The Pleasure Principle in Perrault's Little Red Riding Hood and Brothers Grimm Little Red Cap

The implied thesis I could gather from reading Little Red Riding Hood's story was "Listen to your mother and most importantly do not fall off course because otherwise bad outcomes will come about". This proved so significant in that Little Red not reaching her grandmother's in a timely fashion gave the wolf his chance to eat not only one, but two people. In essence, this is quite problematic due to Little Red Riding Hood receiving clear instructions from her mother and not abiding by those instructions. She was told to be very quiet on her journey and reach grandmother's before it gets too hot outside. And if she does not grandma will not get any better. Consequently, Little Red did not do what she was supposed to. Instead, she traveled deeper

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.

In many cultures, coming of age is often celebrated because children become young adults who grasp self-awareness and accountability. At the same time, childhood is threatened by responsibility, which is dreaded because there is an unpredictable world of adulthood waiting with no guarantees. James Hurst demonstrates the journey of growing up through life experiences everyone goes through in the short story, “The Scarlet Ibis”. Throughout his use of mood, setting, and symbolism, Hurst shows that maturing requires reflecting on past experiences and losing innocence, which then can transform one’s outlook on life.

"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.

At first glance the characters Connie from “Where are you going? Where have you been?” and Little Red Riding Hood from the classic fairy tale “Little Red Riding Hood” may seem to have nothing in common. However, from the start one can compare how much they actually have in common. Though these two characters are very different they are the same in many ways. Their story, from beginning to end, is similar. It is easy to see how alike and different they are with the description of Connie and Little Red Riding Hood’s lives, the relationship with their wolves, and their tragic endings.

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

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

In the Grimm story, Little Red-Cap is naive and easily fooled. Red-Cap meets a wolf in the woods, “Red-Cap did not know what a wicked creature he was, and was not at all afraid of him” (Grimm). She is then tricked into believing that he is her grandmother and he devours her. She later has to be saved from death by the huntsman that happens to walk by (Grimm). She shows little agency and does not know enough to protect herself. This varies greatly from Red in Hoodwinked. Towards the beginning of the movie, there is a scene

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.

Overall, the objective moral truth to be learned has been unaltered: “children, especially young girls…are wrong to listen to anyone” (13). This ‘don’t talk to strangers’ policy is the cornerstone of Perrault’s tale, which recalls Little Red Riding Hood as an innocent but foolish young girl. She takes some cakes to her ill grandmother, coming upon a wolf while making her way through the woods. The wolf, although hungry, chooses not to eat her yet, and instead gets the young girl to tell him where she is headed. The girl, unsuspecting, tells the wolf that she in headed to the house of her sick grandmother. The wolf then beats the girl to the destination by using a shortcut, eats the grandmother, and then eats Little Red Riding Hood when she arrives (11-13). For children, the prospects of being eaten alive serve as an effective deterrent from talking to strangers.

Carter remains consistent with the original story of Red Riding Hood, and elaborates on the girl's nature at the time the story takes place. Red's cheeks are scarlet, indicative of her becoming a woman; in contrast, "she is an unbroken egg; she is a sealed vessel...she does not know how to shiver" (2234). A reader may think this emphasis of her sexual inexperience reveals her naivety. However, Carter's exaggeration of Red's purity may be her way of questioning readers' assumption that since Red is an innocent woman, she will be victimized. The combination of Red's sexual maturity, contrasted with hyperbolic description of her innocence, and the climax of the story contribute to this possibility.

The Grimm's tale states that in the forest Red sees the wolf as someone not to be afraid of, an acquaintance of sort. Red is a very distracted character allowing herself to be redirected at every turn. At grandma’s she is focused on doing what she believes an adult is telling her to do, even though she obviously has misgivings about it. By this time grandma is already consumed by the wolf along with the soon to be Red and the huntsman comes along to cut them out of the belly of the wolf. Grimm’s

Furthermore, in Red Riding Hood she was wearing red which is the colour of blood as she was a virgin she became the prey of the wolf. The colour red attracts unnecessary attention when she was going through the forest. This tells us how naïve young girls can be and not being aware of her surroundings. She was born in a village so comparing to the children in the cities she is more

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

Little Red Cap then filled the wolf up with heavy stones so that when he woke up and tried to run away he would die (Grimm 1083). This experience with the wolf showed Little Red Cap that there were things in the world that would hurt her, and it also showed her she had to be more careful about who she trusted with information about herself. The reader knows that this knowledge Little Red Cap gained made her wiser when she claims “As long as I live, I will never leave the path and run off into the woods by myself” (Grimm 1084). Little Red Cap could have avoided this life threatening situation all together if she would have known about creatures like the wolf who prey on innocent people like herself and her