Meaning & Analysis
A direct comparison describing something as being the pure, brilliant white color of freshly fallen snow that has been blown into drifts by the wind.
Insights
Purity and Innocence
Symbolizes ultimate purity, innocence, and a state of being morally unblemished or free from sin and guilt. This is the most common metaphorical application, often used to describe a person's character or soul.
Perfection and Flawlessness
Represents a state of absolute perfection and flawlessness, without any stain or imperfection. It is used to describe idealized beauty, particularly of the skin, or a perfect, untarnished object.
Chastity and Virtue
In a more specific context, the simile is used to denote chastity and virginity, drawing on the connection between the untouched, pure state of snow and sexual innocence.
Cultural Symbolism of White
The color white has long held powerful symbolic weight in Western culture, associated with divinity, virtue, and sacredness. Snow, as a natural element, provides a universally understood image for this concept, with 'driven' snow specifically implying a pristine, untouched state, free from the corrupting influence of human contact.
Literary Resonance
A staple of English literature, the simile is used extensively by Shakespeare to create stark contrasts between purity and corruption, such as 'new snow upon a raven's back' or 'Black Macbeth Will seem as pure as snow'. This usage cemented its role as a powerful literary device for denoting moral and physical flawlessness.
Psychological Dimensions
The proverb taps into the deep-seated psychological association of color with morality, a cognitive shortcut where white represents cleanliness, safety, and goodness. It also hints at fragility, as the purity of snow is transient and easily sullied, reflecting the precarious nature of innocence.
Rhetorical Devices
Simile
The proverb is a classic simile, a figure of speech that makes a direct comparison between two different things using 'as' or 'like'.
Imagery
It evokes a powerful and vivid sensory image of pure, clean, and cold snow, enhanced by the adjective 'driven' which suggests untouched, windswept purity.
Hyperbole
The phrase is often used as a form of hyperbole to exaggerate the degree of whiteness or purity, setting an absolute and ideal standard that is rarely met in reality.
Transcription
Quotations
He chaunged coloure and waxed as whyte as snowe.
A stone as whyte as snowe.
The fish Scolopidus . . is as white as the driuen snowe.
His woolen hose, as white as the driuen snowe.
To make my purple sinne as white as Snowe.
Now innocence must die, As white as untrod snow or culver down.
What is that is white as snow, and yet as blacke as any crow?
With a yong Kid, than new falne snow more white.
Anything that is white, extraordinary, as white as the driven Snow.
Shakespeare Citations
Whiter than new snow upon a raven's back.
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens To wash it white as snow?
White his shroud as the mountain snow.
His beard was as white as snow, All flaxen was his poll.
That whiter skin of hers than snow, And smooth as monumental alabaster.
Black Macbeth Will seem as pure as snow.
Lawn as white as driven snow.
As white as .. the fann'd snow that's bolted By th' northern blasts twice o'er.
O . . constant queen . . as chaste, and pure As wind-fann'd snow.
Cross References
- Pf., no. 308
- St., no. 212
- TAY., p. 67.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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