Women like Susan Smith, Andrea Yates, and Casey Anthony are all infamous in the media for killing their own children. These women are viewed as ruthless killers, even more so than most murderers that have been convicted, because a mother killing her own child is viewed as a particularly horrible event. A mother carries her child for nine months, raises him, takes care of his every need, and supposedly loves and protects him unconditionally. A mother who goes against this natural path is considered inhuman, a monster so to speak. It is believed that only a coldhearted, vicious, mentally unstable person could commit such a horrible crime. This, however, raises the question of why this murdering of one’s children (filicide) is an ever-present theme in many commonly known fairy tales. Even though it is often the stepmother who wants to commit the awful act, she is the figure filling the maternal role in the story, making it just as horrible of an intention. In “Tom Thumb,” the ogre kills all of his seven daughters, and in “Hansel and Gretel,” the stepmother sends her defenseless children off into the woods to die a horrible death. These parental figures seem not to have a care in the world for these weak, naive children, and are disturbingly numb to the awful deed they intend to commit. The Brother Grimm’s version of “Snow White” is particularly focused on this theme of adults murdering children. The story focuses mostly on the queen’s many attempts at murdering her young stepchild. Stories like “Snow White” have become so widely accepted because they reflect theories in psychology, such as ones by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Inner feelings and desires are latent within both children and adults, and can be manifested healthily in fairy tales. The purpose of filicide in fairy tales, specifically “Snow White,” is to allow the child to deal with these latent feelings about their parents that they can’t understand in a safe, practical way. Although critics like Michelle Ann Abate believe that this solution is aimed more at the parent, I believe that since the target audience of these tales are children, the development gained in this situation is the child’s.
The Brothers Grimm spared no gory detail in their telling of “Snow White.” They tell a story of an evil queen whose stepdaughter’s beauty surpasses her own, and she becomes so angry that she commands almost immediately that the girl be killed. She commands a huntsman to “take the child away to the forest… kill her and bring me back her lung and liver as a token” (Grimm 250). Not only is the queen willing to commit the murder of her child, but she also requests a bloody trophy as a proof that it was done. She has no emotion about committing such a horrible act. Even more disturbingly, when the huntsman returns with false organs because he had sympathy for the child and let her live, the queen “ate them and thought she had eaten the lung and liver of Snow-white” (Grimm 251). A mother eating her child is the only thing that can be considered worse than murdering him, and in this tale The Brothers Grimm are so “matter a fact” about it, and don’t end the homicidal attempts here. The queen “thought and thought again how she might kill her” (Grimm 253). The queen then makes two more unsuccessful attempts at Snow-white’s life, trying suffocation through laces and poison through a comb. The Brothers Grimm are fully aware of the horrible acts that are written, calling the queen “wicked,” and describing her as using “witchcraft, which she understood.” (Grimm 254) These deeds in the tale are horrible, and the world acknowledges that, but yet murder of children in fairytales is still an accepted idea. Even Disney, in his purified movie of “Snow White,” included the queen’s final attempt to kill the beautiful child. The poison apple that is offered by the queen to Snow-white in the Grimm version, is repeated through out all the modern tellings of the tale. It is not until the prince rescues her that our heroine gets her happy ending, and the queen thinks herself successful for a short period of time, and shows no sympathy at witnessing the apparent death of her child. She even laughs over her body. (Grimm 256) These gruesome elements in the tale strengthen the question of why this element of filicide is so accepted into the genre of children’s literature.
Michelle Ann Abate, in her critical analysis titled “You Must Kill Her,” explores this question thoroughly. She argues “that the fairy tale is a product of wish fulfillment or fantasy, but on behalf of its adult readers, not its child readers” Abate discusses how fairy tales are stories written by adults and are intended for adult audiences, and therefore they endure because because they’re constantly being rewritten by men and women, and not girls and boys. She concludes that “the murderous impulses in the story may be viewed as the result of parental wishes and desires instead of those belonging to children,” and that it “allows parents the opportunity to indulge in homicidal fantasies about their children.” Abate further proves that fairytales like The Grimm Brother’s version of “Snow White” have become, over time, more expressive of adult feelings and themes, and include taboo subject matters and sexual innuendo that the children are too innocent to understand. (Abate 180) However, while I agree on the matter that fairy tales are an expression of inner desires, I believe that it is the children who are being directly targeted. These tales, while written by adults, are being told over to an audience of mostly children. There is a quote by Albert Einstein ““If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” Fairy tales are meant, and have always been meant for children, therefore any development assistance in the tales must be geared towards them.
Other critics like Bruno Bettelheim have similar analyses. Abate cites him in her critical article saying that he “argues in The Uses of Enchantment (1975), the story of “Snow White” is the product of the repressed feelings, hidden desires, and forbidden feelings of its juvenile readers. In Bettelheim’s reading the tale is not about a stepmother who is jealous of her daughter but about a daughter who is jealous of her mother” (Abate 179) These critics are in agreement that the point of adults murdering children in tales, is that the self deals with repressed and hidden desires and fantasies in a healthy unobtrusive way. Bettelheim further argues that “the form and structure of fairy tales suggest images to the child by which he can structure his daydreams and with them give better direction to his life” . Specifically, in the tale of “Snow White,” the child is asisted in working through the powerful feelings of “filial jealousy”. (Abate 179) The reason filicide is so widely accepted in children’s tales, is because the point is not to take these gruesome themes literally, rather to subtly assist children in developing themselves healthily. These hidden inner demons are something that all children deal with psychologically, so it is justifiable that such tales are so widespread.
It is not just literary critics that believe in this. Psychologists Carl Jung and Sigmund Feud both have theories proving this point. Jung’s theory of individuation states that self develops out of an unconscious. It is a developmental process during which latent elements of personality, and the experiences of the person’s life become integrated over time into a well-functioning whole. (Stein) This proves that the child is dealing with inner desires that are unknown to him, and that need to be integrated into his healthy personality. Fairy tales are a common way of assisting in this. Freud’s theory of Psychosexual Development states that a child has one of two complexes, the Oedipus Complex, or the Electra Complex, depending on the child’s gender. These complexes arise in children because the son possesses a desire to “own” his mother, while the daughter possesses a desire for her father. (Mcleod) This can explain why the stepmother-child hatred is prevalent in so many stories. The children are projecting their inner desires on the story characters, and their jealousy of the parent is manifest in the filicide in the story.
Although murder of children in reality is a horrible event that the public disapproves strongly of, in fairy tales is it accepted and even encouraged. The act of filicide is a projection of the child’s inner desires involving that parent, and this is a healthy way to deal with these conflicts. Although critics like Abate argue that it’s the adults that are developing their inner desires, I believe that since the target audience of fairy tales has always been children, it is them who are assisted in their development through this process. Psychological theories of Jung and Freud stand behind that. “Snow White,” by the Brothers Grimm, is full of gory and disturbing details about child murder, but it is that fact that allows the story to endure like it has. Children can separate fairy tale from reality and can subsequently handle their inner desires without even knowing it.
Works Cited
Abate, Michelle Ann. “You Must Kill Her.” Marvels & Tales 26.2 (2012): 178-203. Academic Search Complete. Web. 11 Nov. 2013.
Egan, Louise B, Jacob Grimm, Wilhelm Grimm, Erin Wise, Karen Pritchett, Kay Life, Jada Rowland, Arlene Klemushin, Julia Noonan, and Richard Walz. The Classic Grimm’s Fairytales. Philadelphia: Courage Books, 1997. Print.
Mcleod, Saul. “Psychosexual Stages.” Psychosexual Stages. N.p., 2008. Web. 11 Nov. 2013.
Stein, Murray. “Individuation : Inner Work.” Journal of Jungian Theory and Practice 7.2 (2005): 1-13. Print
A Collection of Random Writings 