Mirror Mirror on the wall.....As for mirrors:-

R wrote "I've been meaning to do the apple a day for sometime now. Not sure in what way yet, perhaps Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Wasn't there a Prince Charming to the rescue in that story?"  

Clara - One of the rather 'grim' fairy tales by the Grimm Brothers; I have wondered at times at their violent nature,  when reading such stories to young children (but they  love them!)   I can't count the number of times I have been asked to repeatedly read Cinderella to one child (male). It was a long and rather tedious version and of course any verbal editing was instantly picked up.

"Snow White" was first collected by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, and was translated into English in the 1820s. Its present status as one of the best loved of the stories collected by the Grimm brothers seems to derive from the fact that in 1937, Walt Disney turned it into an animated film. In the film the seven dwarfs have been given names, and personalities to match those names: Happy, Sleepy, Doc, Bashful  

Yes, there was a Prince Charming, but he was relatively unimportant since all he did was look at Snow White as she lay under glass, thought she was beautiful and kissed her - which brought her out of her coma.  (A  little like Robin Hood did with Maid Marion). And as far as the apple was concerned, it is not a good association since it was poisoned. 

No, what this story is about is far more sinister........  'Wicked Stepmothers and MIRRORS!!  And much much more - perhaps the forerunner to Anorexia, Narcissism, Obsession with Appearance, Shallow Hal etc 

 "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all? " is not a good question to ask in the first place.  Fraught with difficulty, before you even get an answer. 

As far as stepmothers are concerned, one theory is that folktales use the figure of the stepmother in order to say things about rivalries and mother/daughter relationships and relationships between older and younger women which are unacceptable when said about actual mothers, (who are often killed off early in the story so they can be left on a pedestal.) 

The simple social reality of the time, however could be that so many women died in childbirth that stepmothers were a common fact of life, who might also be keen to safeguard their birthchildren's access to limited resources, such as available Princes, as in Cinderella.

As for mirrors, I learnt in my photography course, that they turn you back the front so obviously they can't be trusted. 









Footnote- Bruno Bettelheim, a child psychologist, famous for his research on autism, recommends in his book, 'The Uses of Enchantment', that "children be immersed in the world of fantasy and fairy tales throughout their childhood since reading fairy tales contributes toward their healthy and confident attitudes about the challenges and terrors of this life."



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