Fairytales subvert, challenge or reaffirm archetypal values through didactic lenses. The presence of universal themes allows for an examination of contextual shifts and by being malleable in nature, can be made relevant to different audiences. The Brothers Grimm 's "Little Red Cap", Angela Carter’s 'The Company of Wolves" and Tommy Wirkola 's film, "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters" all promote their hegemonic ideologies and as 'cultural artefacts’ extrapolate the contextual values of their time period. Carl Jung 's theory of the 'Collective Unconscious" ensures that each of these fairytale adaptations can retain their archetypal value and thus remain significant and relevant in contemporary circumstances.
The Brother Grimm’s 19th Century Fairytale, "Little Red Cap" reflects the hegemonies of its context through its cautionary justification. Grimm’s work reflected the importance of German national cohesion under French occupation and the view towards foreigners as destructive usurpers. "Little Red Cap" was adapted for instructional purposes, specifically aimed at a children 's audience. Initially in the tale, the subversion of Perrault’s depiction of the girl is evident exemplifying her as a "sweet" little girl and the hyperbolic "everybody loved her instantly on first sight" demonstrates the engrained virtue of her youth. The instruction for Little Red Cap to "not stray from the path" foreshadows the inherent danger associated with a misguided venture. The symbolism of
The Red tent is a book that follows the life of a woman named Dinah. The stories that are told throughout take place in biblical times, and follows some of the lineage of the bible itself. The book begins by telling the story of Dinah’s four mothers, along with their relationship with Dinah’s father Jacob. After being introduced to Dinah herself, the book follows her life story from beginning to end, all the way from Haran, through Canaan, Shechem, and into Egypt. Throughout this paper, I will be describing and comparing events of the book verses modern day, in relationship to child birthing practices, family dynamics, personal life experiences of characters, along with discussing herbs, spices, and medications used by
The stories ?Little Red Riding Hood,? by Charles Perrault, and ?Little Red Cap,? by the Brothers Grimm, are similar and different. Moreover, both stories differ from the American version. The stories have a similar moral at the end, each with a slight twist. This story, in each of its translations, is representative of a girl?s loss of innocence, her move from childhood or adolescence into adulthood. The way women are treated within each story is different. Little Red in the French version was eaten; whereas in the German version, she is rescued by the woodsman, and this further emphasizes the cultural differences.
Jem and Scout, throughout “To Kill A Mockingbird,” learn to consider things from other people’s perspectives. Atticus, Jem and Scout’s father, says “you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb into his skin and walk around in” (Lee 39). They learn this through experiences with their neighbor Boo Radley as they mature beyond their years. At the beginning of the novel, Jem and Scout make fun of Boo and assume that all of the rumors going around about him are true. However, later on in the story the children grow an admiration for Boo and learn to understand him. As they matured, Jem and Scout naturally learned many life lessons of appreciation, respect, and courage
Harper Lee is best known for writing the Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller To Kill a Mockingbird. The novel takes place during the depression in Alabama with the main character, Scout, viewing her lawyer father, Atticus, defending a wrongly accused black man of rape. The reader gets to understand Scout’s childhood view of this controversial situation. Scout’s character in to Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is really the author’s own life playing out in the novel, which is most likely why this novel is thought to be one of the best American Novels of the 20th century.
Romance can be a part of someone’s life, but it isn’t always the main focus. In the article “I Can’t Think About Kissing: Strong Female Protagonists and Romance in Dystopian Young Adult Fiction”, university student Mollie Hall discusses romance in dystopian novels: “Romance is pursued, but it is a side pursuit in the female protagonist’s journey instead of the goal.” (Hall 5). This statement is true in the novel Blood Red Road by Moira Young. Saba is a girl with a plan, who has had her brother stolen from her own home. She vows to get her brother back and sets off on a journey, meeting many interesting, villainous, and kind characters. That being said, Saba finds a bit of romance. This, however, is not her main goal. This is evident during Saba’s first meeting with Jack, her need for help, and her thoughts on her relationship with Jack. To begin, the initial meeting between Saba and Jack demonstrates a romantic viewpoint in the novel. Upon seeing Jack, Saba instantly feels a sense of love from her heartstone, a necklace charm that heats up when you are near your heart’s desire:
The folk tale of “Little Red Riding Hood” has numerous variations and interpretations depending on what recorded version is being read or analyzed. “Little Red Cap,” by the Grimm Brothers, and “The Grandmother,” as collected by Achille Millien, are different in numerous ways: the depth of the narrative structure, characters involved, length – yet, the moral lesson is largely unchanged between the two versions. One of the more glaring differences between the two versions is the way that the narrator and the actions of the characters are used to describe the young girl, female, and the wolf, male. Being either female or male are matters of biological makeup. The characteristics of femininity and masculinity that are associated with being
Where to begin? In the beginning of the book Red Mars, the character Arkady states that “History is not evolution! It is a false analogy! Evolution is a matter of environment and chance, acting over millions of years. But history is a matter of environment and choice, acting within lifetimes, and sometimes within years, or months, or days! History is Lamarckian! ” (Robinson 88). Arkady is stating that we choose our own history. Over the course of the book, the story of Mars twists and turns, and becomes something completely different. Mars changes from red to green.
An Analytical Comparison of “Little Red Riding Hood” by Charles Perrault and “Little Red Cap” by Grimm Brothers
Little Red Riding Hood is a fairytale known worldwide about an innocent little girl and a big bad wolf, or so it seems. Deeper investigation into the hidden meanings of this age-old ever changing fairy tale reveals many different tales all together; where the character’s true intentions and character traits might surprise you. Little Red Riding Hood can be traced back to the 10th century. One of the oldest documented versions originated from Italy by Italio Calvino, called The False Grandma.
When imaging the ideal audience of fairytales, children are quick to come to mind, although, our perception of Little Red Riding Hood as an innocent fable is far from the truth. Alternatively, the origins of this story are derived from Italo Calvino’s “The False Grandmother”, a story immersed in symbolism and metaphorical symbols intended strictly for a mature audience. The preceding tale was “Little Red Cap “written by Charles Perrault and then later the “Little Red Riding” written by the Brothers Grimm. Although the details of these tales vary, they all maintain similar storylines. The stories revolve around the young female character Little Red Riding Hood who is sent off on a mission to bring her grandmother a basket of goods. During her adventure she encounters a wolf who engages in a hot pursuit to eat both the Grandmother and Little Red Riding Hood, only to succeed in the earlier rendition of the story. In this essay I will prove that when the Grimm’s Brothers and Perrault’s Little Red Riding Hood stories are critically analyzed, it becomes evident that they are inappropriate tales for children as they exemplify the consequences of a minor transgression by Little Red Riding Hood as being the misleading cause of the violence and seduction that occurs thereafter.
Folktales are a way to represent situations analyzing different prospects about gender, through the stories that contribute with the reality of the culture in which they develop while these provide ideas about the behavior and roles of a specific sex building a culture of womanhood, manhood and childhood. This is what the stories of Little Red Riding Hood of Charles Perrault (1697) and Little Red-Cap of the Grimm Brothers (1812) show. This essay will describe some ideas about gender in different ways. First, the use of symbolic characters allows getting general ideas about the environment in the society rather than individuals. Second, it is possible to identify ideas about gender from the plot from the applied vocabulary providing a
Perrault did, however, append a short poem with a moral in it. The moral warns young women to beware the treacheries of men. The sources of Perrault's version are a matter of dispute, but his intended audience is not in dispute. His tales were aimed at genteel French society, not children. It is ironic therefore, that Perrault's tales, and especially "Little Red," are now considered fairy tales for children. Perrault's tale has been published both with and without the moralistic poem, but both versions are often considered inappropriate for children. Some people claim that the sudden ending -- with the eating of Red -- terrifies children. Others, of course, point to the inappropriateness of the poem's lesson in virginity for four and five-year-olds.
Conversely, Orenstein maintains that, by focusing on only the historical dimension of the tale as opposed to its larger social context, Darnton misses vital elements of the tale’s broader themes as well as the changes which occurred in the transition to the male-dominated written tradition. Orenstein begins by noting the wide breadth of oral cognates to “Little Red Riding Hood” which had been discovered across Europe and in Asia (Orenstein 69). Citing the work of folklorist Paul Delarue, she establishes that “Charles Perrault - whose 1697 text is the presumed source of the Grimms’ “Little Red Cap” - had dramatically revised the original folk tradition” (Orenstein 71). Most significantly, Orenstein observes - and criticizes Darnton’s lack of observation - that when authors began to put these stories onto paper, “the sense of female authorship - literally, female authority” (Orenstein 83) disappears from their tales. Fundamentally, Orenstein advances an interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood as a hero story whose “heroic heroine” (Orenstein 82), her cleverness, and most significantly her triumph over evil have all but vanished from the popular literary tradition.
Little Red Riding Hood is European folk mythology which teaches children the dangers of the unknown through the story of the titular protagonist and her encounter with ‘The Wolf’. Charles Perrault penned the first version for print in 1697 in Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals. Tales of Mother Goose; these stories are highly moralized and didactic with their roots in early French folklore. It was in this version that the significant meaning of the iconic ‘red hood’ was first noted. I will be focusing my exploration into adaptation on three of Angela Carter’s short stories from her collection The Bloody Chamber; The Werewolf, Wolf Alice and The Company of Wolves. Collectively these stories are known as ‘The Wolf Trilogy’ and henceforth
Over time, many versions of common fairy tales have been released. Each one comes with unique differences, that separate them from the others. Snow White is an example. Commonly, what comes to the minds of many individuals when they hear the title “Snow White”, is Disney. They have the basic beautiful princess in a sticky situation, accompanied by their trustful sidekicks, in this case seven dwarfs. However, Walt Disney was not the creator of this story, or the evil queen constantly muttering ,¨Mirror, mirror, on the wall…”. It seems as though many in this world have fallen in love with this portrayal of the tale. Believe it or not, these ideas are based directly off a German version published by the Grimm Brothers. Both are very alike, and unlike too. Similarly, new versions, released in movies, have also changed the depiction of the common “Snow White”. These differences may be related to how society is beginning to view people, women, and heroes, or someone who is brave and courageous. This has helped shape these newer versions of the all-time classic.