The Snow Child by Angela Carter

 

The Snow Child is a short story by Angela Carter. The elements of the narrative are very few: a snowy landscape, the characters of the countess and the count, and the snow child.

 

The setting

The setting is a snowy landscape, described in a very concise manner. Few words (“invincible, immaculate”) connote a certain expectation. In this landscape “fresh snow fell on snow already fallen”, the scenario shows different layers like the story itself.

 

The girl

The girl appears suddenly and is also described in a few and precise words: “white skin”, “red mouth”, black hair” and completely naked.

This description suggests an almost unreal image, pure and at the same time with certain erotic connotations.

The image is a general one. The description is very brief.

 

The Countess

The countess is described through the elements she wears, which reflect her social position and her character: she rides a black mare, the clothes she wears have also erotic references. She is “wrapped in the glittering pelts of black foxes”, she wears black shinning boots with scarlet heels and spurs.

 The color black is in almost all the elements and has two connotations: one associated with death and the other erotic.

Death and eroticism are associated in this story.

The Count

Compared to that of the Countess, the description of the Count shows just one element: we only know that he rides a gray mare. We will  know more about him as the action progresses, then he will show himself to be lustful and heartless.

 

The conflict of the story

The conflict of the story lies in the Count's desire to have a girl who responds to the stimuli suggested to him by what he sees along the ride: the snow, a hole with blood and a raven. Then, he says that he wants a girl with  skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood and hair as black as a raven's feathers. As readers we do not know the nature of his desire, which is revealed as a sexual one.

As soon as the Count finds the girl object of his desire the Countess´s jealousy is triggered, which leads to the denouement.

 

Climax and plot of the story

The climax of the story is the death of the girl after pricking her finger with the thorn of a rose she had picked up to give to the countess.

That is the turning point of the tale.

The main characters (the Countess and the Count) ride in a snowy landscape. In these circumstances the Count expresses his desire to have a girl with skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood and hair as black as a raven's feathers.

The girl suddenly appears in the path.

As soon as this happens the Countess hates the girl, thinks how to get rid of her and tries to do it in different ways, but she is unable to achieve her goal due to the Count's intervention.

Those actions intended to keep the girl away fail, and after each one the Countess's clothes pass to the girl until the Countess is completely naked.

Finally the Countess asks the girl to give her a rose and in doing what is asking her she is pricked by a thorn and dies.

After that the Count has a brief sexual intercourse with the girl's corpse in front of the Countess; then, the body of the girl begins to melt until, except a feather, nothing of her remains.

The Count offers her the rose and when she touches it she says that the rose bites.

 

An unrealistic story  

The story is not realistic because it does not depict either the real world or real characters.

The conception of the story is based on the use of elements of the fairy  tale, but on twisted use of fantastic elements: there is neither a moral in the story, nor a purpose that tends towards the realization of good.

Both, the setting and the characters are introduced to the narrative with the least possible use of words, and each presence in the text has a symbolic purpose: the raven -a sinister and ominous bird-, the blood and the inhospitable landscape have a symbolic charge.

The prevailing feelings are lust and hatred, the opposite of any expected moral of the traditional tale.

The only thing in common with the marvelous tale, as we know it, is the revelation of the existence of something that governs the real and the characters. In the case of the traditional tale it is the presence of good that finally triumphs, but in this case it is cruelty and selfishness that prevails over everything else.

 

The importance of colors

There are four colors in the story. The use of such a reduced palette has a precise purpose: it is part of the narrative economy.

According to their importance in the story we can establish a hierarchy of colors: white, black, red and gray.

White is the basis of the narrated world: the color of snow and purity. It is also the space of cold and desolation where nothing can survive, a space that can only be traversed but in which it is not possible to dwell. It is only a transit scenario destined for something to happen in it.

Black is the opposite of white, it represents attributes of power -skin, boots, the mare- and eroticism. If white is pure, black is not, and appears linked to the subjugation of pureness, it is also associated with nudity because it is the black garments that go from one body to the other, uncovering one to cover the other.

Red also has a double association: it is the color of blood and sensual lips. It is linked to the association between death and eroticism or cruelty and pleasure.

The gray, which corresponds to the color of the mare that the count rides, is as secondary an element as the Count's clothes, whose color is not even mentioned.

 

Transformation and suddenness

The suddenness in the story lies in the presence of the elements that support it: a hole with blood, a crow perched on a thick tree branch and the naked girl.

The transformation, as a resource, lies in the fact that once the girl is dead, her body melts the scarce elements of the landscape are taken as symbolic ones.

 

The use and transformation of the elements of the fairy tale

There are elements of the traditional tale that are maintained: the prick with a thorn that produces death or a long and deep sleep, the sudden change of a character or a situation, and the expectation of something that will magically happen.

However, the final resolution reveals not the good but something dark and inexplicable, while the setting is treated in a symbolic way: for example, the snow layers, which, in the action, are linked to the girl and the Countess. The firm, stable snow is overlaid with other layers of freshly fallen snow.

If in the traditional tale the end is closed and univocal, in this case the end is open to different meanings. All of them have to do with the predominant feelings: wickedness and selfishness.

Traditional tales are agreeable. The presence of ugly elements and  evil is just a contrast and we know –due to the fact that the convention establishes it- that evil will be defeated at the end, and beauty, stability and generosity will prevail and the world will recover the balance evil had affected. There is a clear opposition of this pattern in this story: it is precisely evil which prevails over the goodness.

The beginning and the end are also different from those of traditional tales: Instead of “Once upon a time” and “They were happy forever” Angela Carter places us in a text where nothing begins and ends, which suddenly appears and then vanishes leaving only a bitter and desolate feeling. In this sense, her story is precisely the opposite of the traditional tale.

The ending is open as the whole story is, we can interpret the biting rose as a kind of small revenge of the spirit of the sullied girl through the rose, a useless revenge that does not change anything (evil always triumphs).

The end shows us that nothing is what it seems to be, and that the unexpected installs an unanswered question.