Little Snow-White Flashcards
by The Brothers Grimm — tap or click to flip
Flashcard Review
Flashcards: Little Snow-White
What does the Queen wish for while sewing at the window?
A child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the ebony window frame.
Why does the Queen order the huntsman to kill Snow-White?
The magic mirror reveals that Snow-White has surpassed her as the fairest in the land, and the Queen cannot bear anyone being more beautiful.
What does the huntsman bring back to the Queen instead of Snow-White's heart?
The heart of a young wild boar, which the Queen has the cook salt and then eats.
What agreement do Snow-White and the seven dwarfs make?
Snow-White will keep house for them -- cooking, cleaning, sewing, and knitting -- in exchange for shelter and protection.
What are the Queen's three disguised attempts to kill Snow-White?
First she laces Snow-White's bodice so tight she cannot breathe, then uses a poisoned comb, and finally offers a poisoned apple.
Why does the poisoned apple succeed when the laces and comb failed?
The dwarfs could cut the laces and remove the comb, but the apple piece lodges in Snow-White's throat and they cannot find or remove it.
How is Snow-White revived from her apparent death?
The prince's servants stumble over a tree-stump while carrying her glass coffin, and the jolt dislodges the poisoned apple piece from her throat.
How is the wicked Queen punished at the end of the tale?
She is forced to put on red-hot iron shoes and dance in them until she drops dead at Snow-White's wedding feast.
How old is Snow-White when the Queen first becomes jealous of her beauty?
Seven years old -- the mirror declares her more beautiful than the Queen when she reaches that age.
What is the Queen's relationship to Snow-White?
She is Snow-White's stepmother. Snow-White's birth mother died when the child was born, and the King remarried after a year.
Why does the huntsman spare Snow-White's life?
He takes pity on her because she is so beautiful and innocent, and it feels "as if a stone had been rolled from his heart" when he lets her go.
What is the dwarfs' occupation?
They are miners who "dug and delved in the mountains for ore," specifically looking for copper and gold.
How does the prince first encounter Snow-White?
He comes to the dwarfs' house to spend the night and sees her lying in the glass coffin on the mountain, still looking as if she were asleep.
How does the story show that vanity is self-destructive?
The Queen's obsessive need to be the fairest drives her to increasingly desperate crimes, and ultimately her own curiosity about the mirror's answer draws her to the wedding where she is punished.
What does the tale suggest about the relationship between beauty and danger?
Beautiful appearances conceal deadly threats throughout -- the Queen disguises herself as harmless old women, and the poisoned apple is deliberately made to look irresistible.
How does Snow-White's repeated trust in strangers illustrate a secondary moral?
Despite the dwarfs' warnings, she opens the door three times to disguised strangers, suggesting that pure innocence without wisdom leaves one vulnerable.
What does the Queen's compulsion to attend the wedding reveal about jealousy?
Even knowing the "young Queen" is fairer, she cannot stay away -- jealousy compels her to see her rival, which leads directly to her punishment and death.
What is the significance of the number three in the tale?
The Queen attempts to kill Snow-White three times with escalating methods (laces, comb, apple), following the fairy tale "rule of three" that builds suspense toward the final, successful attempt.
How does the mirror's repeated rhyming dialogue function as a literary device?
It is a refrain -- the same question-and-answer formula is repeated five times throughout the story, each time advancing the plot when the mirror's answer changes.
What is the dramatic irony when the Queen eats what she believes is Snow-White's heart?
The reader knows the heart belongs to a boar, not Snow-White, while the Queen is satisfied she has consumed her rival -- making her act both gruesome and futile.
What do the colors white, red, and black symbolize in the story?
They represent Snow-White's identity (snow-white skin, blood-red lips, ebony-black hair) and recur as a motif from the opening scene of blood on snow by the ebony window frame.
What does "pedler-woman" mean in the context of the Queen's first disguise?
A peddler -- a traveling saleswoman who goes door-to-door selling small goods like laces and combs.
What are "stay-laces" that the disguised Queen sells to Snow-White?
Laces used to tighten a bodice or corset (a "stay"), which the Queen pulls so tight that Snow-White cannot breathe.
What does "counterpane" mean in the description of the dwarfs' cottage?
A bedspread or coverlet -- the seven little beds are covered with "snow-white counterpanes."
Who says "Looking-glass, Looking-glass, on the wall, Who in this land is the fairest of all?"
The Queen. She repeats this question to her magic mirror throughout the story, and its changing answers drive the entire plot.
What is the significance of the Queen's line: "White as snow, red as blood, black as ebony-wood! this time the dwarfs cannot wake you up again"?
She echoes the birth-wish colors while gloating over Snow-White's apparent death, twisting a symbol of innocence into a moment of triumph.
What do the dwarfs say when they refuse the prince's offer of gold for the coffin?
"We will not part with it for all the gold in the world" -- showing their devotion to Snow-White goes beyond material value.