Comparing Snow White And Rapunzel By Grimm

The Grimm Brothers are well known for collecting and publishing German fairy tales. This paper will explore the stark contrast of the villains’ personalities in the stories “Snow White” and “Rapunzel.” While the evil queen - and stepmother - of Snow White is jealous and obsessive, the witch in Rapunzel is more motherly and acts as though she cares for Rapunzel. The evil queen in Snow White is “proud and overbearing” (Grimm and Grimm 1). When she learns through her magic mirror that Snow White is fairer than she is, the reader is told that “envy and pride like ill weeds grew in her heart higher every day, until she had no peace day or night” (Grimm and Grimm 1). Her pride and envy fuel her devilish actions throughout the story. Because of this obsession, she becomes “yellow and green with envy” and unreasonably, “she hates” Snow White (Grimm and Grimm 1). Contrary to this, in Rapunzel, when a man sneaks into the witch’s yard to steal some lettuce, she asks for his …show more content…
“‘O, wicked child!’ cried the witch, ‘what is this I hear! I thought I had hidden thee from all the world, and thou hast betrayed me!’” (Grimm and Grimm 1). While the witch is clearly painted as an antagonist in this story, her motivation for being upset at Rapunzel differs from the evil queen’s hatred of Snow White. The witch is doing all she can to protect Rapunzel from the world, as many overprotective parents wish to do. She also doesn’t attempt to murder her, showing that even though she’s angry, she still loves Rapunzel. All villains have their similarities. They stand in the way of the protagonist and are generally written as unlikeable. However, the key personality differences between the queen in “Snow White” and the witch in “Rapunzel” epitomize how well-written stories and fairy tales don’t necessarily utilize the same archetypes for their characters, including the