Feminism in the Worlds of Neil Gaiman

by Tara Prescott

  No longer the blameless child, the princess exemplifies the patriarchal anxieties of female sexuality as dangerous and all consuming. Within phallocentrism, feminine desire “is often interpreted, and feared as a sort of insatiable hunger, a voracity that will swallow you whole” (Irigaray 29). The princess, already rhetorically linked to hunger through correlations with winter, now evokes insatiability made especially terrifying by her blood red mouth, full of sharp teeth that render the king impotent in more than just the metaphorical sense. The young princess is castration incarnate.

  At first read, this transformation of the innocent child, Little Snow White, into an incestuous, vampiric succubus may appear to reinscribe the limited roles available to women within patriarchy. Where the Grimms and Disney deified Snow White for her purity, it may seem that Gaiman has simply demonized her by relegating her to the other side of the virgin/whore dichotomy. Upon closer inspection however, it becomes clear that this is not the case. This “unnatural thing” is not evidence of the inherently monstrous feminine, but instead the inevitable result of the patriarchal idealization of passive purity epitomized in many fairy-tale heroines.

  If Snow White were a fairy-tale hero, instead of a fairy-tale heroine, abandonment in the forest would be the beginning of “the often desperately lonely course to find [her]self” (Bettelheim 201). Instead, the Grimms’ Snow White “just stared at all the leaves on the trees and had no idea where to turn” (Grimm and Grimm 245). Eventually, through help of forest critters and the benevolence of nature, Snow White discovers the cottage of the seven dwarfs. When the hero of a fairy tale wanders into the forest he finds himself. Snow White finds a house.

  It is in the safety of the domestic sphere that Snow White is expected to find herself. No dragons to slay or giants to outwit. She has just floors to sweep, meals to prepare, and seven “sexually immature” dwarfs to mother until she can be rescued (Bettelheim 200). Everything inside the cottage is “tiny and indescribably dainty and spotless” in the Grimms’ version, assuring Snow White that she will be safe here (Grimm and Grimm 245). The residents are immediately identified as non-threatening due to their small stature, indicated by the repetition of the word “little.” Not only is there a “little table,” there are also “little spoon[s] ... little knives ... little beds ... little plate[s] [and] little cup[s]” (Grimm and Grimm 245–246). Additionally, all of the linens are white. The bed sheets in particular are, like Snow White herself, “white as snow” (Grimm and Grimm 246). This linguistic connection confirms the asexual nature of the cottage’s inhabitants; the bed sheets are as unsullied as the virginal princess. She can sleep here safely without fear until the residents return.

  The dwarfs in the Grimms’ tale, as Tatar points out, are not “differentiated from each other and have no names” (Grimm and Grimm 246). Disney, as indicated by the title that frames the narrative, assigns more importance to the dwarfs than the other versions. They have been considered merely “foils to set off the important developments taking place in Snow White” (Bettelheim 201). Santiago Solis argues however, that the dwarfs are more than just foils. Instead, “the seven dwarfs’ supporting role [especially in the Disney version] serves to legitimate physical and sexual normality” (Solis 115). A dwarf, in Disney’s telling, is an immature man-child, incapable of proper self-care. Not only does Disney’s Snow White discover the cottage in a state of disarray, but the dwarfs are also entirely unfamiliar with personal hygiene. They must learn how to wash their hands and faces if they are to eat the dinner Snow White prepared for them. Where the Grimms’ Snow White must be domesticated in the cottage, Disney’s Snow White has no such need. She is a natural housekeeper, caregiver, and nurturer.

  The dwarfs in the Grimms’ tale are aware of Snow White’s trespassing not because she has tidied up, but because she has made a mess. They come home from the mine to discover “not everything was as they left it” (Grimm and Grimm 246). In a scene reminiscent of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” the seven dwarfs realize that someone has eaten out of their dishes, tried their beds, and is finally discovered sleeping across several of their beds at the same time. The condition for residency with them, however, is the same. Snow White “will keep house ... cook, make the beds, wash, sew, knit, and keep everything neat and tidy,” and in exchange she can stay with the dwarfs who will “give [her] everything [she] need[s]” (Grimm and Grimm 246). Even though the Grimms’ dwarfs are not the inept man-children of Disney, Snow White must demonstrate domestic competency to stay with them. She must perform the household duties in exchange for shelter and the protection provided to her by their masculinity.

  In stark contrast, Gaiman’s princess and the “ugly, misshapen, hairy little men” she lives with in the forest do not reside in a cottage or other typical domestic space. In fact, “her dwelling [is] a high sandstone cliff, laced with deep caves going back a way into the rock wall” (Gaiman 332, emphasis mine). The “forest is a dark place” where the child is not the quarry but “a thing of terror” that “preys on wanderers” (Gaiman 329–330). Rather than become domesticated in the forest, Gaiman’s princess turns feral.

  The queen in Gaiman’s tale also transcends domestic expectations. After the death of her husband, the queen rules the kingdom alone for five years. It is in her role as regent that she exceeds the constraints of patriarchy. She is not wife, mother, or mistress to any man. Instead, the solitary queen is defined in relation to the people she rules. She inhabits the space reserved for the patriarchal phallus but does not engage in the phallocentric economy. Her subjects “claimed that [she] ruled them with wisdom” (Gaiman 330). Not only a wise ruler, she is also known as a “wise woman,” in fairy-tale language: a witch. She is wise not because of good judgment but because she “know[s] secrets and [she] can seek out things hidden” (Gaiman 330).

  This occult knowledge is revealed to her through her scrying mirror. The queen’s mirror, in both the Grimms’ and Disney’s versions, is traditionally understood as a sign of her pride and obsession with her beauty. The queen’s continual return to the mirror in these versions can’t help but evoke images of Narcissus. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Narcissus falls in love with his reflection in a pool of water (not realizing it is his own image that he adores) and dies of starvation rather than leave sight of himself. Though the tale is often a warning against excessive obsession with self, it could be read instead as a warning against the dangers of lacking self-awareness. There is no reason to believe that Narcissus would have felt compelled to stay by the water if he knew it was his own reflection that enamored him. The problem is not Narcissus’ adoration of himself, but the alienation expressed in his inability to recognize his own image.

  Similarly, in “Schneewittchen” the queen does not merely view herself in the mirror, but she uses the art of scrying to determine who is “the fairest one of all.” When the specularized vision does not return her own reflection, she is enraged. While this serves as further proof of the queen’s narcissism for the Grimms and Disney, Gaiman’s take is a bit more complex. When Gaiman’s queen gazes into her mirror, she is not seeking validation of self-worth in her own reflection or even inquiring as to how she compares physically with other women. Instead, she looks into the mirror to see the outside world. Yet, as a woman in a patriarchal world, she is the also the mirror upon which the world is projected by the male ego (Whitford 34). She is, therefore, looking to herself for wisdom and for knowledge. When she looks in the mirror she finds the princess and strikingly, the only time she sees her own reflection, it is in the princess’ dark eyes. The queen and the princess are not mirror images of each other, but it is only through the other that they are able to see themselves. In their own ways, they are both aspiring to be “the fairest of all.”

  Though the princess’ skin is fair to the point of pastiness, the queen’s fairness goes beyond superficial skin pigmentation. She is fair in her dealings with her subjects, including the notably named “Lord of the Fair.” But in the end, th
e people side with the young princess, celebrating the death of the queen and embellishing the lies. For in the realm of fairy tales, it is easier to believe in a cannibalistic evil stepmother than it is to believe in a strong woman, ruling fairly and independently of a man. This is in part because phallocentrism privileges that which can be seen. The queen exceeds a phallocentric economy because as a “wise woman,” she utilizes the non-phallic wisdom of witchcraft, the only way of knowing reserved for women in fairy tales. Additionally, because her subjects valorize her for this ability, the queen represents the possibility of a world outside a phallocentric economy.

  But escape from patriarchy isn’t easy and the queen’s major misstep is an attempt to exert power “safely” within patriarchal structure. She attempts to form an alliance with the prince of a neighboring land through sexual commerce. This prince needs a frigid body to be aroused. He demands that she “must neither move nor speak” during intercourse and implores her to “[j]ust lie there on the stones, so cold and so fair” (Gaiman 336). The queen is a passionate woman however and she “match[es] him, grind for grind, push for push” and “moan[s]” (Gaiman 336). This vocalization of the queen’s passion immediately renders the prince impotent. He requires the trappings of death and absolute submission to maintain an erection. He is aroused only by that which he believes he can control: the inert. He takes but is unwilling to be taken. Pleasure other than his own is terrifying and paralyzing.

  The next morning, when he finds Snow White on the side of the road, he believes that he has found his perfect woman, though she is barely more than a child. His ownership is built on belief that the princess is nothing more than a body, a lifeless doll that he can own. What sort of man discovers a comatose fifteen-year old girl encased in glass coffin and buys her, sarcophagus and all, from the seven dwarfs who entombed her? Gaiman’s answer is unambiguous: a man with a small penis (Gaiman 336). It’s as though the value of the penis is so great that a man with a small sex organ must be reduced to the deviance of necrophilia.

  Just as with the princess however, Gaiman uses the character of the prince to undermine patriarchy with its own ideals. The prince is the type of man a phallocentric economy inevitably creates. According to Irigaray, “[t]he more or less exclusive—and highly anxious—attention paid to the erection in Western sexuality ... offers nothing but imperatives dictated by male rivalry: the ‘strongest being the one who has the best “hard-on,” the longest, the biggest, the stiffest penis’” (Irigaray 24). The prince has bought into the male rivalry of patriarchy but in this, as in every competition, there are those who fall short. The prince’s very body betrays and emasculates him. The queen, in rendering him impotent, represents metaphorical castration and for that she must pay.

  The recently reanimated princess becomes the enforcer of this punishment as she reinstates the patriarchal hierarchy. She is the fulfillment of the patriarchal structure. She embodies the external traits of virginity, complete with physical submission epitomized in the image of her unconscious body encased in glass. Though the reader knows the princess will control and dominate the prince as she did her father, she has no power of consequence without him. She needs a phallus; any phallus will do. Even the prince’s “small, slippery thing” (Gaiman 336) will suffice because the tiniest penis is still more than the woman’s “nothing to see” (Irigaray 26). As we learn from Lacan, one need not have a penis to wield the phallus. Gaiman’s tale reveals however, that while Lacan may be correct, even when wielding the phallus, a woman is dehumanized in patriarchy. Power is parasitic in a phallocentric economy. One must always be privileged at the cost of all others. The one must constantly be reminded of the others, the not-one, or it is rendered impotent and falls limp.

  In the end, the reader realizes the distinctions between the queen and the princess are small but significant. The queen manipulates to gain access to a power structure that she then attempts to restructure. Where the queen attempts to maneuver discreetly within patriarchy, masquerading in the roles assigned to her, the princess fulfills these roles and in doing so reveals the limits of patriarchy. The princess becomes the enforcer of the patriarchal hierarchy. Though the princess literalizes patriarchal fears of feminine sexuality, it is the queen who becomes the scapegoat for those fears.

  “Snow, Glass, Apples” is self-consciously aware that it contrasts with other versions of the tale and does not attempt to pass itself off as the original tale. Snow White remains the heroine in the traditional sense because it is she, and not the queen, who “lives happily ever after.” Even though, in Gaiman’s version, it is the young princess who is evil and unnatural, it is still the queen who dies in the end. Gaiman reminds us that the truth of history is the tale the victor tells. Where Perrault, et al., absolve incestuous fathers, vilify dying mothers, and incriminate victimized daughters from behind the mask of omnipotent narrator and impartial critic, Gaiman’s queen pleads her case to the audience directly. This shift in narration reminds the reader that there is another version, told from someone else’s perspective, and the queen herself reiterates this by acknowledging “my soul and my story are my own, and will die with me” (Gaiman 339).

  Just before she is thrown into the kiln to be cooked for the wedding feast, the queen catches the princess’s eye: “She was not laughing, or jeering, or talking. She did not sneer at me or turn away. She looked at me, though; and for a moment I saw myself reflected in her eyes” (Gaiman 339). This moment signifies a changing of the guard. The queen’s reflection is both literal and figurative. Metaphorically, the queen sees her own ambitions and striving for power within a phallocentric economy. Both the queen and her stepdaughter are women who attempt to control their fate in a patriarchal world. As the queen roasts to her death, “[l]ies and half-truths fall like snow, covering the things that [she] remembers, the things that [she] saw. A landscape, unrecognizable after a snowfall; that is what [the princess] has made of [the queen’s] life” (Gaiman 328). This indistinguishable terrain of earth, dirt, rocks, and vegetation–the tangible, fertile ground the queen and her late husband tended, served, and represented–has been lost and all that remains are stories washed as white as snow.

  The modern age is one that is at least partially invested in hearing the other side of the story. The commercial success of Gregory Maguire’s Wicked, and the Broadway adaptation of the same name, demonstrates a desire to align with, or at least understand, our cultural “villains.” Modern readers question those who claim to be “as good as they are beautiful.” No longer seeing the audience as blameless victims, readers recognizes and value the flaws and imperfections of our heroes and heroines. There is a cultural distrust of perfection and, on some level, a certain schadenfreude in seeing it exposed as false. The catharsis of seeing the villain drawn and quartered or cooked alive is now occasionally replaced by another release: the catharsis of seeing the hero and heroine knocked off their pedestals and revealed to be hypocrites and villains. Interestingly, the endings remain the same. Authors like Gaiman and Maguire don’t make everything turn out okay for the misunderstood villain. The ostensible heroine still triumphs over her adversaries, but there is a certain satisfaction in merely knowing that her perfect ending is not so perfect after all. At the end of the tale, even though there is a marriage celebration and a king back on the throne, we have gone too far to believe in the happily ever after.

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