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Snow White is the fairy tale of an exceedingly lovable child who is first very much wished for by her mother and then hated, persecuted, and finally killed by a wicked stepmother; but her loveliness and her innocence command miracles which bring her final rehabilitation and justice. This is the manifest content of the tale. Along with it goes an abundance of symbolism which allows a variety of interpretations of which the authors present only a certain group.
The story, they point out, is chiefly concerned with the relationships of a mother and daughter, from the child's birth until her development into womanhood, and the chief villain of the piece is their mutual sexual jealousy. The father, conspicuously absent in the text, is found transformed into other figures and symbols, e.g., the huntsman and the dwarfs. The threatened killing by the huntsman is interpreted as a sexual attack by the father, which in turn is a projection in the form of an imagined retaliation for Snow White's impulses of hatred and anger toward the parents. The attacks on Snow White by the stepmother are likewise interpreted as fantasies of retaliation for the child's hatred of the mother and for her unconscious wish to displace the mother in the father's affections. The amazed reader is told that Snow White continues to be aggressive and destructive to the end.
The stressing of the masochistic theme as an outgrowth of Oedipal aggression appears arbitrary and unwarranted by the material. The point of view of the authors is an example of a widespread misconception of masochism.