Snow White and the Seven Genres - Rationale

Original Stiumuls:

The fairytale of Snow White – although this story starts after their wedding, which is the traditional end point for the tale, and the eventual failure of their marriage

Genres Used:

Parody of Jane Austen

Parody of Sylvia Plath

Parody of Self Help Guru

Dystopian Novel – 1984

Children’s Adventure Story – Enid Blyton

Horror

Explanation:

The first genre that I have used is that of Jane Austen, similar to her novel Pride and Prejudice. I used this because I felt that her style of writing allowed me to set the scene and tell the history of Snow White without having to go into too much detail, while still including all the important details and enabling the reader to envisage her character. Capitalisation is used to emphasise those concepts and objects most important to the main character, as they were in Pride and Prejudice. The second genre is Sylvia Plath, like that of The Bell Jar. This was used to surprise the reader by twisting the original happy fairytale stereotype, and to establish the relationship between Snow and her colleague Cindy Rella. The mirror’s monologue is done in the style of American self-help books, intended as humour. This moves on to a parody of George Orwell’s novel 1984, further explaining the main character’s situation. The entrance of the stranger into the pub begins a paragraph of romantic writing, also intended to amuse the reader. This is the purpose of the next genre too, Enid Blyton. I chose this genre because it is linked to children and maintains aspects of a traditional fairytale. Snow has a polite register, as according to the story she used to be royalty. Cindy Rella also has the same tone, rather than the regional dialect one would expect of a barmaid in a northern pub. This is because, as experienced by the reader previously, Cindy is materialistic; she was reduced to tears by losing a shoe. She is obviously influenced by Snow as well, as she seemed consoled by her and the mirror’s comfortings. Her character idolises Snow and aspires to be like her, so therefore talks like her. The final genre is horror, and is intended to shock the reader and give an unexpected ending to the fairytale, as in the original tale of Snow White, she and her prince live happily ever after: in this version she is left vulnerable and alone.