eng/295 Moral Purpose and Cultural Significance in Fables, Fairytales, Myths and Legends Assignment Option

PerraultsLITTLEREDRIDINGHOOD-ProQuest.html

Home >Business & Finance homework help >Management homework help >eng/295 Moral Purpose and Cultural Significance in Fables, Fairytales, Myths and Legends Assignment Option

Skip to main content Toggle navigation

ProQuest

Recent Searches
Selected Items
Display selected items layer

Display selected items
×
Please select one or more items.
Close
My Research and Language Selection
Help and support
- ProQuest HelpGo directly to information on using the current page.
- Support CenterFind answers to questions about products, access, use, setup, and administration.
- Training (LibGuides)User guides, online and onsite training, webinars, and more.
- Contact UsHave a question, idea, or some feedback? We want to hear from you.
- Product TrialsRequest a free product trial.
- CreditsView details about the photos used on different databases throughout the platform.

Sign in to My Research layer

Sign in to My Research

Save and organize your research.

Username: Password: Forgot your password? Create My Research account Create My Research account Sign in

Create a My Research account layer

Create a My Research account

Required*

Username

Used to sign into your account.

Password

Use 8 or more letters and numbers.

Retype password First name

Displays on screen when you are signed in.

Last name

Displays in emails sent from your account.

Email address

Used for account confirmation, forgotten password reminders, and alerts.

Account Id

Account Indentifier

I consent to the collection and use of my personal information consistent with the Privacy Policy, and I acknowledge that use of the service is subject to the Terms and Conditions. Without your consent, we cannot create an account. I want to link my new My Research account to my RefWorks account. Learn more

If you have a RefWorks account, save your login details here to keep your My Research citations and folders synchronized with RefWorks. You can add these settings later to the RefWorks Settings page, available from the My Account tab in My Research. Instructions for Athens and Shibboleth users.

Log-in name Password Group code

Optional - Enter if your RefWorks account is provided by a different institution

Create account Cancel

Forgot your password? layer

Forgot your password?

Enter your My Research email address, and we'll email your username and password.

Email address: Send Cancel ×[[missing key: buttonClose]]

Select language

Exit layer

Exit

Would you like to exit ProQuest or continue working? Tab through to the exit button or continue working link.Help icon>×

Exit ProQuest, or continue working?

Exit Continue working

Note: Items you have selected during your session and your list of recent searches are not saved unless you have signed into your account and added them to My Research.

Your session is about to expire layer

Your session is about to expire

Your session is about to expire. Sessions expire after 30 minutes of inactivity. Tab through the options to the continue working button or end session link.Help icon Close icon Close icon ×

Your session will expire in .

Sessions expire after 30 minutes of inactivity.

Continue working End Session

Note: Items you have selected during your session and your list of recent searches are not saved unless you have signed into your account and added them to My Research.

More like this

Perrault's LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD

Delaney, Bill

The Explicator

Vol. 64, Iss. 2,

Abstract

Translate Abstract

Undo Translation

Translate

The full text may take 40-60 seconds to translate; larger documents may take longer.

OverlayEnd

Delaney critiques Charles Perrault's Little Red Riding Hood. He highlights that the most incongruous element of the story is the fact that a little peasant girl who might not even own a pair of shoes, nevertheless, owns a scarlet hooded cloak, Moreover, if the red riding hood symbolizes anything, it suggests that the girl lives in a fantasy world.

You have requested "on-the-fly" machine translation of selected content from our databases. This functionality is provided solely for your convenience and is in no way intended to replace human translation. Show full disclaimer

Neither ProQuest nor its licensors make any representations or warranties with respect to the translations. The translations are automatically generated "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE" and are not retained in our systems. PROQUEST AND ITS LICENSORS SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ANY AND ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY WARRANTIES FOR AVAILABILITY, ACCURACY, TIMELINESS, COMPLETENESS, NON-INFRINGMENT, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Your use of the translations is subject to all use restrictions contained in your Electronic Products License Agreement and by using the translation functionality you agree to forgo any and all claims against ProQuest or its licensors for your use of the translation functionality and any output derived there from. Hide full disclaimer Translations powered by LEC.

Translations powered by LEC.

Full Text

Translate Full text Undo Translation TranslateUndo Translation Press the Escape key to close FromArabic Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) English French German Italian Japanese Korean Polish Portuguese Russian Spanish Turkish ToArabic Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) French German Italian Japanese Korean Polish Portuguese Russian Spanish Turkish Translate Translation in progress... [[missing key: loadingAnimation]]
The full text may take 40-60 seconds to translate; larger documents may take longer.
Cancel OverlayEnd
Turn on search term navigationTurn on search term navigation
Jump to first hit

"Little Red Riding Hood" began as an oral folk tale and continued to be told to children for centuries before being published in a French version by Charles Perrault in 1697, and then in 1812 in the German version by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.

Over the years, scholars have piled an entire cosmos of meanings on this small girl's shoulders. Some call her tale a seasonal myth, an allegory of the sun swallowed by night, or the personification of Good triumphing over Evil. Her basket of wine and cakes, it's said, represents Christian Communion; her red cape stands for menstrual blood. Some see the tale in Freudian terms as the Ego overcome by the Id; others see it as symbolic of the relationship between Man and Woman. And inevitably the tale has been a vehicle for imparting sexual ethics in keeping with the social fabric of the times. Tellers have consciously and subconsciously manipulated the plot to portray a seduction by a temptress, the rape of a virgin or the passage of a young girl into womanhood.1

It is hard to believe that the anonymous creator of the tale would have had the slightest notion of what Freudians, Jungians, anthropologists, deconstructionists, and others have read into it. The story is worth examining because it reveals the genius of the original storyteller. It is noteworthy that Catherine Orenstein assumes that Perrault's version "must be a truncated, fragmentary version of the original oral tale."2 The same applies to the version by the brothers Grimm because it was derived from Perrault.3

Much has been made of the fact that the little girl wears a red riding hood. This is undoubtedly because it seems odd that a peasant child whose wardrobe is probably limited to one faded dress should own such a luxury garment as a cloak intended to be worn for riding. Her mother would be lucky to own a cow, much less a horse. No father is mentioned. We suspect that this is an exceptionally poor family. It is highly unlikely that, as Perrault suggests, her mother would have made her daughter such a garment. The mother would have made something more practical if she had had the material to make anything at all. More probably in the original oral version, the little girl was given the red riding hood by some local Lady Bountiful whose daughter had outgrown it, and the little girl wears it all the time because she has never owned anything so beautiful before. When she wears the garment she probably fantasizes that she is rich and is riding her very own pony.

In analyzing a story, as in analyzing a dream, it is often the most incongruous element that can be the most revealing. The most incongruous element here is the fact that a little peasant girl who might not even own a pair of shoes, nevertheless, owns a scarlet hooded cloak, possibly lined with silk. If the red riding hood symbolizes anything, it suggests that the girl lives in a fantasy world, which explains why she does not hear her mother when she is told to go straight to her grandmother's house and not to talk to strangers.

The story is called "Little Red Riding Hood," and the little girl is called Little Red Riding Hood because she wears that famous garment all the time. It is extremely important to note that her name is certainly not Little Red Riding Hood. She is called Little Red Riding Hood by those who know her, and this name keeps appearing in the story from the title to the last scene in the story. We can assume that no one outside her immediate circle knows her unusual nickname. When she meets the wolf in the forest, it is natural for him to ask her name. In trying to start a conversation with a small child we still ask, "What's your name?" and "How old are you?" The wolf obviously could not know her or her nickname, although both Perrault and the brothers Grimm take it for granted that he does. The fact that she does not recognize the wolf as a wolf proves they have never met before. Furthermore, if they had met before, he probably would have eaten her on the spot, and there would have been no story, or at least a different story.

The little girl has been cautioned not to talk to strangers, but she has not really listened because she lives in a fantasy world in which she is a rich girl riding her own pony. She naively tells the wolf that she is called Little Red Riding Hood. With this information, the wolf hurries off to the grandmother's house while the little girl, who did not hear her mother's other piece of advice, "amused herself by gathering nuts, running after the butterfllies, and making nosegays of the wild flowers which she found."4 This, of course, gives the wolf plenty of time to get to the grandmother's cottage where what transpired is well known.

An old woman who lives all alone in a forest inhabited by wolves is likely to be frightened and suspicious. When the wolf knocks at her door, her dialogue writes itself-which is another aspect of the genius of the original storyteller, quite probably a grandmother herself. The timid old lady asks, "Who's there?" Because the little girl has given the stranger a vital piece of information, the wolf easily gains entrance. He disguises his voice and says, "It is your granddaughter, Little Red Riding Hood." The nickname acts like a secret password, as the grandmother naturally assumes that no stranger would know it. The words "Little Red Riding Hood" take on an ominous tone which should send chills down the spines of children listening to the tale.

Thus, the little red riding hood and the nickname Little Red Riding Hood are a brilliant device to impress the hearer with the principal moral of the tale: Do not talk to strangers because you never know what you might say that can be used against you. Many grownups have learned to their regret that it is not only children who need to be reminded of this moral.

Now, as then, 'tis simple truth-

Sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth!5

NOTES

1. Catherine Orenstein, Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale (New York: Basic, 2002) 4.

2. Orenstein 3.

3. Orenstein 3.

4. Charles Perrault, "Little Red Riding Hood," Little Red Riding Hood: A Casebook, ed. Alan Dundes (Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1989) 5.

5. Perrault, "Little Red Riding Hood," Orenstein 19.

WORKS CITED

Dundes, Alan, ed. Little Red Riding Hood: A Casebook. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1989.

Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. Trans. Jack Zipes. New York: Bantam, 1987.

Orenstein, Catherine. Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale. New York: Basic, 2002.

Perrault, Charles. Perrault's Complete Fairy Tales. Trans. A. E. Johnson. Harmondsworth. Eng.: Kestrel, 1962.

-BILL DELANEY, San Diego, California

Show less