Girl With A Pearl Earring Gender Analysis

In both Girl With A Pearl Earring and Snow White, the men are seen doing the hard work while women do easier tasks. The type of work each gender does exhibits the stereotype that men are strong and capable while women are inadequate of doing challenging tasks. In Girl With A Pearl Earring, Griet shows a strong interest in Vermeer’s paintings. Her fascination causes Vermeer to make her grind many objects, which are then used to make a variety of paint colors. Some of these objects include ivory, white lead, madder, and massicot. However, Vermeer denies Griet the privilege to grind lapis lazuli. Griet explains, “Lapis lazuli was so expensive, and the process of extracting a pure blue from the stone is so difficult, that he worked with it himself”(Chevalier,

During Griet’s visit to a nearby butcher in Girl With A Pearl Earring, she meets the son of the butcher named Pieter. She and Pieter soon become close, even though Griet sometimes feels uncomfortable around him. After a while, Griet’s family invites Pieter to their house for dinner. Griet realizes that her mother sees Pieter as a source of food. Griet says, “A butcher’s wife-and her parents-would always eat well”(Chevalier, pg 120). Griet also says that Pieter began to send her mother “gifts of meat”(Chevalier, pg 121). Since Griet and her family are in the poor side of the economy, they do not have as much to eat as others. Despite this, Pieter is invited over for dinner by Griet’s family. Griet’s mother then becomes dependant on Pieter for the meat he sends her to feed herself and Griet. She also knows that if Griet and Pieter get into a serious relationship, everyone if the family would eat sufficiently for the rest of their lives because Pieter is a butcher. Griet 's mother and Pieter both assume their expected role as Griet’s mother begins to rely on Pieter for meat. In the same way Griet’s mother relies on Pieter for meat, Snow White depends on the Prince to save her life. In Snow White, the Queen constantly tries to kill Snow White out of jealousy. As a final attempt to kill Snow White, the Queen makes a poisonous apple and visits Snow White at the Dwarf’s house. Snow White bites the apple and instantly falls into suspended animation. The Dwarfs put her in a glass casket as a memory. After a long time, a Prince goes into the forest and sees Snow White. He asks the Dwarfs if he can take Snow White to his palace and they agree. The Prince then picked up the casket and “had it carried away” right before he tripped and the “poisonous piece of apple which Snow White had bitten off came out of her throat.”