The Snow Child: Notes!

NOTES

The Snow Child or: How I Learned to Start Worrying and Be Sickened by Snow White

As we know, The Snow Child is about a Count and "his" Countess; they wonder into a snowy forest and the husband (coming across a pool of blood, a raven and even SOME SNOW, surprisingly enough) begins to wish he had a girl with all features similar to the things he has come across (blood red lips, white skin and black hair like raven plumage). The Countess becomes a little disheartened over the Count's sudden attention towards the girl, who is now sitting on the horse alongside the Count. So the Countess decides to try and get the girl down by throwing her own clothes and possessions onto the ground and ordering the girl to get them, but the Count dismisses the orders. That is until the Countess requests that the girl gets a rose; the Count allows this and the girl gets the rose but a thorn pricks her finger and, rather abruptly, dies. Following this, the Count defiles her corpse. Once he is finished, the corpse melts and leaves behind the rose, a pool of blood and a single feather.  

ALLEGORY FOR FAILING MARRIAGE

The film American Beauty (1999) also
explores a similar motive, with the husband
becoming obsessed with a younger ("purer")
woman than his wife.

After reading this, I felt as though it could be interpreted as an allegory for a failing marriage; presumably, one where the husband wishes to pursue extra-marital affairs with younger women due to more selfish motives like lust. We know that the Count and the Countess decide to go for a ride, like deciding marriage, and they end up riding in midwinter ("invincible, immaculate"). Taking into consideration the Countess' choice of clothing, it would appear that they did not predict such weather. Therefore, we could interpret the midwinter as a pathetic fallacy; the marriage has become bitter, cold and dead. The Count (representing the husband) has begun to fantasise about younger women, and the Countess is quite clearly jealous of this.

FETISHISM (and fetish in general, as if we didn't love the Gothic already)

Fetishism - (in terms of what we're talking about) "men" and their knack of separating women into body parts and judging from that (hey hey Tarantino!) - Snow Child's lips are red, as red as blood

Sigmund, here, is
quietly judging the Count...
...and you.

The Snow Child fetishes:
- Necrophilia - displayed when the Count copulates with corpse!
- Incest? - possibly referred to when the Count repeats "I wish I had a girl...", also the girl is essentially born from the Count (he does so IN HIS MIND)
Paedophilia - same point as above "girl"... hmm....

MARXISM

A pumpjack, slowly juicing
planet Earth (oh, Capitalism!)

There are possibly Marxist interpretations here:

- The girl is essentially composed of all natural elements (snow, blood, feather) but does not truly exist until the Count realises her. This could represent the way capitalism (the Count) bends and harms the nation for its own personal gain/profit.
- It's a thought I had, but I think that the defiling of the corpse may symbolise the rapid depletion of resources (e.g. oil crisis, deforestation, etc'). Essentially, the Count defiles the corpse to get what he can from what is left of her, until she melts away. This could represent how capitalism has destroyed the nation and is now exploiting what is remaining of the national corpse, and will do so until there is nothing left.
- The Count - a symbol of class. The Count is responsible for the defiling and creation of the girl, as the bourgeoisie are for harming the nation

...trying not to come across as Communist... 

(I swear, I've never read Das Kapital)

Daniel Plainview, demonstrating how to be a capitalist.