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Caravetto 1

Jennifer Caravetto
Professor McClure
Writing 39B
01 November 2015
Switching Perspectives
Neil Gaiman incorporates conventions of the horror genre in Snow, Glass, Apples and
compares it to the original story Snow White to subvert the expectations found in Snow, Glass,
Apples by switching the perspective of the story to the Queens point of view to tell the audience
that things have multiple meanings according to the perspective of another person. Snow, Glass,
Apples has a similar storyline to one of the most famous fairytales Snow White, but it is narrated
from the Queens point of view. By looking at a familiar story in a different view, the audience is

Jinah Jennifer Cara, 12/5/2015 4:52 AM


Comment [1]: I added the main idea for
writing this essay. The draft did not pass the
so-what test, but by adding this part, the
audience is able to know what the essays
message is.

able to look at the story and connect to the author more and learn that there may be multiple
meanings to a story that the audience may not have thought of. Neil Gaiman wrote this story
from the Queens perspective to tell the audience about the problems in the society. Media these
days seem to focus on one side of the story and not think about the other side of the story.
Gaiman used a Disney story to tell his message because Disney stories package their characters
into a nice and innocent character and manipulate a somewhat fluid, traditional, and existing
narrative and shape it into their own (Whelan). There might be a different side to Disney stories,
but Disney makes all the stories favorable to children, and shapes them how they want to portray
to the readers. By using Snow White as the base story, Neil Gaiman tries to get across the
importance of not coming to a conclusion by just looking at one side of the story and the media
bias in the society.

Jinah Jennifer Cara, 12/5/2015 4:57 AM


Comment [2]: Here I talked about the
consequences of looking at things one way
and how that is a big problem in the society
these days. By adding this, the audience is
able to know what kinds of things Ill be
writing about.

Caravetto 2
A sense of threat is portrayed in Snow, Glass, Apples by switching the perspective from

the princess to the Queen. Snow White or any other Disney stories usually do not include gory
creatures or blood. However, in Snow, Glass, Apples, monsters do exist. The princess who does
not look like a monster turns out to be a vampire, she sank her teeth into the base of my

Jinah Jennifer Cara, 12/5/2015 4:58 AM


Comment [3]: A smooth topic sentence
was created to tell the audience what the
paragraph was going to talk about.

thumb, the Mound of Venus, and she drew blood (Gaiman). The princess in this story is
classified as threatening and impure (Carroll 55) because it is a monster that drew blood from a
human. Normal humans do not drink blood from another human, and anything that sucks blood

Jinah Jennifer Cara, 12/5/2015 5:00 AM


Comment [4]: Engaging with Carrolls
quote.

out of a human is a monster, making it threatening and impure. . The expectation of the original
fairy tale is subverted by making the innocent princess into a monster because nobody expects
the princess to be a blood-sucking monster. By switching the perspective to the Queens
perspective, the audience has more information about the princess and knows her identity as a
vampire. The story changes from a happy narrative to horror just by looking at the story from the
Queens perspective.
Additionally, the Queen was frozen and felt dominated by the princess about what had
happened to her, and the identity of the princess also comes off threatening and scary. According
to Noel Carroll, one of the leading philosopher in the contemporary philosophy of the art and the
writer of The Nature of Horror, states, [the audiences] emotions are supposed to mirror those
of the positive human characters (Carroll 53). This is saying that if the protagonist of the story

Jinah Jennifer Cara, 12/5/2015 5:01 AM


Comment [5]: Properly explaining who
Carroll is by providing a description of him.

is scared, then the audience of the story also feels scared by the antagonist. Since the Queen was
feeling in awe and threatened by the princess, the audience also feels threatened by the princess.
Looking at Snow, Glass, Apples through the eyes of the Queen makes the scary and threatening
feeling more protruding for the princess, and the audience is able to feel the emotions of the
Queen because the audience mirrored the emotions of the Queen. In the original story, nobody

Jinah Jennifer Cara, 12/5/2015 5:05 AM


Comment [6]: I was able to make the
connection between Snow, Glass, Apples to
The Nature of Horror by tying them
together.

Caravetto 3

would think of Snow White as the monster since everyone believes that the Queen is obviously
the villain. However, through the Queens point of view, Snow White is the villain, something
that nobody would expect of. Using the Queens point of view to observe Snow White allows the
audience to know more about the Queen and her side of the story.
Neil Gaiman emphasizes how evil can be seen differently through the eyes of another
person. Gaiman lets the audience ponder about whom the real villain is in the story Snow, Glass,
Apples. The classic scene about the Queen making poisonous apples in Snow White is portrayed
differently in Gaimans story. I took the three apples, one by one, and pricked their skins gently
with my silver pin and onto the apples, and onto the blood (Gaiman). This scene is
frightening because the Queen cut herself and used her blood to make the apples. In the original
story, everyone would think of the Queen as the evil creature that tried to kill the princess.
However, the typical expectation of the Queen is subverted when it is seen through the Queens
first-person point of view. According to James Scott Bell, the award winning suspense author
and the writer of over 300 articles and books such as Plot and Structure, the most intimate is
first person, where the narration is coming from the head of the character. We get the closest
possible connection to the thoughts and feelings of the lead (Bell). Bell states that through the
eyes of the character, the audience is able to connect more intimately with the character because
it shows the audience the thoughts and feelings of the character. The Queen sacrificed her blood
and time to kill the princess for the kingdom, and now the audience can relate to the Queen and
sympathize with her for being brave and courageous. Through the Queens perspective, the
audience now believes that the princess is evil, which proves our claim of how evil is seen
differently through a different point of view.

Jinah Jennifer Cara, 12/5/2015 5:06 AM


Comment [7]: Added more evidence this
time to show why he was a scholarly source.

Caravetto 4
By having different perspectives, Gaiman is trying to tell the audience that there are

multiple sides to a story. Snow, Glass, Apples is narrated from the Queens point of view, and the
audience is able to get her side of the story. In the original Snow White, the audience was used to

Jinah Jennifer Cara, 12/5/2015 5:08 AM


Comment [8]: This goes back to the
introduction paragraph

seeing the princess getting tormented by the evil queen. However, Snow, Glass, Apples tells the
audience a totally different story that involves a kind queen and an evil princess, seen through
the Queens perspective. This kind of plot is unfamiliar because people usually do not think of
the Queen to be the protagonist of the story. People do not associate a typical villain character to
be a protagonist because there are stereotypes that say queens are evil and they exist to bother the

Jinah Jennifer Cara, 12/5/2015 5:13 AM


Comment [9]: The audience was able to see
the new side to a story and I was emphasizing
on the fact that people should always believe
that there are more than one side to a story.

nice and pretty princesses. These stereotypes prevent the audience from thinking further about
how princesses can be evil and queens can be nice because they are so used to other fairytale
stories that involve a kind princess and a villain. Lawrence Blum, a professor of Liberal Arts and
Education at UMass, UCLA and Columbia and a writer of four books, argues that Stereotyping
involves seeing individual members through a narrow and rigid lens of group-based image,
rather than being alive to the range of characteristics constituting each member: as a distinct
individual (Blum 271). Blum indicates that stereotypes are seen through a group-based image
and stop people from looking at an individual as a character of its own. Stereotypes grouped the
Queen into the typical queen as a villain and narrowed the audiences thoughts into thinking that
Queens cannot be kind, which prevented their view of thinking about a different side of Snow
White. Neil Gaiman used the Queens perspective to get rid of the stereotypes, which widened
the views of the audience. This also allowed them to see the side of the story that the audience
normally does not focus on.
Neil Gaiman wrote this story in a different perspective to tell the audience that there is
always more than one side to a story. A big issue these days is the biases that the media is

Jinah Jennifer Cara, 12/5/2015 5:14 AM


Comment [10]: I believed that
stereotypes prevented people from looking
far ahead and just stopped their thoughts.
Jinah Jennifer Cara, 12/5/2015 5:20 AM
Comment [11]: Added descriptions of
him to show that he is a scholarly source.

Caravetto 5

portraying to the society. Millions of people believe things that are said from a reliable source
like the CNN or Fox, and they tend to not question the information that they provide. If CNN
says that Los Angeles is a dangerous place to live in, then people rethink about moving there.

Jinah Jennifer Cara, 12/5/2015 5:14 AM


Comment [12]: From here, I went on to
say the problem with biases in the society
these days.

Messerli, the creator and author of balancedpolitics.org website, which had over ten million hits,
says that, Most journalists seem to forget that there are two sides to every controversial issue
journalists usually believe in one side over the other and will work to make sure only their side is
fairly presented (Messerli). Journalists choose a side to write an article on and make their side
seem believable to the readers. Also, the media these days choose a side that will produce most
views, thus creating bias. They both choose a favorable side that creates the most hype and
publish it for people to read regardless of the truth. Since it is so hyped and popular, people do
not think that a different side exists and believes everything that the media presents.

Jinah Jennifer Cara, 12/5/2015 5:16 AM


Comment [13]: This was the biggest
problem I found with media bias and I
thought that these kinds of biases change
peoples thoughts into just thinking about
one side to a story.

Even though Snow, Glass, Apples has a different storyline from Snow White, and the
story is told from a different perspective, the outcome of both stories is same. In the original
Snow White, the Queen gets punished for her actions. However, in Snow, Glass, Apples, even

Jinah Jennifer Cara, 12/5/2015 5:17 AM


Comment [14]: This was an idea that I
got from the following paragraph.

though the Queen is the nice protagonist, and the princess is the evil monster, the Queen gets
punished and dies while the evil princess gets to live happily with her prince. If the audience just
reads the end of the story, then they will think that it is the original Snow White. This implies that
people think about the ending and the outcome of the story and think of the outcome really
important. It is the same way with media. People tend to not care about what the process is for a
specific situation or incident, and they only care about the outcome. When they are too focused
on the outcome, they do not think that another side of the story exists. Neil Gaiman used the
same ending as Snow White to tell the audience to not just think about the outcome but to think
of the other side of the story that leaded to the outcome. Therefore, this shows that it is important

Jinah Jennifer Cara, 12/5/2015 5:18 AM


Comment [15]: When I was writing the
following paragraph, I was able to see that
people focused on the outcome and not the
process. And I made connections to Snow,
Glass, Apples because the ending was the same
as Snow White.

Caravetto 6

to know that multiple sides exist in a story and see the other side of the story before believing
everything about one side.
Snow, Glass, Apples is a twisted version of Snow White that includes horror. By
including horror, the expectations of the original story are subverted in Snow, Glass, Apples to
make it frightening and scary. It is seen through the Queens perspective, which portrayed the
princess as the evil monster. Nobody expects a typical innocent princess to be a blood-sucking
vampire and a queen to be a nice loyal ruler. However, reading a traditional and familiar story in
a different perspective created a whole different story and made the Queen less frightening and
more innocent. This shows how one thing can be seen differently through the eyes of another
person and can have multiple meanings depending on how the person interprets it. By switching
the perspective, Neil Gaiman tries to get across the problems in the society these days. Media
seems to create a lot of bias by focusing on one side that creates the most hype and views. Since
it only focuses on one side, people do not get to see the other side of the story. Medias side
might not even contain the truth, but people get swayed by what the media presents to the world.
It is important to realize that to every story, two sides exist, and it is important to acknowledge
the other side, and not just think of one side. Snow, Glass, Apples by Neil Gaiman is interestingly
written off of a traditional Disney story in the context of a horror genre to inform the audience
about the common problem with media in the society these days.

Caravetto 7
Works Citied

Bell, James Scott. "Understand the Effects of Your Point of View." Understand the Effects of
Your Point of View. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2015.
Blum, Lawrence. "Stereotypes And Stereotyping: A Moral Analysis." Philosophical Papers 33.3
(2004): 251-89. Web. 6 Nov. 2015.
Carroll, Noel. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 1st ed. Vol. 46. Philadelphia, PA:
American Society for Aesthetics, 1982. 51-59. Print.
Gaiman, Neil. "Snow, Glass, Apples." The Dreaming. Dreamhaven, 10 Oct. 1999. Web. 24 Oct.
2015.
Messerli, Joe. "The Media's "How-To" Guide for Manipulating the Truth." BalancedPolitics.org:
How-To Techniques of Media Bias and Manipulation. N.p., 14 July 2011. Web. 29 Oct.
2015.
Whelan, Bridget. "Power to the Princess: Disney and the Creation of the 20th Century Princess
Narrative." Interdisciplinary Humanities 29.1 (2012): 21. Web. 5 Nov. 2015.

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