Boy, Snow, Bird: Race, Identity, and Fairy Tale Retelling

Introduction: Fairy Tale as Modern Framework

What does it mean to be in a fairy tale — to live inside one? It seems to be Helen Oyeyemi's aim to explore the real world as a fairy tale and to give her characters a foundation in fairy tale lore. This fact alone lends them a kind of mythological edge that makes them more interesting than they might otherwise have any right to be. Yet, as with Anne Sexton's poetry, here is another modern author contemporizing the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and filling them with more commentary than is entirely necessary or compelling. Boy, Snow, Bird is not so much a modern fairy tale retold as a slice of modern life stitched to an old, worn-out patch of cloth that might once have been a fairy tale — though even that is unclear.

Oyeyemi's Racialization of the Fairy Tale

In her interview, Oyeyemi points out that "the fairy tale explicitly states that Snow White's beauty lies in the whiteness of her skin," and that fairy tales "focus on the nature of stories themselves and the curious power they have" (New York Times). In this way, the author racializes the fairy tale and places it within a racial context. The Snow White narrative, with its loaded imagery of white skin as a marker of beauty and worth, becomes a lens through which Oyeyemi examines race and identity in mid-twentieth-century America.