Susan Hill Susan Hill

Pity the poor stepmother — the most reviled character in folk literature

The second wife has been consistently demonised in fairy tales from Snow White onwards

Disney’s wicked queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The stepmother-daughter relationship in fairy tales is doomed from the moment of the father’s remarriage after the death of a saintly wife 
issue 25 April 2020
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  • The Fairest of Them All: Snow White and 21 Tales of Mothers and Daughters

    Maria Tatar

    Belknap/Harvard, pp. 225, £22

Fairy stories were not originally aimed at children, and we do not know what the first audience responses were; but as humans do not change in certain essentials it seems likely that reactions centuries ago were similar to reactions now — when it is adults who often find many of them gruesome and unsuitable for those of single-figure age.

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