Student Readings of Anne Sexton Poem
Ansley Webb-AP English 12, 2011
Just Another Fairytale
In Anne Sexton’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” many new conflicts arise in the
familiar, childhood fairytale. The issues of beauty and vanity, the male-dominated society, and
the purity are all addressed. Throughout the poem, Sexton refers to Snow White as more of an
object, rather than a young girl and describes her with “cheeks as fragile as cigarette paper,
arms, and legs made of Limoges, lips like Vin Du Rhone, rolling her china-blue eyes open and
shut.”
The ongoing clash between beauty and vanity is present in the first description of Snow
White’s stepmother as beautiful in “her own right,” and when the mirror told her that she was
“the fairest of us all. Pride pumped in her like poison.” This states that vanity can send poison
through a person and corrupt the mind. Sexton also makes a point to express to her readers
what can do to someone by twisting the ending of the fairytale into Snow White becoming just
like her stepmother and “referring to her mirror as women do.” Beauty has a different affect on
Snow White. Most of the time, her beauty is what saves her. Because of her beauty, the hunter
released her, the dwarfs took her into their home, and the Prince saw her beauty through the
glass coffin and “would not budge.” Also, the diction used to emphasize the conflict between
beauty and vanity is based on color scheme. Anne Sexton refers to many colors to describe
characters and objects. For beauty, colors such as china-blue, pink, daisy, and gold are used. To
represent darkness and hideous objects, colors such as brown, green, red-hot, and black are
used.
In her rendition of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” Sexton stresses the lack of fact
and reality in the fairytale and the male-dominant society that is seen in most fairytales.
Through her sarcastic tone toward Snow White and the other characters, she illustrates her
belief that fairytales portray women as nothing but beautiful objects to be admired by men. She
makes Snow White into a robotic, unintelligent object and refers to her as a “dumb bunny.”
Whereas, the Prince is seen as strong, determined, and the savior of Snow White. Sexton
emphasized the dominate role of men and their self-proclaimed right to ownership by telling her
readers that Snow White “became the prince’s bride.” Anne Sexton also reveals maledominance by her long description of the dwarfs’ possessions and their orders they gave to
Snow White. To emphasize this, she used a repetition of the number seven. Snow White
entered the cottage and saw “seven beds, seven chairs, seven forks, and seven chamber pots.”
Then the dwarfs “asked her to stay and keep house [and] during the day, you must not open the
door.”
One of the biggest conflicts referred to throughout the poem, was the issue of purity. In
the first sentence, “No matter what life you lead the virgin is a lovely number,” the argument
over purity and innocence is introduced, almost immediately. Sexton uses her sarcastic tone to
call attention to the misconception that purity and virgin does not mean that the person is good.
Snow White’s name is an obvious use of vocabulary to stress her virginity. Also, Anne Sexton
describes many food-related scenes that represent how it could affect the entire body. When
discussing purity, foods such as soda pop, bonefish, hot dogs, wine, and butter are used.
Another example of Sexton’s emphasis on Snow White’s purity was when she had eaten the
poisonous apple and died for the final time. The seven dwarfs “could not bring themselves to
bury her in the black ground, so they made a glass coffin.” The black ground represents hell and
impurity, while the glass coffin represents the shallowness of Snow White.
“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” offers many patterns and shifts. When referring to
Snow White and her journey through the poem, pale and gorgeous colors are used, until the
end of the poem when there is a shift in Snow White and becomes a slight version of the
stepmother. When referring to her stepmother, dark and unattractive colors are present and
diction such as fire, poison, hacked, chewed, lapping, and killer are used. The shifts in the poem
are the jumps between Snow White’s, the stepmother’s, the dwarfs’ and the prince’s lives.
734 words
Student Sample 2
Anne Sexton’s poem “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” is a different take on the popular
Grimm tale. Sexton’s poem loses the timeless element. The poem has many modern day
references. For example, the bodice is wrapped “as tight as an ace bandage” and Snow White
has eyes “as wide as Orphan Annie”. These references enhance the imagery in the reader’s
mind, since these images are references that the modern reader understands. However, this
infusion of pop culture adds a modern element to the old fairy tale. The poem is told as a lesson,
as the author says “Beauty is a simple passion/ but, oh my friends, in the end/ you will dance the
fire dance in iron shoes”. The first person interjection gives the reader the feeling that the
Sexton is telling us this tale as a lecture. It adds a new spin on the traditional lesson that the
Grimms strived to put into their fairytales. The lesson in the poem comes from the author, not
the story itself. Lastly, Sexton refers to specific times: “on the seventh week” and “the prince
came one June day”. An important feature of the Grimm fairy tale is the timelessness. The fairy
tale is inspiring because of the idea that it can happen to anyone at any time. The poem loses
this feature by referring to specific times and using pop culturereferences.
Personally, I prefer the Grimm fairy tale, because of its timelessness. Part of the magic of
hearing it is being taken away from your own time and place. The poem, instead, roots you to
the present, because it causes you to think about references that come up in your everyday life
and the present time. The Grimm fairy tale carries you away from your on world and allows you
to dream about anytime you want: past, present or future. The poem has lost this important
feature by talking about specific time frames and using modern day references. Also, I think the
poem loses some of the beauty of the tale by showcasing the lesson. To me, the less obvious
message in the Grimm tale is preferable because you are able to analyze it on your own. The
Anne Sexton poem has an obvious message: vanity ultimately leads to destruction. I prefer the
Grimm fairy tale to the more modernize Anne Sexton poem because of its timelessness and
subtle message.
There is one element of the poem that I did like, and that is the ending. In the end, Sexton
narrates that Snow White gazes at herself in the mirror. This is not an action that the Grimm
Snow White ever completes. Sexton believes in a cyclical version of Snow White, where, in the
end, Snow White ends up like her stepmother. She is vain and therefore will eventually succumb
to a jealousy that feeds evil. The Grimm tale has a happy ending for Snow White, as she marries
the prince and the story ends. Nothing is ever mentioned about her life afterwards. In Sexton’s
version, it shows that Snow White cannot escape any unhappiness or evil through marriage,
because eventually the cycle will repeat itself and she will become like her evil stepmother.
Sample Three
Snow White (Grimm vs. Anne Sexton)
The Grimm version of Snow White and the Anne Sexton version are different in many ways. For
one, the Grimm version is a lot less sexual than Anne Sexton’s version is. Sexton includes a lot of
sexual insinuations throughout her poem. When Snow White is wandering through the woods
she implies her “sexual awakening” when she writes “At each turn there were twenty doorways
and at each stood a hungry wolf, his tongue lolling out like a worm” (Sexton 97). Another sexual
insinuation is when she refers to the dwarfs as “those little hot dogs” (Sexton 98). Another
difference between the two versions is the way that Anne Sexton infuses pop culture into her
poem. She mentions things like Ace bandages, daisies, and soda pop. Also, Anne gives a time
when the prince comes. She writes that the price comes in June, which is not only a transitional
month, but it also represents beauty. In the Grimm fairy tales the stories are usually timeless.
Although different, there is one main similarity between the two versions that I would like to
point out. In both versions, Snow White did not learn from her mistakes. Because of the
Zeitgeist, Snow White has to be a passive character. She repeatedly let the Queen fool her with
ribbons, combs, and finally with the apple that put her into a death like slumber. In my opinion,
the Anne Sexton version is better. I like how she includes things that make you thing and how
she refers to pop culture. I think the poem was a lot more interesting than the Grimm version.