Second Draft

Neil Gaiman wrote his short story in 1994, and his short horror fairy tale was highly
influenced by societys culture views of men and women. Gaiman was able to reveal the gender
behavioral expectations in the 90s though his dynamic characters, and he also explained the sexexpectations of the sexes through the metaphorization in the characters sexual encounters.
Snow, Glass, Apples by Neil Gaiman portrays societys views of women by using the
interactions between the King, Queen, Snow White and the Prince as a metaphor for gender
stereotypes in 1994. Sigmund Freud, a well respected neurologist, and founder of psychoanalysis
shared that like dreams, fairy tales explain the unconscious mind, therefore, Gaimans twisted
fairy tale revealed what he unconsciously believed society expected of men and women. In this
essay I will explain how Gaimans short story used hyperbole to over exaggerate the dynamic of
each character, and how he strategically used the characters sexual encounters with one another
to metaphorize behavioral expectations for men and women.
While the sex-expectations were changing, the behavior in gender expectations soon
followed. Men and women were changing the expectations and while women learned to embrace
their sexuality they expressed their masculinity, men began to embrace their femininity by
expressing their emotions. In Gaimans story the King, and Queen led an egalitarian sex life in
which both of them took pleasure, but their sex life changed when the King was attacked by
Snow White. After the attacks the Queen would go to the Kings room to sexually please him,
but the Queen said that he started, violently, and began to weep and held him tightly, until the
sobbing had stopped, and he slept, like a child (Gaiman). The King didnt want the Queen to
give him fellatio, so he pulled away from her, yet he still let her comfort him. Because the King
began to weep, the audience sees the King become vulnerable. The King and Queen in Gaimans

story serve as a symbol of the progressive man and woman of the twenty and twenty-first
century. Their ability to accept one another, and their capability to express their masculinity and
femininity openly mirror the way some people in 1994 thought of the sexes.
While the King represented the men who were comfortable expressing their femininity,
the Prince represented the men in society that felt uncomfortable with getting in touch with their
more feminine side. The Princes interaction with the Queen is a metaphor of the men that refuse
to accept their femininity. He prevented himself from opening up to the Queen, and he wasnt
willing to let her express her sexual individuality or masculinity either because it made him
uncomfortable. The biggest difference between the two male characters was that while one of
them was comfortable getting help from his female counterpart, the other was enraged and did
not want anything to do with her. But also the way the two men defined their masculinity sets
them apart. The Princes defines his masculinity through sex, but the King did not allow his
sexual interactions define him. The Prince tried to force the Queen to submit to him, and the
King enjoyed having sex with the Queen as equals. The culture during the 90s and throughout
history the identity of a man was defined by his characteristics and by his sexual interactions. In
the 90s, American Pie movies were played and like Gaimans story they served as an example of
the cultural expectation of men and their sexuality. While women were expected to prolong their
virginity, men on the other hand rushed, if not pressured to lose their virginity as soon as
possible.
Gaimans short story is narrated by the Queen through multiple flashbacks. She begins
her story with a basic background of Snow White, her relationship with the King and her lack of
wisdom. She focused on her interaction with the King at the age of eighteen; she explained how
their lust brought them together, and gave her the title of Queen. They didnt share a room, but

Queen said that the King would send for her, she said I would go to him, and pleasure him, and
take my pleasure with him (Gaiman). The Queen was not ashamed of taking pleasure in sex
because she had embraced her sexuality, and her character essentially embodies women in 1994.
While the Queen represented the ideas women had about sex, the Kings response also
represented the attitude some men had in regards to womens sexuality; instead of shaming
women, men had embraced the modern woman that took pleasure in sex. In the early 90s, sex
was only for the heterosexual male to enjoy, and while men knew enough about their own
sexuality, women were left having to fake orgasms. It wasnt until 1969 when Our Bodies,
Ourselves was published that women began to learn more about their anatomy, and after that
women began to act like the Queen in Gaimans story. They were unashamed of being sexually
active, and were vocal about the pleasure that came with sex.
While some women were open about expressing their sexuality, there was another group
of women that refused to embrace their sexuality because their male counterpart demanded
pleasure for themselves, but did not reciprocate that towards them. This type of interaction was
metaphorized in Gaimans short story through the interaction between the Queen and Prince. The
Queen was left to run the kingdom on her own, and one day the Prince went to visit the queen.
She shared in her flashback that she had visited the Princes room and she narrated her sexual
encounter with the Prince, he told her You must neither move, nor speak. Just lie there on the
stones, so cold and so fair. I tried, but he had lost whatever force it was that had made him virile;
and, some short while later, I left the Princes room, his curses and tears still resounding in my
ears (Gaiman). First of all, the Prince is having sex with the Queen, her social rank is higher
than his, yet the Prince still demands for her to lie still on the cold stones. The Queen was
enjoying herself, but that caused the Princes attitude to change; he began to curse, and cry

because the Queen did not want to lie on the cold stones like a dead body. Instead, the Queen
wanted to enjoy herself. Before the Queen had gone into the room she said I am no innocent
(Gaiman). The word innocent implies purity, or virginity, yet the Queen was no longer a virgin
due to her relations with the King, but she still wanted to have sex with the Prince. The Queens
response serves as a metaphor for the females in society that had embraced their lust for a
partner, and had acted upon it. Meanwhile, in the 90s some men had the Princes mentality, they
wanted full control over their female counterpart. But even though some men had that mentality,
it was not enough to stop women that were like the Queen who had embraced their sexuality. By
embracing their sexuality women were not only benefiting themselves, but they were also paving
the way for equal treatment of men and women in the bedroom, and in society.
After having sex with the Queen, the Prince had set off into the woods where he found
Snow Whites dead body. The Queen imagined what the Prince was doing to Snow Whites
corpse and she thought that he pounded into her cold body (Gaiman). The Prince has
necrophilia because he had asked the Queen to imitate the characteristics of a dead body, and
because he had sex with a corpse. The metaphor behind the Prince and Snow Whites sexual
encounter is that the a woman needs a man at her side to have a life. This idea that a woman
needed a man by her side was diminishing as a result of the Feminist movement, but even though
women were praised for being independent there were some men in society that did not want
them to stop depending on them. Aside from gender expectations, men and women had also
faced different exual expectations, but some men were not content with the progressive ideas that
women could get equal treatment in the bedroom or even in society. So Snow White serves as a
symbol for the women that did not have a chance to express their sexuality because their male

counterparts did not allow them to, and the Prince embodies the idea some men had on womens
sexuality, that sex was only for the man to enjoy.
Though some men expected to only receive, and not give there were some men that were
willing to give, but what they were giving was not enough. In Gaimans short story, Snow White
encounters a monk out in the forest. The monk saw Snow White, and gave her money in return
of sex, so she caught it, and nodded, and went to him. He pulled at the rope around his waist,
and his robe swung open (Gaiman). There are a couple of things wrong with this interaction
between the monk who is not supposed to have sex, and Snow White who is a thirteen year old.
The monk offered her a penny, a penny, so he could touch her, and so she would touch him. The
monk did not hesitate, and was only in search to pleasure himself, and his drive was strong
enough to overshadow the fact that Snow White is a little girl, and that is an issue. The monk is a
character that embodies some men in the 90s that had a distorted view on the treatment of
women. Men in the 90s were in an uncomfortable position where they might have felt like their
power was being taken away from them by the ladies of society. The reality was that women at
the time were given the chance to express their sexuality like men had, but according to *
womens sexuality in a male dominated culture that uses images of women as a tool of their
domination (38 -- scho). Due to the large amount of males in the entertainment industry women
therefore had a difficult time expressing their sexuality, thus encouraging men that pleasure was
for them and not for their female counterparts. While women were encouraged by a portion of
society to express their sexuality, the other portion of society encouraged people to maintain
tradition by pressing gender stereotypes onto the genders of how they should act through
different outlets in the the media, and through market segmentation.

Gaimans story is a reflection of what society through of men and women in 1994, and
that is what happened. The media was a portrayal of society, and when I say the media I am
referring to short stories, books, movies, and news. But, today we hear comments that blame the
media for being corrupt. Blaming the media for feeding us lies, but the reality is that we as a
society are the ones in control of what goes on the media. People in the media and entertainment
industry are giving us the consumers what we want. There is a fine line, and the issue isnt black
and white. One of Gaimans argument was regarding men and womens sexualiy, and
expectations. Some of the expectations that people were created by us, the people.
Today, we hear the words like fuckboys and sluts to describe men and women that
are what we consider too lustful, and as a society we would put anyone to shame that has too
much sex. Society pressures young men to lose their virginity as soon as possible otherwise they
would be bashed by their friends for not smashing soon enough. While on the other hand
young women are sexually policed and told that if the lose their virginities they are no longer
pure. There is a problem with this because the goal of studying the past is to learn from it, not
repeat it or make it worse, but the problem comes when the pressure begins to build. Men are
now encouraged to express their femininity and women are also encouraged to express their
masculinity, but today we still see how gender stereotypes are a little more subtle than they were
before. Before the emoji update, many of the ones we saw on our iphones were of women getting
haircuts or dancing, and the male emojis would be running or doing sporty things. On Twitter not
long ago a joke was made that if women didnt vote, Republican Presidential Candidate Donald
Trump would be winning. A woman took this further and she said that she would willingly give
up her right to vote, so that he would win. It is 2016 and the misogyny still exist, it is not as

popular as it was before, but the simple fact that we hear such comments in the twenty first
century is a problem.
With the presidential election right around the corner, the American society waits as they
watch an ideas rather than people get elected. Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump
ran his campaign on unimaginable hate towards different groups of people. One of the groups
that he targeted was women, and that is whom I will focus on throughout this essay. Trump
demeaned women and made his judgements merely on their looks, and as unfortunate as it is he
is not the only one who had this view on women because so do his supporters. I understand that
saying that all Trump supporters view women as objects is a big statement, but after all of his
misogynistic comments people still support him, thus proving that they are in agreement with his
statements. His title, his comments essentially reflects the views society has on women. On the
other side of misogyny stand people empowering women to be strong and independent. In the
twenty-first century, Beyonce, or better yet known as Queen B empowers women to be strong, to
be powerful and to be flawless. People have their opinions and they have the right to do so, but
in this modern society some views are a little outdated and should be revisited. As Trump and
Beyonce reflect some of the views society has on women today, Snow, Glass Apples by Neil
Gaimans also mirrors the 90s cultural views on the sexes.