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tale. This novel defies all readerly expectations but utilizes the fairy tale to productively
examine the commonly understood theme of female development, from a new stance. In
still another new inversion, Matt Phelan’s
Snow White: A Graphic Novel
(2016) offers a
host of familiar motifs aligning a reader’s imagination with the
Snow White
tradition, all
the while utilizing artwork in place of language to produce an alternate type of story or
projection of folklore. Here, a reader is forced to make interpretations based upon the
bridge which art/image creates, as opposed to that of language. The retelling itself is also
new, gazing at
Snow White
through the lens of its Depression-era Manhattan setting.
While this might draw a linkage to the cultural and historical moment of Disney’s
production, the realism of the narrative and the artwork itself have been prioritized. Each
of these versions provides a creative revision of the
Snow White
tale
which might turn the
American evolution of the same just one notch further in its revaluation of the characters,
context, underlying theme, or mode of interpretation. In so doing, it might subsequently
enable the tale to represent a shift in cultural values.
Throughout this dissertation, and most particularly in Chapters 2 and 4, I have
suggested a host of means by which the “classics” were formed,
and in turn informed
popular and scholarly understandings of
Snow White
. For the Grimms, in addition to a
folkloric foundation, the cultural consciousness of the creator, and a distinct formal style,
the
key was adaptation, or more specifically, adapting to cultural changes, new audiences,
and rising literary production. For Disney to remodel the “classic” in American culture,
these same attributes were key, as was his use of innovative technology.
Significantly
through, it was not only his use of film or animation (which could by his time usefully
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employ color and sound) but Disney’s
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