Mirror, Mirror: A Close Reading of Neil Gaiman's "Snow, Glass, Apples"
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, a German philosopher and poet, once famously said, “Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you” (Nietzsche Aphorism 146). We risk transforming into the very darkness we try to overcome. In Neil Gaiman’s “Snow, Glass, Apples,” the Witch Queen becomes embroiled in the years-long pursuit of one goal: to rid the Kingdom (and herself) of her hauntingly-vampiric stepdaughter. The little vampire’s transgressions steadily escalate, requiring the Queen’s ever more careful strategizing.
Gaiman hints at the end from the beginning. However, he still manages to shock the reader as past and present collide. His narrative movement is powerfully displayed when the Queen muses, “If it were today, I would have her heart cut out, true. But then I would have her head and arms and legs cut off. I would have them disembowel her” (3). The repetitive flow of violent thoughts reveals the capacity for evil within the Queen’s own heart as she seeks and fails to destroy her wicked stepdaughter. Gaiman masterfully displays the Queen’s hypocrisy and descent into darkness by molding the passing of time: slowing the pace with detailed backstory, suspending time with sparse dialogue, and quickening the pace with action verbs in successions of threes.
Insightful backstories of the vampire’s victims draw the reader into the narrative. These serve as preludes to each of her assaults. Gaiman slows the pace as he first introduces us to the Queen, to the king’s “beard so red...hair so gold...eyes the blue of a summer sky” (1), and finally to the mysterious princess with “eyes...black as coal, black as her hair; her lips...redder than blood” (1) who “would not eat with [them]” (1). The attention to such physical attributes as skin and hair throughout the telling is a powerful motif that connects the beginning and end of the piece. The princess's “hair as black as coal, her lips as red as blood, her skin, snow-white” (11) again become the Queen’s focal point at the end when the battle is decidedly lost.
From a slow-moving introduction, Gaiman suspends time when the little vampire first appears in the Queen’s chambers. She offers no response to the Queen’s “‘Here’” (2) and “‘Is it good?’” (2) as she takes and eats the apple. The one-sided conversation adds a mysterious air to the girl, focusing the reader’s attention. When she bites the Queen’s thumb, “[licking] and [sucking] and [drinking]” (2) from her hand, these three action verbs quicken the pace. The assault serves as a strong hint to the reader that the princess is slowly killing her father.
The King’s heinous death prompts the Queen’s first counterattack. The past mixes with the present as the Queen declares, “They say I was fooled...they say that and they are wrong” (3). Gaiman subtly calls up the present by using “was” to signal that the Queen is currently mulling over something that has already happened. When her men “[open the princess’s] blouse...cut out her heart…[and leave] her for dead,” (3) the story is once more thrown into the past as the pace accelerates dramatically with the rhythmic flow of verbs. The Queen does not personally cut out her stepdaughter’s heart, but the ease with which she commands others to do so, on her behalf, is just as disturbing.
The Forest Folks’ more elaborate, lengthier backstory slows the pace and plunges the reader even deeper into the telling. Although they were “a greedy, feral, dangerous people” (4), after five annual Spring Fairs “[f]ewer of the forest folk came out of the forest to buy. Those who did seemed subdued and listless” (4). Gaiman pointedly supplies strong, masculine imagery to emphasize that something abnormal is happening to an otherwise formidable group of people.
This introduction to the Forest Folk amplifies the emotional impact of the princess’s attack on the monk. Time stops when the vampire and monk come face to face but do not speak at all. The monk eagerly tosses her a coin and the pace quickens again as she “[catches] it, [nods] and [goes] to him...[h]is eyes [opening], then…[closing] again [as] she drank” (5). Gaiman uses two sets of action verbs grouped in threes to move the plot forward and hook the reader. This second assault singularly represents the steady demise of the Forest Folk over those five years since the Queen took her stepdaughter’s heart. Gaiman skillfully controls the pacing as both the Queen and the reader realize that the princess is still alive.
Time slows down as the Queen “obtain[s] those things [she will] need” (6) to retaliate. She reads “old books…[and spends] time with the gypsy women” (6) as though conducting reconnaissance to defeat her enemy. The reader follows her with bated breath into the forest as she approaches the princess’s dwelling. The Queen’s “Mound of Venus [throbs] and [pulses] as [the princess comes] towards [her]” (7). The rapid flow of action verbs seizes the reader as the plot pushes on. Then, time stands still with the scarce use of dialogue: “‘Ribbons, goodwife,’” [the Queen] croaked. ‘Pretty ribbons for your hair…’’’(7). She receives no audible reply. Gaiman builds tension and suspense by restraining dialogue. The reader is left to greedily consume the proceeding lines of text, searching for what comes next. When the Queen “[drops her] basket…[screeches]...and [runs]” (7) the succession of action verbs again rushes the telling forward. The princess falls for the ruse and eats the apple. The Queen’s second counterattack is more direct and personal as she poisons her stepdaughter by her own hand.
The final, detailed backstory that Gaiman offers the reader slowly reveals a harrowing reversal of fate. There is a lingering sense of impending doom when “[the prince rides] with a small retinue...small enough that another monarch...would not view him as a potential threat” (7). Gaiman includes the prince’s assumed intentions and the Queen’s observations to prepare the reader for the exact opposite to unfold. The prince is indeed a threat to her kingdom. Our foreboding builds as the he sexually rejects the Queen and encounters the “sleeping” princess in the forest. The reader is thrown into the present when the Queen, with a resigned air, declares, “I cannot say...did [the princess’s] mouth open...as the blood…[washed] down...the lump of apple...my poison? I imagine. I do not know” (10). Her questioning and wondering plant seeds of doubt in the reader’s mind as the tone of the narrative shifts to one of defeat. Gaiman’s intermittent use of sparse dialogue increases the tension as the Queen's questions go unanswered.
Time is suspended as reality slowly sets in for both the reader and the Queen. When the princess appears for a second time, albeit more forcefully, in the Queen’s chambers, the reader is brought full circle through the telling. The Queen’s fate is sealed as her stepdaughter “pull[s] down the twine on which her heart was hanging... pull[s] off the dried rowan berries...pull[s] off the garlic bulb” (10), and the pace accelerates as “she open[s] her breast...she lick[s] her heart...and she push[s] the heart deep into her breast” (10). This is another moment where two sets of action verbs grouped in threes work together to move the plot forward. Gaiman’s expansion of this scene, in contrast to the brevity with which the Queen’s men removed the princess’s heart, strongly signals that the battle has been lost.
“Snow, Glass, Apples” is a terrifying story well told. Gaiman manipulates time so well that the reader nearly forgets that the bulk of the narrative is in the past. He slows, suspends, and quickens the pace to show that the more grievous the princess’s crimes, the more involved the Witch Queen becomes. The more involved the Queen becomes, the more evident her own capacity for evil. Gaiman’s subtle shifts in tense jolt the reader back to the present, showing that as she reflects on her predicament, there is no remorse or regret for her violent tactics. In the end, as she stands on the precipice of a burning death, gaze locked with the princess, the Queen “[sees] herself reflected in [her stepdaughter’s] eyes” (11). Eyes as cold as snow and as dark as the abyss. The reader now understands that the two are one and the same, willing to stop at nothing unto the other’s complete destruction. Gaiman’s dark fairy tale does not pit good against evil, but rather, reflects on the depth of our hypocrisy. We become what we hate.
Works Cited
Gaiman, Neil. “Snow, Glass, Apples”. Snow, Glass, Apples. https://canvas.harvard.edu/.
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhem. Beyond Good and Evil. Dragon Classics, 2020.
Photo Credit: Moritz Kindler @moritz_photography
