Trust Issues with Snow White

Photo: Denis Defreyne

I have always been fascinated by fairy tales because they so timelessly tell stories of basic human emotions like love, compassion and trust on the positive spectrum and hate, vanity, greed and others on the negative one.

After watching Snow White for the n-th time with my daughter, I realized that this fairy tale is all about trust. In the original version (not the shorter, modernized version a la Disney), Snow White gets tricked by the queen (a.k.a. the wicked stepmother) not once but three times.

The first time, the queen is disguised as a peddler woman selling her wares. She tempts Snow White with a beautiful hand-embroidered girdle as payment for Snow White offering her water. Snow White refuses on account of it being too valuable. The woman then entices her to at least try it on and ties it around Snow White’s waist so tightly that she faints. The woman then reveals herself as the wicked queen and leaves Snow White for dead.

When the dwarfs return, they loosen the girdle and thus revive Snow White. The first question they ask is telling. They want to know: “Why did you trust her?”. Snow White replies: “Because she looked like a peddler woman.” Harmless, in other words.

In a scene crucial to the meaning of the fairy tale, a discourse by the dwarfs follows. They advise Snow White: “You have to be very careful. You can’t trust anyone you don’t know.” They even confirm: “Nobody.” Reluctantly, Snow White promises not to.

To make sure Snow White really gets it, the dwarfs reiterate their advice the next day before leaving for work. “I must not trust strangers and not accept anything from them,” Snow White repeats their warning. Seeing how sad this makes her, the dwarfs explain: “The queen is evil. Evil finds a thousand ways, a thousand deceits.” Snow White asks: “So I can trust no one?” to which the dwarfs reply: “You can trust us.”

Photo: Rory MacLeod

Despite all this preparation, Snow White falls for the queen’s second disguise as a different old peddler woman, this time accepting a beautiful wooden comb. As she starts combing her hair with it, she faints because the comb was laced with poison and once again the queen leaves her for dead. When the dwarfs return from work, they revive Snow White by cutting a lock of hair in which the comb was stuck. Before they can ask anything, Snow White admits: “She tricked me again. I thought it was a simple comb.”

The dwarfs refrain from driving home their lesson again but urge Snow White the next morning before leaving for work: “Don’t let anyone in the house Snow White. No one.”

As expected, the queen appears again, this time in the disguise of an old farmer’s wife, peddling juicy apples. Now, Snow White is prepared and doesn’t even open the door. “I don’t know you and can’t take anything from you,” she says defiantly. The queen admits that this is good advice but tricks Snow White again by biting into the non-poisoned half of the apple. Thus convinced of its harmlessness, Snow White bites into the other half, chokes on the poisoned piece and once again, the queen leaves her for dead, convinced that this time, her mission was successful. When the dwarfs return, they realize that there is nothing they can do for Snow White. “She believed in goodness, was friendly and without any mistrust,” they say as her eulogy.  

Photo: martinak15

After initially watching the movie, I found myself getting annoyed with Snow White because the set-up seemed so simple, so easy to figure out. Yet, Snow White falls into the trap time and again and almost pays with her life. Stupid, I thought to myself, naïve. But then, it struck me that not Snow White was the stupid one but I.

Because I had judged her for being gullible when in fact, she was pure at heart and not corrupted by fear of strangers and paranoia. She takes people at face value and is always ready to help – the first time offering water to the peddler and shelter from a storm (induced by the queen)  the second time.

Would it have been better for her to live in fear of the queen returning, shaking like a leaf and peeing her pants at the mere thought of being confronted with her again? How often do we tell our children “do not talk to strangers, do not accept anything from them?”, screwing up their natural trust a little bit more each time.
Sure, things happen and it certainly makes sense to warn children of the evils that may come their way but often we forget to emphasize that this is a possibility, not a certainty. Do we really want our children to mistrust every stranger they meet? Fear every new person in their lives?

Certainly not, especially when at the same time, we do present them with strangers all the time – new friends, other children, teachers and acquaintances that they’re supposed to be friendly with because we know them.

Even the dwarfs’ advice doesn’t make sense because if she had trusted no one, Snow White wouldn’t have trusted the dwarfs either. She would have been forced to wander the forest some more and deal with the queen on her own.

The moral of the story is, I guess, to trust by default and to mistrust when our instinct tells us to. And not to label trusting people as naïve, gullible or stupid. There’s nothing wrong with that. We all are all of these things at times. And it’s okay. Trust is good. Essential. Now how to be more in tune with our instincts will have to wait for another blog post.