"The Snow Child" by Angela Carter

91 invincible: incapable of being conquered, overcome, or subdued <a seemingly invincible army> (Merriam-Webster)

1: having no stain or blemish: pure
2: containing no flaw or error
3 a: spotlessly clean b: having no colored spots or marks <petals immaculate>

1: a usually undressed skin with its hair, wool, or fur
2: a skin stripped of hair or wool for tanning

1 a: a pointed device secured to a rider's heel and used to urge on the horse b plural [from the acquisition of spurs by a person achieving knighthood]: recognition and reward for achievement <won his academic spurs as the holder of a chair in a university — James Mountford>
2: a goad to action : stimulus
3: something projecting like or suggesting a spur: as a : a projecting root or branch of a tree, shrub, or vine b (1): a stiff sharp spine (as on the wings or legs of a bird or insect); especially : one on a cock's leg (2): a gaff for a gamecock c: a hollow projecting appendage of a corolla or calyx (as in larkspur or columbine) d: a bony outgrowth (as on the heel of the foot) e: climbing iron
4 a: an angular projection, offshoot, or branch extending out beyond or away from a main body or formation; especially: a ridge or lesser elevation that extends laterally from a mountain or mountain range b: a railroad track that branches off from a main line
5: a reinforcing buttress of masonry in a fortification
— on the spur of the moment: on impulse: suddenly

92 brooch: /brəʊtʃ/, /broʊtʃ/ (US); a small piece of jewellery with a pin at the back that is fastened to a woman's clothes (Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)

• only by a small amount
Ex. She narrowly missed winning an Oscar.
• in a limited way
Ex. a narrowly interpreted law
• formal carefully or in a way that shows doubt
Ex. The officer looked at him narrowly through half-closed eyes.

2: something killed: as a (1): an animal shot in a hunt (2): animals killed in a hunt, season, or particular period of time

1: to bite or have the habit of biting something
2 of a weapon or tool: to cut, pierce, or take hold
3: to cause irritation or smarting
4: corrode
5 a of fish: to take a bait b: to respond so as to be caught (as by a trick) c: to accept a suggestion or an offer <offered them a deal but they wouldn't bite>
6: to take or maintain a firm hold
7: to produce a negative effect <the recession began to bite>

Study Questions

Angela Carter writes in her essay “Notes from the Front Line” of a self-awakening that changed her writing:

I…became truly aware of the difference between how I was and how I was supposed to be, or expected to be—I found myself, as I grew older, increasingly writing about sexuality and its manifestations in human practice. And I found most of my raw material in the lumber room of the Western European imagination.

Consider also her claim: “I’m interested in myths—though I’m much more interested in folklore—just because they are extraordinary lies designed to make people unfree.” Read the description below, from Howard Zinn's book, of an attitude about women’s beauty and think about its implications in connection with Carter’s comments above about what the western imagination—its myths and folklore—creates.

A writer in early 1930, boosting the beauty business, started off a magazine article with the sentence: “The average American woman has sixteen square feet of skin.” He went on to say that there were forty thousand beauty shops in the country, and that $2 billion was spent each year on cosmetics for women—but this was insufficient: “American women are not yet spending even one-fifth of the amount necessary to improve their appearance.” He then gave an itemized list of the “annual beauty needs of every woman”: twelve hot-oil treatments, fifty-two facials, twenty-six eyebrow plucks, etc.[1]

What ideas are imprisoning? How do these ideas, concepts or beliefs bind or lock us from being ourselves or from thinking freely? How does Carter’s short story, by working from and against these myths, attempt to demythologize them?

[1] Howard Zinn, The Twentieth Century: A People’s History (New York: Harper and Row, 1984) 204.
How does Carter’s choosing to follow the version of the tale where Snow White is the child of her father’s desire, which the Grimms rejected, define differently the relationship between the three characters? Compare the Grimm mother’s line “Would that I had a child as white as snow” with the Carter father’s “I wish I had a girl as white as snow.” What possible second meaning is introduced for the verb “to have” with this shift in speaker?
How does Snow White figure throughout most of “The Snow Child”? How is she presented in the narrative compared to the Count and Countess? What is suggested by the way she is thought about, talked at, spoken for (pun intended), or acted upon?
Though magic is a given in fairy tales, it has its functions. In a consciously critical parody of such tales, perhaps it is even more worth looking into. What is the point of magic in Carter’s retelling of Snow White? What is unrealistic about wishing for something and then getting it? How is the Countess’s coverings flying off her in moments of vulnerability fantastical? In what way is a fish swimming in cold weather unreasonable? Is a rose bush “all in flower” in midwinter unnatural? What about the girl’s reaction when she pricks her finger and “bleeds; screams; falls” or the Count’s desiring the girl at this point, or the rose having bite?
Scrutinize the verbs and actions in this story.
Look at instances of transformation in the story ex. from thought to thing, from things to person, from person to parts of things. What is the significance of the clothes swapping between Countess and girl, how one is transformed from naked to “furred and booted” while the other from “wrapped in…glittering pelts” to “bare as bone” and almost back again? Trace the metamorphoses of the girl. Does it make sense that these circumstances are her origin and her end? How might we characterize the various changes in each stage of the Count’s relationship with his wife?

What difference, if any, is there between the Count's divesting the Countess of her clothes and the Countess's stripping off of her own adornments?
Discuss the girl's end. How does it compare to her birth? What do you make of the different phases of her ending ex. "falls" (92), "dead," "melt," "a feather...a bloodstain...the rose"?

What does the Count deny the Countess? How?
Through what means does the Countess attempt to rid herself of the girl?
The leftover feather at the end of the story harkens back to the bird—the raven—at the beginning. Why is the bloodstain compared to “the trace of a fox’s kill” rather than recalling the blood-filled hole? Why might Carter suggest the spoil of hunting here?
Why does the Count give the rose to the Countess at the end, and why does she take it?
The girl is described as "the child of his desire" (92). What is the rose?

Count – "'I wish I had a girl as white as snow'" (91); "'I wish I had a girl as red as blood'" (91); "'I wish I had a girl as black as that bird's feather'" (91); "the Count felt sorry for his wife" (92); "'I can't deny you that'" (92); "Weeping, the Count got off his horse, unfastened his breeches and thrust his virile member into the dead girl" (92); "The Count picked up the rose, bowed and handed it to his wife" (92)

Countess – the Count's wife (91); "she wore high, black shining boots with scarlet heels, and spurs" (91); "the Countess had only one thought: how shall I be rid of her?" (92); "Then the Countess threw her diamond brooch through the ice of a frozen pond: 'Dive in and fetch it for me'" (92); "The Countess reined in her stamping mare and watched him narrowly" (92); "Now the Countess had all her clothes on again" (92); "With her long hand, she stroked her furs" (92)

girl – "white skin, red mouth, black hair and stark naked" (92); "the girl picks a rose; pricks her finger on the thorn; bleeds; screams; falls" (92); "Then the girl began to melt" (92)

road – "As soon as he [the Count] completed her description, there she [the girl] stood, beside the road" (91–92)

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