Red Riding Hood and Little

¶ … Red Riding Hood and Little Red Cap

Charles Perrault's Little Red Riding Hood and the Grimm Brothers' Little Red Cap are basically the same story. But there are many differences between them that stand out as well. Starting with the similarities, both stories are about a little girl who is very loved by her mother and grandmother, and both girls are known for always wearing a bright red piece of clothing (the hood for Perrault and the cap for Grimm). Also, in both stories, the girl is taking sustenance to her ailing grandmother and while traveling through the woods to her grandmother's house, she encounters a talking wolf. The girls in both stories stop and speak with the wolf and do not fear him. They both tell the wolf where they are headed and where their grandmother lives, and they both wander off the direct path, allowing the wolf to beat them to the house. Also present in both tales is the wolf's ability to disguise his voice and fool the grandmother into thinking he is her granddaughter, followed by his attempt to fool the girl by dressing up in the grandmother's clothes after devouring her. Finally, both girls go through the dialogue with the wolf about how big his body parts are and when they finally get to the mouth, he eats them.

Clearly, the plot, characters and setting in both of these tales are almost identical. However, there are many details that differ between Perrault's and Grimm's version of the little girl and the wolf. Firstly, in Perrault's version, not only is the girl taking different 'goodies' to her grandmother (custard and butter vs. cake and wine) but she is traveling without any foreshadowing of danger. Little Red Riding Hood is not warned by her mother not to wander off the path like Little Red Cap is, so there is less of a feeling that there is going to be a moral lesson to be learned.

This brings me to another major difference between the two stories, which is that when Little Red Riding Hood takes her time and dilly dallies around, this is all her own doing. However, Little Red Cap is actually tricked by the wolf, who talks her into picking flowers for her grandmother. So, on the one hand, Little Red Riding Hood seems somewhat less culpable for her actions because she has not directly defied her mother's warnings as Little Red Cap has. But on the other hand, while Little Red Cap did directly defy her mother's warnings, she can hardly be blamed for being tricked by a wiser and more devious creature than herself. So ultimately, both girls are slightly to blame for their troubles, but for different reasons.

The most glaringly obvious difference between the tales of Little Red Riding Hood and Little Red Cap is the ending. The Perrault version ends swiftly and gruesomely with no chance of redemption, no moral being taught and no real purpose to the story other than to tell a frightening and entertaining story. The moment the wolf devours Little Red Riding Hood, that is the end. In the Grimm version however, the story continues to evolve long after the wolf swallows the girl. A hunter actually comes along and cuts the wolf's stomach open, gets the grandmother and the little girl out, alive, then kills the wolf by filling his stomach with stones. This is far less sadistic for the humans, but far more sadistic for the wolf. In addition, the vicious wolf-killing doesn't stop there, but continues on after everyone is safe and happy again. The second killing occurs when another wolf starts lurking around the grandmother's house, hoping for a two-for-one value meal. This wolf is also the victim of a devious plot, but this time it is Little Red Cap and her grandmother who pull off the cunning task, without the help of a male hunter.

The grandmother instructs Little Red Cap to take a boiling trough of sausage outside, causing the wolf to slide off of the roof when he catches the odor, thus falling into the trough and drowning. After that, everyone lived happily ever after, with Little Red Cap having learned a valuable lesson about always minding your mother and never allowing yourself to be duped by someone with less than honorable intentions. and, of course, she also learned how to pull off some pretty creative killings. The emergence of her darker side is not surprising, however, considering the trauma she went through inside the wolf's stomach before she was rescued. The same can be said for grandma, who likely went through a metamorphosis of her own after enduring such a harrowing experience.