Similarities Between The Seven Dwarves And Snow White

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s clear insight about humanity diseases, sins and quarrels, and, along with these conflicts, their paradoxes influences one of his finest works, “The Birth-Mark”( ). Interestingly, the Grimm Brothers’ “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” tells a similar story through symbolism and character development. Both authors use symbolism to establish the bridge between life and the state of death and to show sign of dominance. In addition, the parallelism between the two stories demonstrates how alike the characters Aylmer and the evil stepmother are. As a result, it raises a question of whether or not perfectionism is worth pursuing for.
In Hawthorne’s story, the birthmark symbolizes many things depending upon how the characters

The birthmark on Georgiana’s cheek is “deeply interwomen” (214) into her snow white skin. Instead of allowing it to take over her identity, Georgiana copes with the fact that she is born with it and views it as a lucky charm (214). Her opinion of the birthmark changes when her newlywed husband Aylmer is disgusted by the sight of the tiny, crimson red hand nested on her face. Her confidence drops dramatically. Georgiana becomes lifeless whenever she catches him staring at her because she knows that she is not the target, the birthmark is. Soon the topic about the birthmark circles her life. She cannot live a day without the mention of the birthmark on her face. The birthmark, once was a lucky charm, now is taking over Georgiana’s life and peace because she can no longer see her own reflection the same way again. “Not even Aylmer now hated it so much as she” (220). In Snow White’s case, she lives with seven men. This clearly shows that she is outnumbered by the opposite sex. During her time living with the dwarves, her role is to clean and cook for them whereas the dwarves’ role is to go to work and return home after work hours. It is evident that the male role is dominating the female because of his ability to make money. Snow White is the subordinate, despite her role as the main character, because she naively believes her stepmother’s ruse despite of the dwarves’ warnings. Not being able to defend herself indicates that Snow White is the damsel in distress who requires constant protection from the antagonist by a male