By N'zinga Kelliebrew
Snow White’s Stepmother was beautiful and very proud of the fact that she is the most beautiful according to her mirror. Sexton states that “pride pumped in her like poison” (33)whenever she was reminded of her beauty. Her pride is not just self-esteem or confidence, but toxic to herself and to others. Pride is categorized as one of the seven deadly sins and that it "goes before the fall". This poisonous pride is a forshadowing of what is to come . The stepmother's pride is also specific to her appearance. She is vain ,which is a vice often attributed more to women than to men in literature. The inference of pride in on'es appearance as something poisonous, instead of indicative of a positive self image, refers to the common mindset of what was appropriate for a woman. Women were to be beautiful, but also humble, and passive. The Queen is beautiful but she is proud and wields great power. This makes her a poisoned and potentially a "damaged" woman.
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Comments (2)
Tonya Howe said
at 1:23 am on Oct 27, 2008
This annotation has a lot of interesting things going on, but I think it needs a bit more explication, more connective tissue. Which "fact" is the stepmother proud of? A bit unclear--do you mean she was proud of her beauty? I like how you close read the image of poison, connecting it (implicitly) to toxicity--can you make that more explicit? Again, remember to proofread, especially for punctuation!
Andrew Lewis said
at 12:42 pm on Oct 31, 2008
I really appreciate the use of the quote from Proverbs 16. Good job regarding analysis of the line in question. Some additional proofreading may be in order.
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