A Poisonous Apple

When she heard the glass speak thus she trembled and shook with rage.
"Snow White shall die," she cried, "even if it costs me my life."
Thereupon she went into a quite secret, lonely room, where no one ever came, and there she made a very poisonous apple. Outside it looked pretty, white with a red cheek, so that everyone who saw it longed for it, but whoever ate a piece of it must surely die.

Apple symbolism in literature is neigh-endless. In the Classic Grimm Brothers Tale "snow white" here it behaves as in a lyric-poem as the anthesis of snow white. Noice it is "white with a red cheek" much like Ms. white herself.

Snow White put her head out of the window and said, "I cannot let anyone in, the seven dwarfs have forbidden me."
"It is all the same to me," answered the woman, "I shall soon get rid of my apples. There, I will give you one."
"No," said Snow White, "I dare not take anything."
"Are you afraid of poison?" said the old woman, "look, I will cut the apple in two pieces, you eat the red cheek, and I will eat the white."
The apple was so cunningly made that only the red cheek was poisoned. Snow White longed for the fine apple, and when she saw that the woman ate part of it she could resist no longer, and stretched out her hand and took the poisonous half. But hardly had she a bit of it in her mouth than she fell down dead.

The evil apple itself is polarized like mankind, one good side and one bad. It's the division which appears in a hundred hollowood movies afterward. Anti-heroes, sympathy-evoking villans... all shades of gray.

original story here: http://www.fln.vcu.edu/grimm/schneeeng.html

the complete grimm fairy tales is available for free public domain download at project gutenberg. I can not possibly say enough good things about those good people there.
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2591
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5314