Snow White is one of the staples of the modern fairytale cannon, and as a feminist, I would not be the first to take umbrage with some of the more troubling themes. The most obvious of these, as with Sleeping Beauty, is the concerning narrative of the prince “falling in love” with an unconscious woman. This not only raises questions about consent but also objectifies the female character; falling in love with someone you have only seen sleeping certainly discounts that you are there for their personality. It also supports the rewarding of passive femininity, after all how much more submissive can you get than unconscious?

But today I want to talk about one of the other troubling elements of the story, one that is often overlooked. So, let us head back to the Grimm brother’s 1812 version and revisit the part of the story where the queen first discovers that Snow White has succeeded in snatching the title of the fairest of them all:

“Now Snow-White grew up, and when she was seven years old, she was so beautiful, that she surpassed even the queen herself.
Now when the queen asked her mirror:
Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who in this land is fairest of all?
The mirror said:
You, my queen, are fair; it is true.
But Little Snow-White is still
A thousand times fairer than you”.

1812 Version of Little Snow White. Collected by Wilhem and Jacob Grimm, Translated by D. L. Ashliman.

Yes, you read that right, Snow White was a mere 7 years old, and the main theme of this story is how a grown woman was threatened by a young child as a sexual rival. The evil protagonist queen was jealous of a little prepubescent girl to the point she attempted to have the young child killed. In the spirit of avoiding presentism (the bias of applying present day values to historical content) it is worth understanding that age of consent laws were already around during the 1800’s and had been for some time. According to academic Stephen Robertson in Age of Consent Laws: “A small group of Italian and German states that introduced an age of consent in the 16th century also employed [a minimum age of] 12 years.”.  So even back in the 1800’s when this tale was collected by the Grimm brothers, society would have collectively agreed that Snow White was child and should certainly not have been portrayed as a sexual rival. 

Despite her very young age, the idea of a sexualized Snow White and justification for the queen’s behaviour is echoed through many symbolic motifs in the rest of the story. When the huntsman first takes Snow White into the woods, the evil queen requests he bring back Snow White’s lungs and liver so that she can eat them. Ritual cannibalism is often performed with the idea that the eater takes on the qualities of those they are eating. The specification of which organs has meaning: the lungs represent the life force and vitality of Snow White, while her liver represents the seat of both purity and desire.

Additionally, the first two attempts to poison Snow White by the queen employ objects of beautification and vanity, items that Snow White cannot resist despite the dire warnings by the seven dwarves. The first item was bodice laces, which were invented to enhance the female sexual form, tightening the waist to draw attention to the breasts and buttocks. The fact that Snow White could not resist these ribbons, and that the queen laces them so tightly that Snow White fell down dead, seems to reinforce Snow White’s position as a sexual rival.

Likewise, the second attempt with a comb re-iterates this idea as both combs and hair are associated with feminine sexuality. Again, the fact that Snow White could not resist the offer of a beautiful comb, even after being tricked once, suggests that she was becoming an unbridled sexual threat to the queen. The third attempt on Snow White’s life was by way of offering her a poison apple. Given that the Grimm brothers often incorporated Christian themes into their tales, we should assume that the biblical symbolism of Eve applies; Snow White’s inability to withhold from temptation is again the cause of her own demise.

While Snow White’s age may have been how it was spoken of when the Grimm’s collected the Snow White tale, they certainly did nothing to amend it. The Grimm brothers often retooled tales in their collection, and other elements of Snow White were changed. In the 1812 version quoted above, Snow White was the queen’s biological daughter, however, from the 1819 version onwards the queen was turned into a stepmother, which many have theorized was done to make the Snow White story more “family friendly”.  This change demonstrates how easy it is to revise elements of the narrative, yet Snow White’s age remained constant throughout the multiple revisions by the brothers Grimm, including their final version in 1857.

Even when Walt Disney used this tale for the 1937 Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the emphasis for casting Snow White was based on her sounding young. While never specified in the film, there is evidence that she was intended to be 14 years old. This is supported by old audio of Walt Disney found in The Walt Disney Family Museum’s exhibit “Walt’s Thoughts in Audio — Snow White”. Here, Walt Disney commented on the final selection of Adriana Caselotti for the role, saying: ”So one day he came in with a voice. I listened to it. I said ‘That’s perfect.’ I said ‘She sounds to me like a 14-year-old girl’”. While Disney’s Snow White was intended to appear as being considerably older than seven, she was still considered underage (the age of consent in California at the time was 18) and remains a questionable age choice for a character cast as a sexual rival.

So how old was Snow White when she finally woke from her slumber and married the prince? That part is unspecified, but the Grimm brother’s version states: “Snow-White lay there in the coffin a long, long time”.  Let us hope for her sake that it was long enough for her to reach both physical and mental maturity and that she was able to make an informed choice of her own free will.