The Hidden Meaning of Snow White (Part I): Colour Symbolism & Alchemy

In his book, The Uses of Enchantment, child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim says that explaining a fairy tale can detract from the story’s enchantment, ‘which depends to a considerable degree on [us] not quite knowing why [we are] delighted by it’.

While I understand this sentiment, my view is more in line with sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, who argues that ‘the analysis of a work of art, far from reducing it or destroying it, intensifies the literary experience’.

In any case, in terms of fairy tales, you cannot explain away their enchantment; they are like dreams ‘dreamed in public’ (Carter), in that their symbols are inexhaustible. Despite their simplicity, each symbol has several layers. This means that, as the German poet Schiller once said: ‘Deeper meaning resides in the fairy tales told to me in my childhood than in the truth that is taught by life’.

It is for this reason that I propose a series dedicated to the hidden meaning of ‘one of the best-known fairy tales’ — Snow White. In each part, I present a different interpretation or a different version of the story. In this first installment, we’ll look at Snow White as an allegory for an alchemical process known as the Magnum Opus (the Great Work).