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An interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood Table of contents Page 1:Introduction, Charles Perrault’s version of the story Page 2: The Grimm brother’s version Page 3:The Grimm brother’s version Page 4: Different interpretation of the story Page 5: Psychoanalytical reading – initiation rite Page 6: Sexual implications, feminist reading Page 7: Deconstruction of the tale Page 8: Cautionary tale Page 9: Cannibalism Page 10: Conclusion This paper is an attempt to explore the well-known and widespread story of the little Red Riding Hood. The story first emerged as a folktale that was narrated to young children by mothers and nurses in Europe, even before the 17 th century. It is a deceptively simple narrative. There were a large number of different oral variations of this story. The different variants of the story grasped the attention of Charles Perrault, who decided to print the first written version of the story in “a collection of fairy tales” that later became “a French classic.” (Antonelli,2015). Perrault wrote his tales for an aristocratic audience. He published the story of Le Petit Chaperon Rouge in 1697. Little red riding hoodwas named after a red cape her grandmother gave her. Perrault 1

was the one who came up with the idea of the chaperon, “a small, ornamental headdress of velvet or satin”. (Hillard, 2009). The story starts with little Red Riding Hood’s mother telling her to take some biscuits and butter to her grandmother that lives in a village, located beyond a forest. In Perrault’s version, there no prohibitions at all. As the girl, walks through the forest, she encounters a wolf and makes the mistake of telling him where her grandmother’s house is. She loses time by enjoying herself by “gathering nuts”, “cashing butterflies and making nosegays”.

(Tatar,

1992,37). The wolf tricks her and manages to arrive first to her grandmother’s place and fool the girl’s grandmother by pretending that he is little Red Riding Hood. He devours her and then lies on her bed. When Little Red Riding Hood enters the house, the wolf imitates the voice of her grandmother and asks the girl to go to the bed. The girl undresses and lies with him. The girl notices “What great arms you have, Grandma!”. (Antonelli,2015). Shemakes comments in the form of formulaic series “what big ears, hands, and teeth the grandmother/wolf has…”. (Kohm, Greenhill, 2014). Then the girl is devoured by the wolf. This constitutes the end of the story. In this version, there is no savior, no hero to help Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother after being swallowed by the wolf. Perrault added his own moral at the end of the story: “From this story ones learns that children, / Especially young ladies, /Pretty, courteous and well-bread,” “Do very wrong to listen to strangers,/ And it is not an unheard-of-thing/ If the Wolf is thereby provided with his dinner.” (Tatar, 1992,37). This didactic addition about Little Red Riding Hood’s mistakes is not found in the other versions of the tale.Perrault places emphasis on the ethical code of the fairytales. In his story, he introduces novel elements such as the notion of degradation. Children learn what the advantages are of being “honest, patient, prudent, hard-working and obedient” and simultaneously they 2

find out that if they do not have these values they will only have trouble. (Tatar, 1992). Some people “reduced” the tale in a mere story to teach to children to be careful of wolves. (Antonelli,2015). Most people believe that the tale’s moralis that children and especially little pretty girls should never talk to strangers because if they do, there will be consequences. Children are supposed to be obedient and listen to their parents. However, this did not constitute the real problem. On a deeper level the story provides a clear lesson to the reader by focusing on more profound dangersand specifically the danger of sexual impulses. One should be aware of the dangers, such asa

“dangerous

wolf]”

that

seem harmlessbut lurk

around

in disguise.

(Antonelli,2015). In 1812, the Grimm brothers published a collection of fairytales that contained a variation of Perrault’s version of the story.This version of the tale is best known around the world. In this version, Little Red Riding Hood’s mother gives her a cake as well as a bottle of wine to give to her grandmother. She warned her not to fall and break the bottle. As it is known, prohibitions often lead to violations. When the girl gets to her grandmother’s house she gets fooled by the wolf that is disguised but does not lie in the bed with him. "Rottkapchen" a wolf devours both the little girl and grandmother. After thishe falls asleep and starts snorting. In this version, there is the addition of the hunter, woodcutter that passes by and hears the wolf. He gets astonished that such a loud snore was heard from the grandmother’s house, who was an old woman. He decides to go in her house to see what is going on. He finds out that the wolf is there. He thinks about shooting him but he realized that maybe he has eaten the two women and thus he does not shoot him. Instead, he takes a sharp knife and makes an incision in the wolf’s stomach. He is the one that “ushers in an element of paternalistic rebirth, discipline and punishment” by cutting the wolf’s belly. 3

(Hillard, 2009).The Grimm brothers’ version suggests that the hunter uses his sharp knife to perform something that is similar to sacrifice. Bettelheim says that “In the hunter’s action, violence (cutting open the belly) is made to serve the highest social purpose (rescuing the two females).” (Antonelli,2015). The cut on the wolf’s stomach involves some degree of violence. The wolf does not die because the hunter cut his belly but his death is rather a reflection of an “an intensely sacrificial sequence of punishments”. (Antonelli,2015).

First, he is stoned and subsequently he gets

drowned. It is symbolic of “Maria Tatar’s quintet of “murder, mutilation, cannibalism, infanticide and incest” in the Grimm brothers’ collection rather than “the Disney feature formula in which an innocent persecuted heroine meets and eventually marries a handsome prince.”(Kohm, Greenhill, 2014). Little Red Riding Hood as well as her grandmother come out of his tummy with no harm inflicted on them. They go into the house and take with them the wolf that is still asleep, putting big stones in the inside of his stomach. When he woke up the stones were that heavy that dragged him down and he tried to get away, he dies. Children desire to see the adult villains to be punished in fairytales.

Bettelheim focuses on the need that children have to see evil

destroyed. Children comfort themselves when they see that beast, whether it is a “wolf, [a] giant, [a] witch or [an] ogre” get slew (slain), “cooked [or] beheaded”. (Nidds, McGerald, 1999). However, this is rather disturbing for adults. It should be noted that in fairy tales these deeds of brutality are just mentioned. The authors of the traditional tales view “gore and brutality” as “obscene”. (Nidds, McGerald, 1999). Little Red Riding Hood says “I will never again wander off into the forest nor talk to a stranger as long as I live, when my mother forbids it.” (Antonelli,2015). In this version, the girl has learnt her lesson and there is a happy ending after all. In this version, Little Red Riding Hood in the end says that “Never in all my life will I stray

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from the path and enter the woods alone, when mother has forbidden it”. (Tatar, 1992,32).In this case, there is no clear connection between the “violation of the mother’s prohibition and [the] punishment by the wolf”. (Tatar, 1992,32). Over the centuries, Perrault’s and the Grimm brothers’ story underwent some changes. The features that were added later to the story or the ones that got changed turned into “cultural items”. (Cari, 2013). An example, of such a feature is the Red Riding Hood's red hood. The interpretation of some details of the story such as the explicit, candid instructions of Little Red Riding Hood’s mother not to break the bottle of wine, or not to lose time by wandering around to pick flowers consist later interpolations. In some of the retellings the explicit scenes of violence “inherent to the originals are glossed over”. (Cari, 2013). “Little Red Riding Hood” is read by academics of different disciplines. They use “an assortment of theoretical lenses.” (Kohm, Greenhill, 2014). During the last century, an infinite number of “comments, deconstructions and interpretations” of the Little Red Riding Hood have been postulated. (Antonelli,2015). Multiple and open meanings can be assigned to traditional narratives. “Little Red Riding Hood” encompasses “nurturers and aggressors, victims and rescuers.” (Kohm, Greenhill, 2014). In some variants “individual characters take both sides of these semiotic oppositions.”(Kohm, Greenhill, 2014).All the well-known interpretations of the tale agree upon the main distribution of roles in the tale. Little Red Riding Hood is the main character of the story.In the interpretation of famous tales, the application of psychoanalytical reading is viewed as a leading method, one of the most powerful hermeneutic methods employed. Interpretations of the tale that were inspired from psychoanalysis stemmed from Freud, Erich Fromm, as well as from Bruno Bettelheim whoclaimed that very often psychoanalytical interpretations were viewed suspiciously. 5

Each psychoanalyst posits an interpretation of a tale that is completely different from the interpretation of another for the same fairytale. However, theyfound their different but at the same time similar interpretations of the sexual implications of the tale on the “implicit and never questioned presupposition” that Little Red Riding Hood is the protagonist. (Lake, 1999).Every psychoanalyst agrees upon the fact that Little Red Riding Hood is about a young woman that experiences “profound sexual impulses” not a little girl. (Antonelli,2015). Little Red Riding Hood is “not as innocent and pure as she may seem”, as she lies into bed with the wolf due to her own wishes. (Antonelli,2015). She is not driven or forced by the wolf to crawl into bed with him. She is willing to grow up and become open to experience the pleasures of life. So,“Little Red Riding Hood” consists of a Bildungsroman, a “Bildungmärchen, a formation tale”. (Antonelli,2015). An interpretation that fits precisely Little Red Riding Hood’s journey is that “of an initiation rite.” (Antonelli,2015). This rite of passage takes place in the middle of the forest and was founded upon the “mise-en-scène of a death and rebirth sequence.” (Antonelli,2015). For the child to be initiated in this experience, it first needs to become swallowed by some kind of a beast. After this it will come out reborn and restored. The child will become “a new individual” who has undergone some maturation and entered adulthood. (Antonelli,2015). Bettelheim argues that children are intuitively aware that it is necessary for the wolf to devour the girl. He says that "the threat of being devoured” is the main theme of the fairytale because every story "deals with the difficulties and anxieties of the child who is forced to [...] free himself of his oral fixation". (Cari, 2013). As Little Red Riding Hood faced the dangers that were residing in herself as well as in the world, she lost her childish innocence. It was replaced by wisdom that “only the 'twice born' can possess”. (Cari, 2013). Little Red 6

Riding Hood confronted her fears and “c[a]me out the other side”. (Cari, 2013). When 'the little girl sprang out' of the stomach of the wolf, she came out as a different person. This consists an explanation of her sexualized nature. Little Red Riding Hood is ready to grow with all the implications that this process implies, even sexual impulses. Her mother is not reckless and thus she does not send her little daughter into the forest that is full of dangers, but rather she sends her to her grandmother, an old woman through which the rite of passage will be performed. So, the wolf does not constitute the real threat but rather consist “the symbolic ritual procedure” that the girl goes through to become a woman. (Antonelli,2015). In addition, feminist thinking made “its breakthrough” in the attempt to interpret the tale. (Antonelli,2015). The tale is “the narration of the female rite of passage”. (Antonelli,2015). Orenstein reads “Little Red Riding Hood” as female tale and focuses on the adaptations where “the sense of female authority resurfaces.” (Antonelli,2015). She performs a feminist reading. In her work “Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked” explores “gender problems, identity and sexuality issues, […] violence [enacted] against women at large.” (Antonelli,2015). She dwells upon the flexible, oscillating and fluctuating sexual roles that are depicted in the story as well as in the construction of gender. Another scholar Hélène Cixous, receives the story as a narration of “women’s sex and sexuality”. (Kohm, Greenhill, 2014). She believes that the Little Red Riding Hood could be “a little clitoris”. (Kohm, Greenhill, 2014). Little Red Riding Hood is viewed as “the little female sex” who comes across a mischief. (Kohm, Greenhill, 2014). Some other interpretations of the tale that were exclaimed in the twentieth century were the deconstruction of the tale, analyzing the sexual theme explicitly.For many

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academics “Little Red Riding Hood” has deep implications of sex and sexuality. Jack Zipes in “The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood” argues that the story constitutes the most widespread fairytale in the Western world because “rape and violence are at the core of the history of Little Red Riding Hood”. (Beckett, 2014). The sexual theme as well as the brutality of the tale are controversial themes that definitely draw many authors as well as illustrators. According to a Freudian reading, “Little Red Riding Hood” can be read as the “reactivation of early Oedipal longings”. (Antonelli,2015). The young girl has a desire for her father and that is why she wants to lie in bed with the wolf. The grandmother of the girl can be viewed as a “displaced obstacle represented by the mother”. (Antonelli,2015). Another critic, Warner claims that “Little Red Riding Hood” “contains deeply disturbing adult material.” (Kohm, Greenhill, 2014). Another critic, Garber says that “the confrontation with the wolf in bed is pervasively and complicatedly erotic.” (Kohm, Greenhill, 2014). A far-fetched claim is that the story insinuates rape and “the act of devouring” is turned “a sexual symbol”. (Kohm, Greenhill, 2014). Brownmiller states in “Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape” that the fairytale is “a parable of rape.” (Kohm, Greenhill, 2014). Jack Zipes argues that the act of eating Little Red Riding Hood “is a sexual act”. (Lake,1999). He also argues in “The Irresistible Fairy Tale that “Little Red Riding Hood […] is not the heroine” in Perrault’s and the Grimm brothers’ version. He says that she “is more of a wimp” because she is “complicit in her own rape/violation and death” in the Perrault version and because she is in desperate need of the hunter to save her by getting her out of the wolf’s stomach in the Grimm brothers’ version. (Van Spanckeren, Jan, 1988). She becomes complicit to her own seduction with her own actions. She stops to listen to a stranger and lingers by picking up flowers. She indulges in her sensuality, her inner sexual desires which 8

in combination to the outer natural forces lead to destruction and thus she should be punished. Another way that the story can be read is as a cautionary tale. In popular culture, cautionary tales are ubiquitous, omnipresent. Tatar claims that Little Red Riding Hood is "possibly the most famous cautionary tale of all times". (Cari, 2013). It has “the customary prohibition/violation pattern” that is typical of this genre. (Tatar, 1992). In the Grimm brothers’ version, little Red Riding Hood’s mother warns her of the danger. The girl disregards her. In general disobedience is “a function of curiosity and stubbornness” in almost every folktale collection. (Tatar, 1992). However, the fact that despite her mother’s predictions the bottle of wine remains intact “subverts the authority of her pronouncements”. (Tatar, 1992,32). In general, cautionary tales punish vices, which are pointed out continuously and throughout the tale. “Little Red Riding Hood” consists one of the most violent, brutal and didactic children’s stories as they it makes a prohibition clear, “stage[s] its violation” and makes explicit the punishment of its violator. (Tatar, 1992). The cautionary tale’s purpose is to promote a specific type of behavior that is considered as being correct by explicitly portraying the dire consequences of the opposite, deviant behavior. So, authors endorse in their retellings a “serious, even tragic tone” in order to provide a warning to children and adults for the omnipresent threat of deviant behavior. (Beckett, 2014). Another interpretation, is viewing the tale as a “remainder of ancient late medieval stories of cannibalism”. (Antonelli,2015). If a ritualistic reading is applied to the story “Little Red Riding Hood”, little Red Riding Hood represents all the children of a village that “go through a death and rebirth sequence to become an adult member of the community.” (Antonelli,2015).

According to Propp’s hypothesis Little Red

Riding Hood is a girl that is being offered to a beast in the forest to be sacrificed, she 9

was “the victim of a propitiatory […] rite” in the past. (Antonelli,2015). According to this reading the hunter “is the “wicked man” who inverts the rite”, as he is the one that saves the girl and “represents the new birth in the rite of passage.” (Antonelli,2015). In the context of a culture in which human sacrifice was considered essential to deal with adversities, the one who would save a girl “from being offered as a sacrifice to some sort of [a] sacred beast” would be seen as a “wicked man,” who puts into danger the whole community”. (Antonelli,2015). However, when human sacrifices stop taking place, this wicked man becomes a hero. All these interpretations prove that the story of little Red Riding Hood is way more complex, intriguing and disturbing as one comes to think. Bettelheim suggests that fairytales are accustomed to the people’s anxieties “but they seek to exacerbate them”, as they demand attention and are not soothed away. (Cari, 2013). He suggests that fairytales portray explicitly existential dilemmas to raise the child’s awareness of the meaning of underlying conflicts. Bettelheim in his work “Uses of Enchantment” argues that stories should aid children to deal with psychological matters that perturb them unconsciously. Fairytales function as “ciphers” which help the children deal with “issues that plague” them. (Cari, 2013). Fairytales function as “instruments of socialization and acculturation” because they “capture and preserve disruptive moments of conflict and chart their resolution”. (Tatar, 1992). They also encapsulate the accomplishment of “psychological independence, moral maturity and sexual confidence.” (Zipes. 2002, 182). In conclusion, “the quintessential feature of folklore” is that it has the potential to alter “over the generations”, becoming adapted to “every historical context.” (Antonelli,2015).Orenstein and Beckett argue that the fairytale has survived century after century because of its "ability to adapt to the times" to mirror the concerns of the 10

contemporary society.

(Cari, 2013). Resorting to the different readings to piece

everything together to discover a coherent diachronic evolution is essential. The story of the Little Red Riding Hood demonstrates great versatility and has unique status. This is proven by the vast number and versatility, diversity of the story that can be found around the globe. The retellings of the traditional narrative display the way that “various threads” of the traditional story are ...