Woods
Snow White goes into the woods to harvest plants and is found by her stepmother, who sits and brushes her hair. Gretel and Hansel get lost in the woods after being abandoned by their father and find their way to the witch’s cottage, who tries to kill Hansel but saves Gretel. The woods come to be an image of getting lost, but finding one’s way through another person: Snow White tries to forge a relationship with her stepmother, and Gretel finds comfort with the witch that she did not receive with her parents.
Gardens
Belle finds the Beast nearly dead in the rose garden, and heals her alongside the roses that are beginning to bloom. Donkeyskin’s witch makes her home in a cottage in the garden, where she works to save her from her father. Gardens represent a place of safety and happiness, as they are the site of the beginning of Belle and the Beast’s relationship, and the place that Donkeyskin comes home to.
The Color Red
Snow White bites the red side of her stepmother’s apple and promptly faints. The protagonist from The Tale of the Handkerchief sees her husband’s red eyes and knows that he will die soon. The protagonist from The Tale of the Spinster is given her mother’s ring, stained with her blood, when she dies. The color red comes to be an image representing oncoming death and doom.
Shoes
Cinderella puts on a pair of fancy shoes each night she goes to the ball. She loses one the night that she flees from the prince after realizing that what she truly wants is her fairy godmother. Donkeyskin wears dancing slippers the night she dresses as a princess again, as part of her disguise, and takes them off when she goes back to wearing the donkeyskin. Fancy shoes are a symbol of entering a place of royalty and the world of the upper class, and removing them is a symbol of leaving that world, whether by choice or by force.
