Little Red Riding Hood

Little red riding hood is one of the first stories I read when I was little. I remember trying to wrap my head around the girl-wolf confrontation most of us are familiar with. My questions to the subject matter might not have been as coherent as they are now but I still wondered how the wolf was able to eat both Little Red Riding Hood and her Grandmother whole. I guess that’s the allure of fairy tales, enchantment and fantasy. 

Little Red Riding Hood has been documented in many cultures and forms and in this blog post, I am going to reflect on the various versions by focusing on their similarities and differences as well as my personal thoughts and opinions on the stories. 

Every story has a different twist but most of them have similar core concepts. Besides the African version, we see the mother making a snack and giving it to the daughter who takes the snack to her grandmother. In some cases, we are told the grandmother is ill and this snack would provide some strength while for others we are not really informed of the health of the grandmother. All of the stories have some sort of predator whether it is a wolf (majority of the stories) while others had an ogress, a cannibal and a tiger woman. As such, an overarching theme in all of the stories is desire. Hunger is heavily depicted in the stories as the main desire but there are some subtle hints into other forms of desire and their consequences as seen in the poem after Charles Perrault’s story which says, “I say a wolf, but not all wolves are exactly the same.” 

I liked reading the German version by Brothers Grimm, “Little Red Cap” hugely because of its ending. The story arc in itself does not really portray Little Red Riding Hood in the best light, with her being naïve and gullible to the wolf’s suggestions and helplessness against the wolf when he tries to devour her. On the other hand, the ending results in the demise of the wolf and LRRH reuniting with her grandmother which ends the story on a happy note with further reflections of Little Red Riding Hood’s actions. 

The general story arch however for the Italian version of LRRH did not resonate with me especially with the idea of LRRH eating her grandmother’s teeth and ears. I felt that level of brutality was unnecessary for the story. This, however, brings us to the idea of culture and how each story is inspired by the culture it was developed.

The French version by Charles Perrault showcased Little Red Riding Hood as a frivolous and naïve girl which might have been influenced by the views toward the female gender during the time the story was being narrated.  The African version was particularly influenced by the culture in which it was developed through the use of native tongue within the narrative such as Marimos and tsuere as well as the idea of pastoralism as the main economic activity, taking the flocks to find fresh pastures as something particularly influenced by the culture of the people to which the story was narrated.

Overall, we see that the story of the Little Red Riding Hood has been told to many generations and many people across the globe which evidences the “malleability” of fairy tales and the idea that there is no standard fairy tale but an overarching theme to which different cultures build upon.

Picture 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Red_Riding_Hood

Picture 2: https://lovepik.com/image-401129997/little-red-riding-hood-fairy-forest-picking-flowers.html

Picture 3: https://fineartamerica.com/featured/little-red-riding-hood-with-the-big-bad-wolf-betsy-day.html