The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School Department of Communication Arts and Sciences THE EVOLUTION OF SNOW WHITE: A CLOSE TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF THREE VERSIONS OF THE SNOW WHITE FAIRY TALE A Dissertation in Speech Communication by John Hanson Saunders © 2008 John Hanson Saunders Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2008 The dissertation of John Hanson Saunders was reviewed and approved* by the following: Stephen H. Browne Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee Thomas W. Benson Edwin Earle Sparks Professor of Rhetoric Tony M. Lentz Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences Steven L. Herb Education Librarian James P. Dillard Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences Head of the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School iii ABSTRACT The fairy tale “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” has endured hundreds of revisions and retellings throughout the last several centuries. Each version of this story carries with it traces of the author or authors and of the culture that produced that particular version. The meta- narrative must remain somewhat intact for any version to be recognizable as a variation of the Snow White tale. However, the elements that are added or subtracted by each author or authors make each version unique. This work presents a close textual analysis of three popular versions of the Snow White fairy tale. The focus of this work is not to just highlight how versions are different, but rather to isolate the unique variants of each version. Once separated from the meta-narrative, these elements can be examined for the rhetorical choices made by each author or authors. I make the claim that by looking at what changed over time within versions of this one specific tale; one can read aspects of the individual cultures that produced each version. I examine the first published version by the Brothers Grimm, the Walt Disney film, and the Michael Cohn film. These three versions are separated by one hundred and eighty-seven years and were produced in three very different cultures. I briefly present aspects of the three distinct cultures, changes made within the three narratives with analysis of those changes, and character studies for how each character was adapted for a new version. This evolution of the story and characters over time displays unique cultural traces present in each version that can allow rhetorical scholars to examine and understand possible cultural influences as they are manifest in one meta-narrative over time. This study explains how cultural traces can be seen in the variations between versions. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.....................................................................................................vii Chapter 1 Fairy Tales as Unique Rhetorical Texts .................................................................1 The Choice of Snow White for Examination...................................................................7 Methodology ....................................................................................................................13 Outline of Chapters ..........................................................................................................17 Chapter 2 The Need for Close Contextual Analysis...............................................................20 Germany in the Early 1800s.............................................................................................23 Family ......................................................................................................................24 Education and Religion ............................................................................................26 Politics......................................................................................................................28 The Transition from the Oral Tradition to Print.......................................................30 The Brothers Grimm ................................................................................................35 The Collective Germany ..........................................................................................39 The United States in the Late 1930s ................................................................................39 The Political Culture of 1930s America...................................................................40 The Great Depression...............................................................................................41 The General Need for Entertainment .......................................................................44 The Medium of Film ................................................................................................45 Advertising and Merchandising ...............................................................................49 Walt DIsney .............................................................................................................50 The Collective 1930s United States .........................................................................52 The United States in the Late 1990s ................................................................................52 The New Role of Fathers in Film.............................................................................53 The Changes in the Children’s Film Genre..............................................................54 The Collective 1990s United States .........................................................................56 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................56 Chapter 3 Close Contextual Analysis of the Story .................................................................57 The Brothers Grimm Edition ...........................................................................................62 Origin .......................................................................................................................64 Jealousy....................................................................................................................65 Expulsion..................................................................................................................66 Adoption...................................................................................................................67 Death ........................................................................................................................68 Exhibition.................................................................................................................69 Resuscitation ............................................................................................................70 Resolution ................................................................................................................71 The Disney Edition ..........................................................................................................72 Origin and Jealousy..................................................................................................76 Expulsion..................................................................................................................79 v Adoption...................................................................................................................81 Renewed Jealousy and Death...................................................................................83 Exhibition, Resuscitation, and Resolution ...............................................................85 The Cohn Edition.............................................................................................................86 Origin .......................................................................................................................89 Jealousy....................................................................................................................92 Expulsion..................................................................................................................93 Adoption...................................................................................................................94 Renewed Jealousy ....................................................................................................95 Death ........................................................................................................................95 Exhibition and Resuscitation....................................................................................97 Resolution ................................................................................................................98 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................99 Chapter 4 Analysis of Individual Characters ..........................................................................101 Snow White......................................................................................................................103 The Brothers Grimm Edition....................................................................................104 The Disney Edition...................................................................................................107 The Cohn Edition .....................................................................................................110