Little Red Riding Hood

1. It looks simple: Red Riding Hood, her mother, her grand mother, wolf and the hunter, right?

Nope! We have versions without a hunter (yes, poor girl dies - forever!), versions with a father instead of the hunter and even versions with two wolfs (and both die in the story...). There are also several versions with a werewolf or a witch instead of the wolf. But the list of characters from the beginning is really the most popular of all.

2. There are basically two 'classic' stories of Red Riding Hood. The Perrault's don't have a hunter and it ends with a moral: "Don't trust a stranger!" and Grimms' have a hunter and it says: "Don't stray from the path!" We all know how important was a promise for brothers Grimm.

3. In some older versions (before 15 century) of Red Riding Hood we have a father in the role of the rescuer. Surprisingly he doesn't save the eaten girls by opening wolf's belly. He cuts his head instead. The reason is probably one of old superstitions. Wolf's belly is associated with pregnancy and touching a belly of pregnant women was strictly forbidden to men in many old cultures.

4. The role of predator in this fairy tale is not too typical for classic fairy tales. Most of them have a human (evil queen, deceptive king, ogre, witch, giant...) in this role, but it seems in times when it was firstly written the fear of wolfs (and werewolves - werewolves were really popular several centuries ago) was strong enough to make the versions with animals more popular than version with humans as opponents in this case.

5. It was Charles Perrault who painted the girl's hood in red color. Color red can mean many things but in this case it is obviously connected with sin.

In Perrault's time only ladies of negotiable virtues wore red and looking at:

- his audience (adults in the court of Louis XIV),

- the allusive dialogue between the wolf and the girl,

- the action itself (she undresses before she gets in bed - yes, Grimms cleared all that),

it is very clear Perrault was talking about man-woman relationship.

It was especially written as a warning to young girls as an easy prey of older (rich) men.

6. The color of Red Riding Hood's cap in versions before Perrault is not always mentioned. But if it is, it is gold.

Looking the mythological explanation of Red Riding Hood this is really clear. Mythologists understand this story as a story about day and night, the girl is representing the sun and wolf steals it every evening.

7. For feminists it is a story about rape. We have a male predator and two female victims. The predator is punished (in most versions), but feminists are not too happy with the rescuer (he is male too). So they prefer versions of Red Riding Hood where the girl (sometimes with a help of her granny and sometimes with a shotgun) takes care of herself.

8. Psychoanalysis focus on sexual (what else?) maturity of the main character. Red color is color of menstrual blood.

It is very important to notice the grand mother, not mother is giving her a hood. Grand mother, not mother is the one who is slowly loosing her life force (represented with blood).

We have a scene where mother gives advice to her daughter (this is the job of all mothers) and we know the daughter doesn't listen (this is the job of all daughters).

There is symbolically very important scene of girl's flower picking which represents her careless attitude, we have a forest which represents unconsciousness, pretty explicit dialogue, clear scene with the bed and ending scene with pregnancy and birth.

All aspects of sexual maturity are represented in short.

9. No matter how much erotics and violence is presented in older versions of Red Riding Hood, they are always tales of caution. Listen wiser people! Don't trust a stranger! Stay on the path! In most but not all versions there is also some kind of consolation at the end of the story.

10. In 20 century new versions of Red Cap started to become popular. Parents became more aware of the effect of fairy tales on their children (don't forget, fairy tales were not meant for kids until 19 century anyway), so they started to delete certain scenes from the stories.

In Red Riding Hood the most disturbing were:

- undressing of the girl (already deleted by Grimms),

- man-eating (did I mention in some versions wolf and the girl eat the granny together?)

- the surgery in the end.

So we got the sanitized Red Riding Hood where the girl convince the wolf to become a peaceful vegan and in the end of the story everybody sits together to enjoy a nice meal!

We have a happy ending and at first sight we can be satisfied with the message: good defeats the evil. Sorry, I don't buy that. Most of the wolves in real world are still evil. Sweet words can't convince them. Little girls will still be in danger. Only this time, a girl will meet a wolf without a lesson learned from the 'real' Red Riding Hood.

No more nightmares for children and no more powerful notes of caution. It seems a big bad wolf looses some proteins but children lose much more...