Folk tales and narcissism.

Today Robin talks about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Summary:

A queen gives birth to a girl who has white skin, red lips and black hair and thus is named Snow White. She dies thus the king marries another woman. She is pretty but evil. The years go by. Blooming Snow White becomes fertile which triggers the stepmom`s whish to kill her. Snow White escapes and is sheltered by seven dwarfs. The evil stepmom dresses up like an old woman, visits and and poisons the heroine. While the dwarfs mourn her death a prince comes along and kisses the dead Snow White (lying in a glass coffin) which brings her back to life. The evil queen is lured into the prince’s castle and, as a punishment, has to dance in red-glowing shoes until she collapses.

Robin’s interpretation:

The evil queen is a narcissist who constantly looks into her magic mirror, which confirms that she is the most beautiful in all the land. Unfortunately, she is getting on in years and her beauty is fading away – a young girl at court is much more beautiful. So she has to be killed. (The aristocratic status is of no importance – you can also be jealous of things that have nothing to do with money and/or political power.)

The wicked stepmother/queen is smarter and more cunning than naive Snow White who is more beautiful instead. So the moral of the story is really: appereance is more important than intelligence.

Snow White has black hair, red lips and white skin. Black symbolises death, darkness and seperation, white is light and neutrality and red (with women) vertility. So Snow White looks a little like a goth but symbolises life.

The dwarfs are seven in number which means luck. (If the dwarfs were 13 they would represent bad luck)

So the whole tale is about the conflict between old and new, past and future, downfall and new beginning.  And a psychopathic woman who is aging.