Intertextuality / Little Red Riding Hood
Little Red Riding Hood, as in the traditional version of the fairy-tale familiar to present day English language audiences, has just been eaten by the Big Bad Wolf, then rescued from his stomach. This is what she has to say, in lyrics written by Stephen Sondheim for Into The Woods:
And I know things now, many valuable things
That I hadn't known before:
Do not put your faith in a cape and a hood,
They will not protect you the way that they should.
And though scary is exciting,
Nice is different than good.
Now I know, don't be scared:
Granny was right,
Just be prepared.
Isn't it nice to know a lot?
And a little bit not… (Sondheim 69)
Sondheim is quite consciously allegorizing the story of Little Red Riding Hood as a story about a girl's experience of puberty. But how did Red Riding Hood manage to turn its wolf into a sexual predator? The…...
Remake of Little Red Riding Hood
Once there was a boy who lived with his mother in a town called Alamo. The boy, named Red, was a kind son to his mother. Every time his mother tells him to do something, like watering the plants in the garden, or washing the dishes, Red always follows happily. One day, Red's mother called him while he was playing with his friends outside their house.
"Red! Come here my son," his mother told him. "Do you have an important thing to do this afternoon after we eat lunch?"
"No mother, I have nothing important to do. Why are you asking?," Red replied.
"Can you go to your aunt after we have our lunch? I want you to bring to her the cake that I just made. She need it for the party that she is coordinating in their village," Red's mother said.
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…...
Red Riding Hood is an interesting folk tale which has been very popular among children and adults alike. Several versions of the story are found but the most common elements remain the same whereby a young little girl is asked by her mother to visit her grandmother and give her some food. Upon her arrival however, she finds that a wolf has replaced her grandmother but just when he is about to attack Red riding hood, he is killed by a woodcutter who happens to be around when the little girl calls for help.
Recently the story was made into a movie but honestly speaking, the movie bears very little resemblance to the original tale. Apart from the werewolf aspect, there happens to be no real point of comparison because the movie is far more inspired by Twilight than it is by Little Red riding hood. It was not even…...
Red Riding Hood and its variants is one of the best known fairy tales, but the different versions of a little girl's experiences while going to visit her grandmother have textual differences which serve to change the tone, if not the overall arc, of the story. However, these differences can actually help one to understand the wide range and reception of fairy tales, because even though different versions of "Little Red Riding Hood" have very obvious textual differences, they nonetheless maintain certain elements necessary to identify any particular version as a version of "Little Red Riding Hood" in general. By comparing Charles Perrault's "Little Red Riding Hood," the Grimm Brothers' "Little Red Cap," and an anonymously authored tale from Germany and Poland called "Little Red Hood," one will be able to uncover the narrative elements necessary to identify a fairy tale as a variant of "Little Red Riding Hood."…...
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Works Cited
Aarne, Antti, and Stith Thompson. The Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography.
2. Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1987.
Anonymous. "Little Red Hood." Little Red Riding Hood and other tales of Aarne-Thompson-
Uther type 333. University of Pittsburg, 2011. Web. 23 Nov 2011.
In fact, he stresses that these stories should be read without any commentary about the possible unconscious content. "Fairy tales can and do serve children well, can even make an unbearable life seem worth living, as long as the child doesn't know what they mean to him psychologically" (Bettelheim 57). This destroys the story's enchantment.
More recently, different authors have returned to the earlier usage of fairy tales, or conveying a message about society perspectives. Catherine Storr, for example, emphasizes a feminist viewpoint. In "Little Polly iding Hood." Polly does not become a victim to the cunning of the male wolf. In fact, she outsmarts him and refutes the stereotype of men being smarter than women. Polly does not even live in a forest but in a city. She deceives the wolf by taking the bus or getting a ride to her grandmother's house. Finally, the story ends with the…...
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References
Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. New York: Vintage, 1977.
Cashdan, Sheldon. The Witch Must Die: The Hidden Meaning of Fairy Tales. New York:
Basic Books. 1999.
Dumas, Philippe. Little Navy Blue Riding Hood. In Recycling Red Riding Hood.
Red Riding Hood in the Red Light District by Manilo Argueta
Reviewed through Ant's perspective
So Alfonso, you are my wolf, are you not? That is what Manilo Argueta calls you in his book entitled Little Red Riding Hood in the Red Light District. He wrote this book during the 1970's, during the height of the oppression suffered by the El Salvadorian nation, and imposed upon us by the military regime of the time that was notoriously backed by the United States.
In the 1970's the nation was gripped by a terrible civil war. Rightists backed the dictatorship, despite the bloodshed it inflicted upon the nation. The wealthy of El Salvador wished it to stay in power, so they might live secure, if not in their political beds, at least content in the lavish lifestyle they enjoyed. Others, leftists, took to the jungles, to the woods of this Latin American land and…...
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Works Cited
Argueta, Manilo. Little Red Riding Hood in the Red Light District. New York, 1978.
Bacevich, Halums, White, Young. "American Military Policy in Small Wars: The Case of El Salvador," Kennedy School of Government, March 1988.Archived from the Center for Defense database at On December 3, 2003.http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1991/CRJ.htm .
Duarte, Jose Napoleon, President, The Republic of El Salvador, Personal Interview about El Salvador, San Salvador, El Salvador, 1986. Archived from the Center for Defense database at
olves: The sexual awakening of Little Red
"The Company of olves" by Angela Carter depicts the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood as a sexual awakening for the young woman, Little Red. [THESIS]. This can be seen in how the wolf is sexualized and depicted as a vibrant, attractive man in the eyes of Little Red
"He strips off his shirt. His skin is the color and texture of vellum. A crisp strip of hair runs down his belly, his nipples are ripe and dark as poison fruit but he's so thin you could count the ribs under his skin if only he'd give you the time…His genitals, huge. Ah! Huge!" (Carter 317). The story retains the general structure of the fairy tale until the end, but the descriptions of Little Red and the wolf give the story an additional sexual relevance.
For example, in the above-cited quotation, the wolf's true,…...
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Work Cited
Carter, Angela. "The Company of Wolves." From The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories.
A patch of flowers danced in the sunlight like happy little children at play. I couldn't resist. I set down my basket and ran over to pluck daisies, pansies, and whatever else I could get my hands on. I didn't notice that the wolf had vanished from sight.
When I reached grandma's house, I proudly sauntered up the snakelike footpath to her front door. It was ajar, which didn't seem so strange since the air was so fresh and I'm sure in her weakened condition she liked to breathe deeply.
Good morning grandma!" I called out.
I'm in here, Little Red!" my Grandmother cried from the bedroom. Carrying the basket of goodies and her bouquet of wildflowers, I delicately opened her bedroom door. Poor grandmother was lying down, her bonnet nearly covering her elderly face. When I crept closer, I noticed that grandma's ears had grown hairy. I nearly gasped but wanting…...
Finally, I loved the ending and its sardonic twist; it is Red Riding Hood who not only kills the wolf, but then kills the remaining pig and has him made into a traveling case. hile the reader naturally believes that Red Riding Hood is there to help the pig, she in fact is more dangerous than the wolf she was called in to kill. As the poem says, "Ah, piglet you must never trust young ladies from the upper crust," and can be viewed as a warning to the reader to be wary of those who seem to be helping when in fact they may only be helping themselves. (Dahl) The twisted ending is also a humorous alternative to the traditional tale which uses a character from a different nursery rhyme as a comedic prop. One must remember the story of Red Riding Hood and the ruthless way she pretended…...
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Works Cited
Dahl, Roald. "The Three Little Pigs." Poemhunter.com. Web. 13 July 2013.
post, questions How categorize point view [e.g., -person, -person (i.e., "), -person limited, -person omniscient]? Is point view consistent story (told perspective), shift points narrative? (If, make note occur.
The point-of-view of this rendition of "Little Red Riding Hood" could best be characterized as third-person omniscient. The narrator knows everything that is transpiring in the story as it happens, even though certain aspects of the tale (such as the fact that the wolf wants to eat Little Red Riding Hood) are not known to the protagonist in the 'real time' of the storytelling. The narrator knows, for example, that the wolf is wary of the nearby woodsmen, so he does not eat Little Red Riding Hood right away, but instead contrives to locate where the grandmother's house might be. Red Riding Hood is ignorant of this fact and happily directs the wolf to the house.
This is perhaps most notable in the punctuating words of the witch. "One midnight gone!" cries the witch at the mid-point of the first act, then sings "It's the last midnight," before she leaves the play. The return to the words and themes of the woods is the only constant of the play. This is because the play is about journeys, not about coming to some final moral conclusion. The woods, unlike the safety of the home, is unpredictable -- not even the witch knows that the spell she weaves to regain her beauty will deprive her of her magic, or that the golden floss first provided by the baker will come from her own beloved, adopted child Rapunzel.
Interestingly enough, Rapunzel is the one character who never says 'Into the Woods,' and when other characters provide often humorous reflections on what they have learned in the woods, such as…...
Tales
Charles Perrault was responsible for collecting and adapting many of the fairy tales best known to contemporary audiences, and his collection of Stories or Fairy Tales from Past Times with Morals, also known as Mother Goose Tales, offers a unique insight into both the evolution of fairy tales in general and the socio-political context of Perrault's own writing. In particular, Perrault's use of domesticated and wild animals in certain tales shed light on the gender and class conflicts that under-gird both the stories themselves and Perrault's own historical context. By performing a close reading of Perrault's "Little Red Riding Hood," "Puss in Boots," and "Donkeyskin," one can see how Perrault uses domestic and wild animals in order to reinforce notions of gender that idealized male autonomy and proactivity while condemning female exploration, in addition to simultaneously supporting the preexisting class structure that impoverished the majority while rewarding the nobility;…...
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Works Cited
Ashliman, D.L.. "Charles Perrault's Mother Goose Tales." University of Pittsburg. Web. 3 Dec
2012. .
Ahmed, K. Al. "Charles Perrault's "Le Petit Poucet" and its Possible Arabic Influences."
Distinctly from John Updike's teenage character Sammy in his short story "A&P," who realizes he has just become an adult; Connie as suddenly realizes she feels like a kid again. Now she wishes the family she usually hates having around could protect her. The actions of the fearsome Arnold, are foreshadowed early on, when he warns Connie, the night before, after first noticing her outside a drive-in restaurant: "Gonna get you, baby" (paragraph 7). From then on, Arnold's quest to "get" Connie feels, to Connie and the reader, in its dangerous intensity, much like the predatory evilness of malevolent fairy tale characters, e.g., the Big Bad olf, or the evil stepmothers (and/or stepsisters) that fix on Snow hite, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and other innocent young female characters as prey. And Connie at the end of "here Are You Going, here Have You Been" wishes, like Little Red Riding Hood, Snow…...
erewolf, Harrison Bergeron, and a Continuity of Parks
hen considered together, seemingly disparate stories can sometimes actually serve to illuminate each other better than a discrete reading of any given text. ith that in mind, this essay will examine the short stories "Harrison Bergeron," "The erewolf," and "A Continuity of Parks" in conjunction with each other, specifically looking at how each story challenges the reader's assumptions with a kind of "surprise" twist at the end. In particular, the unique way in which each story reveals the reality of the situation demonstrates how different stories may accomplish the same goal using means especially relevant to that particular story, because where "Harrison Bergeron" uses the bluntness of language to shock its reader out of a reverie, "The erewolf" adapts a well-known fairy tale as a means of subverting the reader's assumptions, and "A Continuity of Parks" uses the structure of the narrative itself…...
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Works Cited
Carter, Angela. "The Werewolf." The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories. 2011. Web. 3 Jul
2011.
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Cortazar, Julio. "A Continuity of Parks." Blow-up, and other stories. New York, NY: Knopf
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