The Importance Of Power In Jacob And Wilhelm Grimm's Snow White

The need for power in Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s “Snow White” is evident in the evil stepmother’s actions. Upon looking at herself in the mirror every day she asks: “‘Mirror, Mirror, here I stand. Who is the fairest in the land?’” (148). Being accustomed to the mirror telling her that she is in fact the fairest in the land, she is in a state of dismay to find out, for the first time, it is her step daughter who is more fair than her. This leads the evil stepmother into a wild pursuit for power, where she is willing to kill her stepdaughter in order to once again be the “fairest” and most powerful, it is here that food comes in to play. Cannibalism is of importance in “Snow White” as it shows the evil stepmothers power in one of its most significant ways, proving she has complete supremacy over the girl: “The cook was ordered to salt and stew them, and the godless woman ate them, thinking she was eating Snow White’s lungs and liver” (148).

What is thought to be the ultimate defeat of Snow White occurs thanks to the apple, however, it is the apple that ends up saving her life all at the same time: “[A]s they were carrying it away they stumbled over a root. The jolt shook the poisoned core, which Snow White had bitten off, out of her throat, and soon she opened her eyes … and was alive again” (153). It is the apple that brings Snow White power in the end of the story, allowing her to marry a prince and become even more authoritative than her own stepmother