Little Red Riding Hood

This research compares and contrasts two narratives of the story of Little Red Cap, or Little Red Riding Hood, John B. Gruelle and Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Though there are obvious differences between the tales that might be attributed to the national cultures in which they emerged, what they share is a common view of the vulnerability embedded into ordinary female experience that, despite the fairy-tale pattern of ideas and events, appears to reflect certain social realities and social expectations of women. Accordingly, both of these versions of Little Red Riding Hood can be interpreted chiefly as exercises in social instruction; in the differences between the versions can be detected articulations of the extent of moral agency of women.

Langer's analysis of fairy tales is that they are a literary exercise in wishful thinking and that their fantasy stories are "never believed by adults even in the telling" (175). If that is true as far as the difference between the nightly news and make-believe bedtime stories goes, Langer's analysis does not capture identifiable linkages between normative social values and the figures of fairy-tale narrative, including but not limited to "Little Red Riding Hood." One difference between the Gruelle and Grimm versions of "Little Red Riding Hood" is that Gruelle's tale has a prepubescent child at the center of the story, while the Grimms refer to "a sweet little maiden" who is old enough to be trusted to carry wine and food into the woods, c

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t the Grimms' sweet little maiden is beyond childhood lends layers of complexity to their version of the tale. For one thing, it implies that she is obliged to take some responsibility for her own actions and that her fate is tied to her behavior and will. She thinks (the reader knows better) that she can take time to pick flowers and still be on time for Grandmother. More serious is that her innocence and artlessness is to be contrasted with the worldliness and deception of the wolf. When he asks where Little Red Cap's grandmother lives, she chats inconsequentially on and on, making everything easy for him: "Another quarter of an hour from here in the forest. Her house is under the three big oak trees. You can tell it by the hazel bushes" (Grimm and Grimm). Chase and Teasley say that the tale traditionally identified the wolf with witches and Satan (770f), and the Grimms' huntsman calls the wolf the "old sinner." The Grimms' Red Riding Hood is childlike in being entirely self-absorbed--also, some would say, the mark of an adolescent. Historically, unworldly young women have been at marked social risk and have fallen prey to dastardly designs. According to Brownmiller, the tale is "a parable of rape" (310). Chase and Teasley cite

Category: Literature - L