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Jennifer Caravetto
Professor McClure
Writing 39B
24 October 2015
Snow, Glass, Apples
Neil Gaiman incorporates conventions of the horror genre in Snow, Glass, Apples and
compares it to the original story Snow White to see how the expectations found in Snow White
are subverted in Snow, Glass, Apples by switching the perspective of the story to the Queens
point of view instead of the princesss point of view. Snow, Glass, Apples has a similar storyline
to one of the most famous fairytales Snow White, but it is narrated from Snow Whites
stepmother, the Queens point of view. By looking at a familiar story in a different view, the
audience is able to connect to the rhetor more and learn that there may be multiple meanings to a
story that the audience may not have thought of. Also, by having a different narrator, the
expected roles of Snow White and Queen are altered. The usual Snow White is described as a
kind and gentle princess, with lips red as a rose and skin white as snow that got kicked out of her
palace by her evil stepmother and found her true love. However, in this story, Snow White is a
revolting vampire with black eyes, lips redder than blood and sharp teeth that killed many people
including her own father. On the other hand, the Queen is not portrayed as a vicious creature, but
rather a devoted partner to the king and kingdom who wishes to kill the demonic princess.
Changing the roles of Snow White and the Queen turned a familiar child-friendly story into a
horror story, creating surprise and a sense of threat in unexpected areas of the story.
Neil Gaiman utilizes conventions of horror to give the audience a sense of threat in an
ordinary fairytale. When the audience thinks about the story Snow White, they usually do not

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think about gory creatures or blood. However, in Snow, Glass, Apples, monsters do exist. The
princess who does not look like a monster turns out to be a vampire, she sank her teeth into
the base of my thumb, the Mound of Venus, and she drew blood (Gaiman). The princess in this
story is classified as threatening and impure because it is a monster that drew blood from a
human. Normal humans do not drink blood from another human, and anything that sucks blood
out of a human is a monster, making it threatening and impure. The expectation of the original
fairytale is subverted by making the innocent princess into a monster because nobody expects the
princess to be a blood-sucking monster.
The Queen was frozen and dominated by the princess about what had happened to her,
and the audience is also frozen and surprised by the identity of the princess. According to Noel
Carroll, the leading philosopher and the writer of The Nature of Horror, states that [the
audiences] emotions are supposed to mirror those of the positive human characters (Carroll). If
the protagonist of the story is scared, then the audience of the story also feels scared by the
antagonist. Since the Queen was feeling in awe and threatened by the princess, the audience also
felt threatened by the princess. By incorporating horror into the story, the audience is able to feel
fear and danger through the Queen. In the original story, nobody would think of Snow White as
the monster since everyone believes that the Queen is obviously the villain. However, through
the Queens point of view, Snow White is the villain, something that nobody would expect of. By
using the Queens point of view to observe Snow White, the audience is allowed to know more
about the Queen.
Neil Gaiman emphasizes how evil can be seen differently through the eyes of another
person. Gaiman lets the audience ponder about whom the real villain is in the story Snow, Glass,
Apples. The classic scene about the Queen making poisonous apples in Snow White is portrayed

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differently in Gaimans story. I took the three apples, one by one, and pricked their skins gently
with my silver pin. Then I placed the apples in the silver bowl, and let them sit there while the
first tiny flakes of snow of the year fell slowly onto my skin, and onto the apples, and onto the
blood (Gaiman). This scene is frightening because the Queen cut herself and used her blood to
make the apples. In the original story, everyone would think of the Queen as the evil creature that
tried to kill the princess. However, the typical expectation of the Queen is subverted when it is
seen through the Queens first-person point of view. According to James Scott Bell, the award
winning suspense author and number one bestseller in Plot and Structure, the most intimate is
first person, where the narration is coming from the head of the character. We get the closest
possible connection to the thoughts and feelings of the lead (Bell). Bell states that through the
eyes of the character, the audience is able to connect more intimately with the character because
it shows the audience the thoughts and feelings of the character. The Queen sacrificed her blood
and time to kill the princess for the kingdom, and now the audience can relate to the Queen and
sympathize with her for being brave and courageous. Through the Queens perspective, the
audience now believes that the princess is evil, which proves our claim of how evil is seen
differently through a different point of view.

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Works Citied
Bell, James Scott. "Understand the Effects of Your Point of View." Understand the Effects of
Your Point of View. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2015.
Carroll, Noel. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 1st ed. Vol. 46. Philadelphia, PA:
American Society for Aesthetics, 1982. 51-59. Print.
Gaiman, Neil. "Snow, Glass, Apples." The Dreaming. Dreamhaven, 10 Oct. 1999. Web. 24 Oct.
2015.