“You Must Kill Her”: The Fact and Fantasy of Filicide in “Snow White”

Common critical readings of “Snow White” focus on the way in which the story allows child readers to explore their taboo feelings about interfamilial conflict, but in this essay I make a case for a different interpretation. Drawing on the narrative origins, original audience, and publication history of the tale, I argue that the ongoing appeal of “Snow White” is not that it allows young people to work through psychological jealousy for their mother but rather—and much more disturbingly—that it allows the nation’s parents the opportunity to indulge in homicidal fantasies toward their children.