The Sexualization of Childhood, page 37.
Interpretations