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Snow
White
in All About Eve
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2004 YesAsia.com Inc. |
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Near the end of Episode 20, after Sun-Mi and Hyung-Chul leave the orphanage to return back to Seoul, Young-Mi is shown sitting with the orphans as she reads the following words from a book: “ 'Mirror, mirror on the wall,
who is the prettiest of all?’ And the mirror said ‘Snow White’. Because the
witch thought she was the prettiest in the world, she couldn’t bear not being
the one.” Most viewers would have recognized these lines from Snow White, the well-known Grimm Brothers fairy tale of vanity, envy, and attempted murder that concludes with the intended victim living happily-ever-after. For the entire tale, interpretations, and a lot of information, go here. What plot direction does the writer point to with the literary allusion in this vignette, coming so late in the story? It could be that, as Sun-Mi surmised in the previous scene, the 'new' Young-Mi is headed for a gentle and happy new life, now that the 'evil queen' of her past is dead. Or it could presage the drama's fairy-tale ending of the kiss between our ‘Snow White’ and ‘Prince’, Sun-Mi and Hyung-Chul. Or does Young-Mi’s selection of Snow White mirror her choice of She Came to Stay back in Episode 05, a hint that the future (beyond the ending of this series) might take a another twist, and that Young-Mi is not the innocent she now seems to be, but is conscious of the dark role she will reprise. After all, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall…” was not at the end of the conflict, but the beginning. |
Episode 20 – Young-Mi reads to the orphans |
