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영어

This essay is a comparison between Snow White and Coleridge’s poem “The Three Graves” from the perspective of the Oedipus conflict. In both cases some unhappy or tragic situations occur through competition or conflict among close family members, especially between family members of the same sex. Snow White and “The Three Graves” share the disposition of the Oedipus conflict in that mother and daughter compete each other for the place of most superb beauty or lover. Though in Snow White the competition is between a step mother and a daughter, some critics argue that the mother was replaced by a step mother in the course of time for the purpose of telling the story. The beauty competition is likely to be for the invisible object, namely the king himself. In the case of “The Three Graves,” the competition or the conflict between mother and daughter is more explicit. In this poem mother is not disguised as step mother. The mother was good to her daughter before they started competition. However, as soon as she was attracted to the young man who wooed her daughter, she changed into a wicked mother. And the moment she was rejected by the young man, she cursed her daughter and this curse had a catastrophic influence on her daughter. In both Snow White and “The Three Graves” the competition or conflict between mothers and daughters causes pain and suffering to daughters and death to the mothers. Though Snow White has a happy ending, its theme of Oedipus conflict echoes in “The Three Graves” which tries to reveal the dark region of the human mind, as fairy tales often do.