Niraj Soni

English Comp 1

1 March 2012

The Little Red Riding Hood

Introduction

Little Red Riding Hood was part of the collection "Histoires ou Contes du temps passé, avec des Moralités, stories created out of folktales by Charles Perrault, that was intended to be used in the nurseries at Versailles in the court of Louis XIV. Perrault's tales were first translated into English in 1729 by Robert Samber in Histories or Tales of Past Times. The story, now often published alone, has undergone numerous transformations. The popular contemporary version found in children's books in the United States is based upon the rewriting of the folktale by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm that appeared as "Little Red Cap" in their Nursery and Household Tales, published in Germany in 1812. The first accurate U.S. translation of this collection appeared in 1944 as Grimm's Fairy Tales.

Little Red Riding Hood is the story that prevail the knowledge that every child should take precautions in their life.

Discussion and Analysis

Children all over the world face enormous challenges in their lives whether these challenges are related to education, family life, and / or health related issues. Similarly, the life of Little Red Riding Hood has been never so easy. Sometimes she cut her way out of the wolf's dark belly and filled it with stones so that he would topple over dead. One time she shot him with an automatic, which she carried in her basket. It has always been difficult for Little Red Riding Hood to suppress her fear of the wolf especially when his lust ultimately forces him to bare his dreadful fangs (Cartwright, Catherine and David, pp. 54-78). Yet, on a few occasions she does overcome her fear, realizes that the wolf himself is a victim of slander, and even decides to marry him. In other, more prudish, versions of her life, it is said that she prevented the wolf from laying his vulgar sexual paws on her and her granny.

As for her character, Little Red Riding Hood has been described as pretty and lovely, but too gullible and naive. Sometimes she has appeared vain and foolish, sometimes sassy and courageous. Much ado has been made about her fetish of the red hood or cap. Clearly her innocence in the story has been suspect. There is a touch of nonconformity and sexual promiscuity in her character. But whatever her reputation and destiny, she has always been used as a warning to children, particularly girls, a symbol and embodiment of what might happen if they are disobedient and careless. She epitomizes the good girl gone wrong, and her history appears to be an open-and-shut case (Spirin, Wilhelm and Jacob, pp. 24-98). Yet, the hidden motives in the different versions of her life suggest that she may be the victim of circumstantial evidence. Given the fact that the plot and signs have varied in the course of 300 years, there is something suspiciously manipulative about the way Little Red Riding Hood has been treated. She has suffered abuse after abuse, and it ...