Little Red Riding Hood Metaphors

Little red riding hood is about a girl on a trip to her sick grandmother’s house but she had met a wolf on her way there. There are many different versions of this story, the Perrault version and Grimm version. There was also a parody of Little Red Riding Hood called Hoodwinked!. In all of the stories they all start with a mother giving something to give to her daughter. For her daughter to travel into the forest to give her grandmother what her mother had made.

According to Merriam Webster dictionary, mockingbirds are a bird that has a remarkable ability to “exact imitations of the notes of other birds”. In addition, they are known to have up to 200 songs in their “playlists’, which they will sing all through the day and evening, usually when there is a full moon. Based on this description, mockingbirds are innocent, beautiful birds that can bring a sense of calmness to people around them with their smooth melodies. Therefore, they are a creature that brings no harm to others, just joy. Like the mockingbird, today’s society consists of many innocent people around the world who are hardworking and treats others with respect no matter of their socio economic status; as well as, race and religion. On the other hand, there are some people in our world who judge others based on their evil beliefs they learned from others instead of listening to their conscience.

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

“I've told her and I've told her: daughter, you have to teach that child the facts of life before it's too late” (Hopkinson 1). These are the first three lines of Nalo Hopkinson's short story “Riding the Red”, a modern adaptation of Charles Perrault's “Little Red Riding Hood”. In his fairy tale Perrault prevents girls from men's nature. In Hopkinson's adaptation, the goal remains the same: through the grandmother biographic narration, the author elaborates a slightly revisited plot without altering the moral: young girls should beware of men; especially when they seem innocent.

Original fairy tales restrict the opportunities of female protagonists, allowing their fate to be controlled by male characters and society’s restrictive expectations of women. Authors such as Perrault of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ were quick to provide advice to their suggestible female readers in moral that girls should not try to drift from the path that society has laid out for them. Thus they became ‘parables of instruction’ (Carter) to indoctrinate the next generation in the values of a patriarchal society. Fairy tales of this time consistently remind us that those of the female sex will not prosper if they choose to ignore and defy the social constructs. Pre 1900s, the roles of women were entirely predetermined. A clear female dichotomy was established portraying them as either ‘the virgin’ or ‘the whore’. Stereotypical perceptions of women reduced them to biological functions and stated that they should acquire the role of wife and mother – objectified to such an extent where they were essentially their male counterpart’s possession. Both authors scorn the importance placed on domesticity and conformity, stressing the vital nature of being able to choose and uncover the consequences of societal ignorance. Carter highlights to her literary audience a passive generation of women who face the inability to vocalise their thoughts and opinions in the context of oppressive patriarchy. Within her work ‘The Company of Wolves’ “The

"Riding The Red"at first glance is a simple narrative with a grandmother telling a story about a wolf, but with further analyzation the two themes of first love and innocent become very clear. The author’s repetition of certain words like blood and dance directs your attention to a deeper meaning hinting and connections to the "Little Red Riding Hood" which reflects back to the underlining message of what happens when a girl grows up.

Of all the different versions of the Little Red Riding Hood, they have one common factor, which is the wolf. In the versions I have mentioned above, the wolf stays the same throughout the stories; he is very malicious and calculated. He waits for the little girl, or girls in the story of "The Chinese Red Riding Hoods," as there are three sisters whose mother left to go visit the grandmother. While the wolf was outside and overheard the mother asking for the oldest daughter to watch for her younger sisters. When it was dark, he disguised himself as an elderly woman and knocked at the door of the three girls' house (Chang 1). In the other two versions, the wolf comes upon Little Red Riding Hood as she enters the forest and asks her where she is traveling to. In the version of The Brothers Grimm, he comes right on out and asks her where her grandmother lives. On the way to the cottage, the wolf distracts the girl by asking her why she doesn't look

Little Red Riding Hood retold by the Brothers Grimm version by Paul Galdone includes a "sweet little maiden" (Galdone 1) who never

Perrault’s version warns against wandering away from the safety formed by civilized society. A scholar, Eric Fromm considers the red riding hood to be a “symbol for menstruation” (1), symbolizing that Little Red Riding Hood is entering puberty and therefore womanhood and in turn moving away from the guidance of her mother and grandmother. This is also understood when she forgets her mother’s warning to stay on the path, and goes off picking flowers and chasing butterflies with childlike innocence. The sexual undertones were obvious in a culture that would outcast a young woman who lost her virginity. Perrault’s story gained popularity in a time when high society parents were concerned with their children ruining their family names. This is illustrated in the end of the story where the wolf kills and eats the girl and her

Reading fairy tales or seeing them represented has become part of an everyday routine for children. As Baker-Sperry states, “Through interaction that occurs within everyday routines (Corsaro 1997), children are able to learn the rules of the social group in which they are a part” (Baker-Sperry 717-718). For example, through Red Riding Hood, children learn to listen to their parents and to be wary of strangers. Some of these messages are harmful though; not all girls have to be naive and weak while boys are predacious wolves. Not everyone has to play the role that society assigns them.

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.

In her transformation of the well-known fable "Little Red Riding Hood," Angela Carter plays upon the reader's familiarity. By echoing elements of the allegory intended to scare and thus caution young girls, she evokes preconceptions and stereotypes about gender roles. In the traditional tale, Red sticks to "the path," but needs to be rescued from the threatening wolf by a hunter or "woodsman." Carter retells the story with a modern perspective on women. By using fantasy metaphorically and hyperbolically, she can poignantly convey her unorthodox and underlying messages.

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

In the Grimms' version, both Red and her grandmother are eaten by the wolf, but miraculously saved by a huntsman who, instead of shooting the wolf, cuts open its belly, apparently while the wolf is still alive, in order to release first Little Red, and then her grandmother. Red then fills the wolf's belly with stones, and as a result, justice is served and the wolf dies. The moral of the Grimm's version also differs from that of Perrault. The Grimms emphasize obedience. Before she sets out, Red is given strict and fairly detailed instructions by her mother, not to stray from the path. The wolf tempts her from the path, she sins, and thus her being eaten by the wolf is often considered by critics as the punishment for her

In Carol Ann Duffy’s “Little Red Cap,” taken from her collection The Worlds Wife, Duffy incorporates her feminist views on life to help develop Red-Cap’s character into an independent woman. In her work, Duffy intends to illuminate for the audience that woman are more powerful than they are perceived by society. In the poem, she writes about a young girl at the peak of her childhood, who is about to enter into the next phase of her life. The young, inexperienced girl describes the beginning of her transformation into adulthood after losing her innocence to “The Wolf.” The loss of her innocence contributes to the realization that she no longer needs an old, no good wolf. She gains the courage and reflects on how her life changes dramatically after her departure from the wolf. The poem “Little Red-Cap," written in The World’s Wife, closely relates to certain aspects of the original fairy tales written by The Grimm Brother and Charles Perrault. Duffy’s version of “Little Red Cap” is a rewrite of the original fairy tale “Little Red Riding Hood.” Duffy incorporates her strong feminist views by allowing Red-Cap to initiate her encounter with the wolf and to use him for gaining knowledge for her career and sexual desires. These aspects contribute to the development of Red-Cap’s character into a more independent woman to contradict the oppression of women in the past and present generations, and allowing her to offer suggestions for women in the future.