Comparing the Basile and Disney "Queens"

I want to trace the “Queen” paradigm through two variations on the classic “Snow White” text: Giambattista Basile’s “The Young Slave” and Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). As we shall see, Basile’s Baroness and Disney’s Queen, though two sides of the same coin, are mostly dissimilar characters.

In “The Young Slave,” the Baroness’ action of defying her husband and opening the last room of the house parallels closely the tale of “Bluebeard.” However, the Baroness is not actually Lilla’s stepmother, like in other “Snow White” tales; she is instead her aunt. Despite this major difference, like “all women,” the Baroness is motivated by jealousy and curiosity – the latter of which, according to Basile, is “woman’s first attribute.” Also, like “all women,” the former attribute drives her to treating her fellow woman badly. It is interesting that this aunt permits Lilla to live because other “Queens” are intent on killing their “Snow White” enemies with a “sleeping death.” Insated, the aunt rouses Lila from her “sleeping death” and then submits her to subservience, thrashes her, and makes her physically ugly externally by cutting off her hair and dressing her in tatters. At the end, when the Baron realizes this grievance wrong, he simply sends his wife away to her parents. She is not killed.

In Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the Queen is depicted as a vamp, unlike Basile’s antagonist, who is never really described at all. Unlike Basile’s Baroness, the Queen is actually Snow White’s stepmother, but the Baroness and the Queen are similar in that they are motivated by jealousy to destroy the physical beauty of the younger, innocent female. Unlike the Baroness, the Queen does not want Snow White to live life as a physically ugly slave; she instead wants her to live in “the sleeping death.” To dupe Snow White into this state, the Queen transforms herself physically into a hag with the powers of magic. Eventually, nature (lightning) kills her because she is “unnatural.”

Comparing the trajectories of these two “Queens,” the Baroness acts on her “feminine instincts” and is hardly punished (although I suppose in Basile’s time, to have to return to one’s parents was akin to “social suicide”), and the Queen transforms from a curvy woman into a crusty hag. In this case, her “insides” match her “outsides,” in terms of beauty. Unlike Disney’s Queen, Basile’s Baroness is never described physically (unlike the explicit depictions of Lilla), so the ramifications on her person are never described. In this way, Basile’s tale lacks key character development, something upon which Disney’s film hinges.