Lesson One
Children’s Literature, Ideology and Society
You may like to begin with a two-minute meditation.
- Find your relaxed position and, breathing normally, close your eyes and welcome into your space each person you’ve met during this course in Day #1 – your co-participants, your facilitator/moderator and all the people you may have spoken to or included in your assignments.
- Continuing to breathe, extend your attention to parents and grandparents around the world – those who right now are getting ready to tell their children or grandchildren a story, a fairy tale, a legend.
- On the next in-breath draw into the circle all women and men who are making courageous and creative efforts to heal and transform our world. Extend gratitude and support to each one.
- And, finally notice yourself: your presence, your participation, your giftedness and courage are essential to this circle. Draw the healing breath into yourself.
- When you are ready, open your eyes and return to the computer monitor and click on the black arrow below.
Buddhist singing bowl (click to listen) The learning circle is now open.
Introduction
Before embarking on the study of those children’s stories which have been chosen because of their specific relevance to female socialization, it is worth spending a little time looking at the immense importance of literature and of narrative in general in forming attitudes, influencing opinions, and especially, within societies of every period, of inducting children into currently desired thought patterns and behavior. In order to illustrate this, particular use will be made of some of the oldest surviving stories of all, fairy tales.
This course is based on English and some Indian literature, but its approach and conclusions apply equally to children’s literature in other countries. In the future we aim to extend the course material with examples and applications taken from children’s stories in various parts of the world. With this inter-cultural experience in mind, this first lesson provides the opportunity to analyze an Italian and a Chinese fairytale as an option (See Exploration 1.8 and 1.9 below).
Lesson One has been designed to explore how and why folk stories [fairy tales] were/are important for understanding ourselves. Prior to the period when we had radio and television, we had story tellers. We will be examining three versions of Little Red Riding Hood that come from the 1500s, 1669, and 1812. There are dramatic differences between each of the three versions and yet a common thread–a young girl in danger. What did parents, in each of these three historical epochs, want to communicate to their young daughters through these oral stories? This you will discover!
[Note: Dr. Pat Pincent is an expert in exploring the deep meanings of children’s stories. This course content was designed and presented by her. Dr. Aaron Milavec assisted Dr. Pincent in designing a course where everyone became a Sherlock Holmes bent upon the examination and interpretation of significant clues and probative questions.]
The Importance of Narrative
One of the primary qualities that distinguish human beings from other animals is surely the ability to use language to refer to objects and people who are not present, and to describe events that happened in the past. One of the most important ways of doing this is the use of story. It seems probable that all ages and cultures have used story as a means of telling new generations about the past and educating children about desired codes of behavior. Story telling seems to have been important to human beings even before writing became a means to preserve the tales; the cave-art of the Neolithic people provides evidence of the importance of imaginative material which transcended the immediate physical present, while artifacts and paintings from all over the world give hints of a rich substratum of story which has not been handed down to us. Among the earliest surviving instances of story which have been preserved are the myths about the Egyptian gods, the early tales from the Indian sub-continent, and the classical Greek epics of Homer. In the context of children’s literature we also remember the short fables, with a moral, ascribed to Aesop.
Exploration 1.1 <– Click here to post your reply.
Why do you think that learning by story-telling is so important to human beings? When and how has it become important for you personally? Post and offer feedback.
Having read these questions, you’ll naturally have ideas, hunches, and deep thoughts that you want to share. Imagine that you are sharing these with trusted friends.
How do you share your thoughts with your learning circle? [Note: These functions only work for enrolled participants.]
- Begin by clicking on the “Exploration 1.1” that will always be found just prior to the questions. (You can also find Exploration 1.1 listed as “1.1” in a table at the very bottom of this page. You can, as an alternate, click on this as well.)
- Step 1 opens a new window in which you will find the questions repeated. Click on “Reply” found in the lower right corner. This opens a blank text box awaiting your response.
- Type your reflections into this blank box. Don’t think that you have to do research so that your responses are “perfect.” Rather, risk writing spontaneously what you believe and feel about the issues at hand.
- Feel free to experiment with the various features of the textbox editor. Be daring! You won’t be able to break anything. From time to time, you might want to add a JPG picture to embellish your response.
- Click on “Post to Forum” when finished. You are free to change the subject line if you wish and to provide, in its place, a short apt title of your choice.
- You can always go back and edit your former posts. When it comes to editing your own ideas, however, this is not encouraged. Let your raw self-expression stand. If you need to, add a few lines saying how your mind has changed and why.
In the best of classrooms, everyone has something to teach and everyone has something to learn, including the professor. The most critical role that the professor plays is often to make a safe place in her classroom wherein women can find their true voices and to express them freely. The bonding that takes place in the virtual classroom must accordingly be joined with a shared sense of respect and mystery in the face of co-learners struggling to become their authentic selves even when they have for so long been beaten down and forced to adapt roles that conceal their true voices.
Ideology, Society and Gender
The word ‘ideology’ has often been used pejoratively by those who want to suggest that a political framework (with which they disagree) is being used in a doctrinaire way to influence behavior and, in particular, the way that children are being indoctrinated. [In the social sciences, “primary socialization” is the phrase used to convey the indoctrination of children.] In fact, of course, all of us have our own ideologies that become particularly influential on our words and behavior when we are unaware of them. As well as the beliefs of individuals, all societies, today and in the past, have ideological assumptions which are most powerful when they are not questioned. This often applies most forcefully to assumptions that are made about gender. It seems always to have been in society’s interest to convey specific roles for women and to indoctrinate girls into accepting these roles.
In the post-modern era, story telling was the normal way that parents socialized their children and prepared them to learn the social messages that would be necessary for them as adults. In your own upbringing, your mother almost certainly used fairy tales to accomplish this task. Her choice of fairy tales was undoubtedly influenced by her own recognition that those tales delighted her when her own mother (your grandmother) selected stories told from her own mother (your great-grandmother) going back to the time when such stories were oral treasuries not yet printed in books.
Here are a few of the many reasons which might be suggested for this choice of material:
- · The fascination of children from all periods for fairy tales, which have the tendency to focus on timelessly relevant symbols rather than everyday settings. This means that they have dated much less than any other form of literature.
- · Their use of representative characters identified by their functions or relationships (kings and queens, merchants, hunters, stepmothers, sisters, etc.) rather than by any individual quality other than being good or evil means that children can easily be inducted into the listening to stories through them.
- · They tend to use vividly symbolic colors and settings, such as ‘red as blood’, the ‘dark forest’. This again makes them easy to approach for the young child.
- · They have been profoundly influential on all subsequent children’s literature, and patterns and characters from them, as well as explicit intertextual allusions, can be identified in virtually every classic children’s text.
- · Partly because of their antiquity, they frequently raise questions about gender roles and prejudice against certain groups of people; such questions are perennially relevant.
- · They appear in a number of different versions, and are still being rewritten today; children’s experience of literature is still likely to start with these stories, even though the medium of presentation, through video or CD Rom, may differ from the past.
- · The similarity between the elements of fairy tale and dream has encouraged the psychoanalysts towards a variety of creative interpretations of these stories, and they are sometimes used in therapy.
Peter Hollindale (1988, summarized in Stephens 1992:9-11) identifies three aspects of ideology as represented in literature:
- · That which is explicit in the text (and consequently can often be detected, at least by competent readers);
- · The writer’s unexamined assumptions, which readers may find themselves sharing, unless they are alert to this possibility;
- · That which is inherent within language, which again may remain invisible to readers, especially if the reader’s language is of the same period and social group as that of the writer.
Purpose: We shall go on to look at a small selection of fairy tales as a particular illustration of how European society undertook the social indoctrination of their children. You will be invited to stretch your powers of examination and to detect the clues necessary to decipher the ideological aspects that prevail in every piece of literature (as noted by Hollindale above). These same skills, needless to say, will equip you to surface the tacit logic and subtle messages that exists in every form of modern media: jokes, movies, plays, advertisements, novels, comics.
Exploration 1.2 Consider your own particular experience.
1.2a What fairy tales or ancient legends were dear to you as a child? Among these, what was your favorite?
Note: Sometimes our experiences of childhood are blocked during our normal daily activity. If you find yourself unable to easily answer these first two questions, you might want to close your eyes, clear your mind, and imaginatively travel back in time to that familiar place with that familiar person reading childhood fairy tales to you. If you try this and it doesn’t work, then skip this for the moment and try this traveling back in time again just as you are close to falling asleep at night. By morning, you usually will find what you need. Then return to post and offer feedback. In any case, go ahead now and return later when some stories have come to mind.
1.2b What was the most exciting moment in the story? What feelings were evoked?
1.2c How was your imagination carried away into seeing yourself within this story?
1.2d What was happening in your life then or later that might help you account for your own special attachment to this story?
History of Fairy Tales
The origins of fairy tales are lost in the mists of antiquity, but there is no reason to think that the tellers of these stories originally had children particularly in mind as their listeners. The earliest collections specifically addressed to the young tend to date from the seventeenth century. Notable amongst collections which are still extant are those of Charles Perrault (1628-1703) and the Brothers Grimm (Jacob, 1785-1863 & Wilhelm, 1786-1859); other early collectors of fairy tales were also French. The original fairy stories of Hans Christian Andersen (1805-75) and Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), and a few others of their contemporaries such as John Ruskin, are also well-known but we shall not be looking directly at them here. We shall however look briefly at a few contemporary versions of fairy tales, to examine the changes that they have made to suit different preconceptions about gender roles.
Red Riding Hood
Exploration 1.3 Recall the story of Red Riding Hood (abbr.:RRH). [Don’t make any attempt to read it. Just let your memory recall what it will.] If you have never heard the story or have forgotten the details, then examine the full text of Perrault RRH or, better yet, enjoy listening to an oral performance of Perrault’s Little Red Riding Hood, click black arrow to listen.
1.3a What appears to you to be the most exciting moment in the story? What feelings are evoked? How does repetition function in the story?
1.3b Try to imagine how parents used this narrative to prepare their daughters to face some real dangers that existed. What might these real dangers be? How were their daughters socialized to save themselves from these dangers?
1.3c What sort of parental messages were being conveyed through this story?
Now here is the fun part–giving and receiving feedback.
- Once you post your own reflections for 1.3, the reflections of one or more of your learning partners will appear. Click on them and read them quickly.
- Feel free to thank others for what you find helpful, to pose clarifying questions, to link your story to theirs. To do this, use steps 2-5 above.
- The best and the easiest kind of feedback is to offer readback lines. To do this, click on the “Reply” button at the bottom right. Then pick out a phrase or sentence in what your co-learner wrote that strikes a resonate cord in you. Highlight it with your mouse and copy it (Ctrl-C). Then move your cursor into your reply box and paste it (Ctrl-V). Repeat this process a second or third time if you feel so inclined.
- The beauty of readback lines is that it offers a silent affirmation (a) that these words have special meaning for you as well and (b) that you are thankful that she shared such words with you. Give your feedback lines a short title and post them.
- Make it a practice to offer feedback lines for two or three of your co-learners each time you post your own reflections. If you are the first to post, then you will need to come back in a few days to offer feedback lines to those who had not yet posted.
- Now you can relish how others have responded to your post. Responding to feedback received with a sincere “thank you” or “that was helpful” note is always rewarding for the one who honored your work enough to puzzle over it. Clarifications or expansions can also be asked for when needed.
- For the moment, don’t try to critically analyze or to challenge someone’s post. Limit yourself to using readback lines as the preferred mode of feedback. In subsequent weeks, these alternate forms of feedback will be introduced.
Now make yourself a cup of tea or step outside for a moment just to clear your mind. Return and read a much older and much stranger version of this same story: “The Story of Grandmother.” [If you wish, you can read the story out loud and imagine your mother telling this version to you.]
Exploration 1.4 When you click on the title, “The Story of Grandmother,” your browser will jump to the story. Use your back-button to return to this page. In this way, you can move back and forth with ease should you need to reexamine the story while probing the same questions (1.3a-1.3e) that you used above. Instead of RRH, one now has “a little girl.” Instead of a “wolf,” one now has a bzou (=werewolf=man+wolf).
1.4a What appears to you to be the most exciting moment in the story? What feelings are evoked?
1.4b What does “a little girl” do to save herself? Is this a wise or a foolish course of action?
1.4c Does “a little girl” save herself all by herself or does she necessarily call upon the help of someone more powerful? Why is this part of the story so different from Perrault’s later version?
1.4d Try to imagine how parents used this narrative to prepare their daughters to face some real dangers that existed. What might these real dangers be? How were their daughters socialized to save themselves from these dangers?
1.4e How does “The Story of Grandmother” function differently from Perrault’s later version? How does a parent in the 17th century decide what story is best suited from their daughter?
Although it is difficult to be certain about the origins of ‘The Story of Grandmother’, Jack Zipes (1986:229) suggests it may reflect ‘a social ritual connected to sewing communities: the maturing young woman proves she can handle needles, replace an older woman, and contend with the opposite sex.’ Even more to the point, however, the girl keep her cool under pressure to disrobe. Her repeated non-threatening questions stall for time and, not unlike modern programs for disarming the malace/erection of her would-be rapist/killer, engages her assailant in conversation. One could argue that her willingness to follow directions in small things gives her the psychological edge required to press her need to pee outdoors despite the wolf’s reservations. When granted, she is on her way to safety. Against a superior adversary, her cool, her cunning, and her swiftness saved her from a fate worse than death.
Charles Perrault’s version
“The Story of Grandmother” [text printed at the bottom] circulated in various forms in French society going back to the fourteenth century. The story, as yet, has no “red cape” and no near-miraculous rescue by “a woodsman.” These elements came later, as you are now aware.
Charles Perrault (1628-1703) [text printed at the bottom] turned his attention to folk tales only after turning 63. In the fashionable French salons of his day, “for amusement, someone would take a simple traditional tale, such as an old peasant woman might tell in the kitchens, and remake into in a `moralized,’ succinct, witty story purged of all coarseness” (Wikepedia). Perrault, in his turn, took these amusing and anonymous folk tales and published them for the first time in 1669 under the subtitle, “Tales of Mother Goose.” In so doing, he inadvertently began a new literary genre, the fairy tale. Such stories circulated in literary salons and, with time, as literacy advanced, served to reshape the stories that mothers routinely told to their daughters.
You can now see how the little girl gets her familiar name, Little Red Riding Hood, because of the garment her grandmother had made for her. In this narrative, gone is the slow undressing and gone is the request to pee outdoors. Yet, with these elements gone, Perrault had to allow that the foolish girl didn’t have sufficient wits to escape. Thus, the wolf eats her up. And there is no one to rescue her! This is a black tale indeed. According to Catherine Orenstein:
Perrault cloaked his heroine in red, the color of scandal and blood, suggesting the girl’s sin and foreshadowing her fate. Her chaperon [Fr.], or hood [in English], also took on the tale’s lesson, acquiring the meaning in English, which it already possessed in French, of one who guards girls’ virtue. For good measure, Perrault added an explicit rhyming moral admonishing demoiselles — that is, young ladies of society — to remain chaste:
Little girls, this seems to say,
Never stop upon your way,
Never trust a stranger-friend;
No one knows how it will end.
As you’re pretty so be wise;
Wolves may lurk in every guise.
Handsome they may be, and kind,
Gay, and charming — nevermind!
Now, as then, ‘tis simple truth —
Sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth!
Moral: Girls who converse with a wolf come to a bad end. A “wolf” in this case is the sweet-talking, cool-looking guy who has the sexual appetites of a wild animal. “In the French slang, when a girl lost her virginity it was said that elle avoit vû le loup — she’d seen the wolf” ( Orenstein). In the earlier story, the girl meets a werewolf–a man-like creature that can turn into a wolf. Thus, from the very beginning, the reader was not forced to imagine that wolves could speak. Rather, the girl meets a man who has the instincts of a wolf (deception, greed, lust). (www).
The Brothers Grimm’s version
More than a century later, the Grimm Brothers [text printed at the bottom] gathered together German folk stories and published them in 1812. Their emphasis was initially upon authenticity:
The first collectors to attempt to preserve not only the plot and characters of the tale, but also the style in which they were being orally transmitted, were the Brothers Grimm, collecting German fairy tales; ironically enough, this meant although their first edition (1812 & 1815) remains a treasure for folklorists, they rewrote the tales in later editions to make them more acceptable, which ensured their sales and the later popularity of their work. |
The Brothers Grimm thus did for German readers what Perrault did for French readers. One might imagine that publishing oral folk tales would have had the effect of standardizing what children heard to the degree that growing literacy increasingly inclined mothers to read the stories to their children rather than to tell them by oral memory (as was the earlier practice). But this was not so for the Grimm Brothers (as indicated) quickly published a freely edited popularization of their collected fairy tales in an attempt to increase the appeal of these narratives to children. Historical authenticity thus yielded to the drive for increased sales. Look in any bookstore today and you will be hard put to find two versions of any fairy tale that are exactly the same.
Exploration 1.5 Now chick here to read the Grimm version and respond to the questions: |
1.5a What appears to you to be the most exciting moment in the Grimm revision? What feelings are evoked?
1.5b What does RRH (=Red Cap) do to save herself? Is this a wise or fooling course of action?
1.5c Does RRH save herself all by herself or does she necessarily call upon the help of someone more powerful? Is this a calculated part of her action plan or just a happy accident?
1.5d Try to imagine how parents used this narrative to prepare their daughters to face some real dangers that existed. What might these real dangers be? How were their daughters socialized to save themselves from these dangers?
1.5e What sort of parental messages were being [overtly or covertly] conveyed through this story?
1.5f In view of modern circumstances, what version would you want to read/tell your own daughter or granddaughter? Explain.
The Grimms’ first version in 1812 suggests that the young girl needs protection which can be provided by a suitable man, a kind of father figure, who will defend her from predatory males. It reflects something of the patriarchal assumptions of their nineteenth century background. Magical elements are also increased that further remove the tale from the real world. Real wolves do not eat their victims whole nor do their victims remain alive after they have been eaten. Without the introduction of these magical elements, even the woodsman has no prospect of saving Red Cap.
The Grimms follow this with a second version in 1815: In this revision, Red Cap is on her guard and runs ahead to warn her grandmother that a wolf is on his way. The wolf cannot open the door, so he jumps on the roof, but the grandmother places water in which sausages have been boiled into a big trough in front of the house, and the wolf, enticed by the smell, falls into it and is drowned. Thus, in the second version, cunning and quick action by the grandmother are affirmed, and Red Cap ends up combining her forces with her grandmother to win the day. The second Grimm version does away with magical elements and demonstrates that an old woman may have accumulated some wisdom which she can pass on to a younger generation.
The fact that the Grimms’ first version is probably the best known suggests that until recently, this kind of protection of the young female, rather than either letting her develop her own resources or learn from female wisdom, seemed the most true to life. The Perrault version in which the girl and her grandmother perish is surprisingly long-lived, however, perhaps reflecting the childish desire to be frightened by ‘the big bad wolf’.
Versions by James Thurber and other modern writers reflect the much greater degree of independence of females today, and a dislike for implying that they need men to deliver them –- incidentally thus reverting to the situation in the earliest of these stories. Other modern versions of note include Roald Dahl’s verses in his Revolting Rhymes (1982), Angela Carter’s ‘The Company of Wolves’ (1981; not for young children), James Garner’s version in Politically Correct Bedtime Stories (1994) and Lane Smith’s ‘Little Red Running Shorts’ in The Stinky Cheese Man (1992). Finally, we have `Little Red Riding Hood Redux’ (2002) wherein the girl is more than prepared to protect herself and to put her would-be-protector in his rightful place. This also has inspired a video gaming version.
Exploration 1.6 In 2004, Ms. Magazine published an article, “Dances with Wolves: Little Red Riding Hood’s Long Walk in the Woods” by Catherine Orenstein. Click on the title and read the article (10-15 minutes). As you do so, take note of what discoveries you make that are important for you. When finished, post your two most important discoveries.
1.6 Optional alternative: Does your own culture have a story that parallels Little Red Riding Hood? If so, copy the story here or write a summary from memory. What is your gut response to this version?
When finished, take a break. Make some tea for yourself or take a five-minute walk or dance to your favorite music.
Summary 1.7: Then, coming back refreshed, quickly review your entire experience. Share your experience in four parts:
1.7a How many minutes did you use to complete Lesson One? Was this more/less time than you had expected? What changes can you make on your side to increase the satisfaction that you find in this learning circle?
1.7b In Lesson One, you experienced many processes: the opening ritual, the introduction (story telling and ideology), comparing and contrasting various versions of RRH, RRH Redux, the Ms article, feedback from co-learners. Name the three, in the order of their importance, that were most beneficial for you. Explain. Name any technical difficulties encountered. How did you solve them? For difficulties with chime or the video, click here. What help/improvement do you still require?
1.7c Are you at ease with giving and receiving readback lines? For how many participants did you offer readback lines? If more than 8, this is great. If less than 5, then please return to some interesting posts above and offer readback lines for a half-dozen more participants after posting this.
1.7d Overall (on a scale of +1 to +10), what is your satisfaction with Lesson One? Is there anything that the Instructional Team should include or remove from this lesson? Please explain.
As a closing treat, click twice on the image below to view a five-minute animated feature prepared by a student of l’école Supinfocom Arles based upon “Chaperon Rouge” (=RRH). Go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyTDRzV9IcM to view.
[Reflections by Moderator: I found this little gem about a month ago. The animated film demonstrates great artistry with varied points of view, shadows, construction of the landscapes. RRH appears to pass through ruins (perhaps, exploring her past). Then as the sun begins to set, she falls into a troubled sleep and the phantoms of her past show up as “black snakes.” She is startled awake by her dream, but then the “black snakes” become real, frighten her (now in the waking state), and set her to running. The “black snakes” appear only to menace her while she is in the woods. In the end, she appears to find a refuge–but then suddenly, she is engulfed (perhaps, a symbol of the danger in grandma’s house, if, indeed, that is where she sought refuge).]
Congratulations!
With this, you have finished your first session. If no one has posted their writings as of yet, return in a few days, meet new members and post your responses to their writing.
Buddhist singing bowl (click to listen) The learning circle is now officially closed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~end of case 1
Officially we are going to stop here. For those who might be interested and want to learn something more, I would suggest one or both of the following cross-cultural experiences:
- Read “The Young Slave,” (a much older Italian fairy tale that resembles “Sleeping Beauty”) and compare it with the Grimm narrative. See Exploration 1.8 below.
- Learn how children in Somalia are introduced into their cultural identity using memorized geneologies and the narrated stories of their grandmother. Click on the play arrow to hear Ayaan Hirsi Ali tell her personal story. Notice that Ayaan grew up in a predominantly oral culture wherein “memorized geneologies” served as her “identity card” and source of protection when traveling. Stories, meanwhile, gave her a “moral compass” to guide her on her way.
Sleeping Beauty
“Sleeping Beauty” and “Cinderella” represent two familiar children stories that deal with unjust oppression and ultimate vindication. This is a deep-seated and oft-repeated theme interwoven within the oldest narratives of every world religion. In our own day, this is the theme repeated in endless variety in our sitcoms and in our feature films. Stated briefly–virtue will triumph (even when, for the moment, the heroine is despised, beaten down, and overwhelmed with sorrow).
Your mission, should you wish to accept it, is to select either “Sleeping Beauty” or “Cinderella.” Having made your choice, you will then choose two versions of this narrative. Then you will be asked to do a comparative analysis of the two versions and to surface the ideological assumptions undergirding each. If you select “Sleeping Beauty,” just keep reading. If you select “Cinderella,” jump ahead to the heading with that name below.
Exploration 1.8 Read “Sleeping Beauty” as presented by Perrault (ignore the moral) and contrast it with the Grimm version. As a challenging cross-cultural alternative, you might want to read “The Young Slave,” (a much older Italian fairy tale that resembles “Sleeping Beauty”) and to compare it with the Grimm narrative.
1.8a Name two elements in each story that clearly indicate that it was oriented toward a culture different from our own?
1.8b Contrast the two versions from the vantage point of the rescue of the “sleeping beauty.” Explore how each version satisfies and/or annoys you.
1.8c Compare and contrast the two versions from the vantage point of the implied socialization of young women in traditional society? . . . in modern society?
Most readers of Perrault’s story are likely to feel that the section with the ogress-queen doesn’t really belong; it seems to have been adapted from an earlier story which provided a clearer link between it and the more familiar first section. I have included it here for completeness, but the chief reason for reproducing the story here lies in the role of the prince in appearing just when the sleeper needs him.
Apart from the trivial matter of whether there are 8 or 13 fairies/wise women, the main differences seem to me to be that in Perrault’s version (a) the king and queen are not enchanted but leave the castle in order to carry on their reign; and (b) the prince just happens to be there as the princess wakes up, rather than being an active agent in her reawakening. This may indicate that in Perrault’s more courtly society, he envisaged rulers as having an important role which could not be set aside simply because of their daughter’s situation. The less active role of the prince also seems to indicate his subordination, not yet being an active agent.
Both stories reflect the assumptions of their societies that a woman’s fulfillment is to be found in marriage, and that it is worth waiting until ‘Prince Charming’ comes along. This passivity (compare also ‘Snow White) has not been welcomed by modern writers, but in most instances rather than rewriting this tale they have produced other stories with princesses who are far from passive, sometimes rejecting princes who seem to have this expectation from them. See Zipes’ Don’t Bet on the Prince for examples of this.
Bibliography
Video
Redux Riding Hood (Disney short)
Primary Texts
Any faithful version of the stories of Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty as retold by the Grimm Brothers and by Charles Perrault. Particularly interesting collections are:
Opie, I. & P. (ed.) (1974) The Classic Fairy Tales, Oxford: University Press
Philip, N. (ed.) (1989) The Cinderella Story: The Origins and Variations of the Story known as Cinderella, Harmondsworth: Penguin
Tatar, M. (ed.) (1999) The Classic Fairy Tales, New York & London: Norton
Zipes, J. (ed.) (2nd ed. 1993) The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood, London: Routledge
Secondary Texts
Lombardi, Esther, “Top 10 Books About Little Red Riding Hood”
Stephens, J. (1992) Language and Ideology in Children’s Fiction, London: Longman
Warner, M. (1994) From the Beast to the Blonde, London: Chatto
Zipes, J. (1986) Don’t Bet on the Prince, Aldershot: Scolar
Zipes, J.(1997) Happily Ever After, London: Routledge
Optional Additional Reading
Garner, J.F. (1994) Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, London: Souvenir Press
Lurie, A. (1980) Clever Gretchen and other Forgotten Folktales, London: Heinemann
Storr, C. (1967) Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf, Harmondsworth: Penguin
[1] Here and elsewhere in this section I am making use of ideas also presented in material I wrote for the Distance Learning MA in Children’s Literature, and for the Foundation Certificate in Children’s Literature, both of Roehampton University.
The Story of Grandmother
unknown author
THERE was once a woman who had some bread, and she said to her daughter: “You are going to carry a hot loaf and a bottle of milk to your grandmother.
The little girl departed. At the crossroads she met the bzou [=werewolf] who said to her:
“Where are you going?”
“I’m taking a hot loaf and a bottle of milk to my grandmother.”
“What road are you taking,” said the bzou, “the Needles Road or the Pins Road?”
“The Needles Road,” said the little girl.
“Well, I shall take the Pins Road.”
The little girl enjoyed herself picking up needles [that had fallen from pine trees].
Meanwhile the bzou arrived at her grandmother’s, killed her, put some of her flesh in the pantry and a bottle of her blood on the shelf. The little girl arrived and knocked at the door.
“Push the door,” said the bzou, “it’s closed with a wet straw.”
“Hello Grandmother; I’m bringing you a hot loaf and a bottle of milk.”
“Put them in the pantry. You eat the meat that’s in it and drink a bottle of wine on the shelf.”
As she ate there was a little cat that said: “A slut is she who eats the flesh and drinks the blood of her grandmother!”
“Undress, my child,” said the bzou, “and come and sleep beside me.”
“Where should I put my apron?”
“Throw it in the fire, my child; you don’t need it anymore.”
“Where should I put my bodice?”
“Throw it in the fire, my child; you don’t need it anymore.”
“Where should I put my dress?”
“Throw it in the fire, my child; you don’t need it anymore.”
“Where should I put my skirt?”
“Throw it in the fire, my child; you don’t need it anymore.”
“Where should I put my hose?”
“Throw it in the fire, my child; you don’t need it anymore.”
[Upon getting into bed she said,]
“Oh, Grandmother, how hairy you are!”
“It’s to keep me warmer, my child”
“Oh, Grandmother, those long nails you have!”
“It’s to scratch me better, my child.”
“Oh, Grandmother, those big shoulders that you have!”
“All the better to carry kindling from the woods, my child.”
“Oh, Grandmother, those big ears that you have!”
“All the better to hear you with, my child.”
“Oh, Grandmother, that big mouth you have!”
“All the better to eat you with, my child!”
“Oh, Grandmother, I need to go outside to pee [urinate].”
“Do it in the bed, my child.”
“No, Grandmother, I want to go outside.”
“All right, but don’t stay long.”
The bzou tied a woolen thread to her foot and let her go out, and when the girl was outside she tied the end of the string to a big plum tree in the yard. The bzou got impatient and said: “Are you making cables?”
When he became aware that no one answered him, he jumped out of bed and saw that the little girl had escaped. He followed her, but she arrived at her house just at the moment she was safely inside.
Little Red Cap
By Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
ONCE there was a dear little girl whom everyone loved. Her grandmother loved her most of all and didn’t known what to give the child next. Once she gave her a little red velvet cap, which was so becoming to her that she wanted to wear anything else, and that was why everyone called her Little Red Cap.
One day her mother said: “Look, Little Red Cap, here’s a piece of cake and a bottle of wine. Take them to grandmother. She is sick and weak, and they will make her feel better. You’d better start now before it gets too hot; walk properly like a good little girl and don’t leave the path or you will fall down and break the bottle and there won’t be anything for grandmother. And when you get to her house, don’t forget to say good morning, and don’t go looking in all the corners.”
“I’ll do everything right,” Little Red Cap promised her mother. Her grandmother lived in the woods, half an hour’s walk from the village.
No sooner had Little Red Cap set foot in the woods than she met the wolf. But Little Red Cap didn’t know what a wicked beast he was, so she wasn’t afraid of him. “Good morning, Little Red Cap,” he said.
“Thank you kindly, wolf.”
“Where are you going so early, Little Red Cap?”
“To my grandmother’s”
“And what’s that you’ve got under your apron?”
“Cake and wine. We baked yesterday and we want my grandmother, who’s sick and weak, to have something nice that will make her feel better.”
“Where does your grandmother live, Little Red Cap?”
“In the woods, fifteen or twenty minutes’ walk from here, under the three oak trees. That’s where the house is. It had hazel hedges around it. You must know the place.”
“How young and tender she is!” thought the wolf. “Why, she’ll be even tastier than the old woman. Maybe if I’m crafty enough I can get them both.” So, after walking along for a short while beside Little Red Cap, he said: ” Little Red Cap, open your eyes. What lovely flowers! Why don’t you look around you? I don’t believe you even hear how sweetly the birds are singing. It’s so gay out here in the wood, yet you trudge as solemnly as if you were going to school.”
Little Red Cap looked up, and when she saw the sunbeams dancing this way and that between the trees and the beautiful flowers all around her, she thought: “Grandmother will be pleased if I bring her a bunch of nice fresh flowers. It’s so early now that I am sure to be there in plenty of time.” And when she had picked one, she thought there must be a more beautiful one farther on, so she went deeper and deeper into the wood.
As for the wolf, he went straight to grandmother’s house and knocked at the door. “Who’s there?” ” Little Red Cap, bringing cake and wine. Open the door.” “Just raise the latch,” cried the grandmother, “I’m too weak to get out of bed.” The wolf raised the latch and the door swung open. Without saying a single word, he went straight to grandmother’s bed and gobbled her up. Then he put on her clothes and her nightcap, lay down in the bed, and drew the curtains.
Meanwhile Little Red Cap had been running about picking flowers, and when she had as many as she could carry she remembered her grandmother and started off again. She was surprised to find the front door open, and when she stepped into the house she had such a strange feeling that she said to herself: “My goodness, I’m usually so glad to see grandmother. Why am I so frightened today?” “Good morning,” she cried out, but there was no answer. Then she went up to the bed and opened the curtains. The grandmother had he cap pulled way down over her face, and looked very strange.
“Oh, grandmother, what big ears you have!”
“The better to hear you with.”
“Oh, grandmother, what big eyes you have!”
“The better to see you with.”
“Oh, grandmother, what big hands you have!”
“The better to grab you with.”
“But, grandmother, what a dreadful mouth you have!”
“The better to eat you with.”
And no sooner had the wolf spoken these words than he bounded off the bed and gobbled up poor Little Red Cap.
When the wolf had stilled his hunger, he got back into bed, fell asleep and began to snore very very loud. A hunter was just passing, and he thought: “How the old woman is snoring! I’d better go and see what’s wrong.” So he stepped into the house and went over to the bed and saw the wolf was in it. “You old sinner!” he said, “I’ve found you at last. It’s been a long time.”
He levelled his musket and was just about to fire when it occurred to him that the wolf may have swallowed the grandmother and that there might still be a chance of saving her. So instead of firing, he took a pair of scissors and started cutting the sleeping wolf’s belly open.
After two snips, he saw the little red cap, after another few snips the little girl jumped out, crying: “Oh, I’ve been so afraid! It was so dark inside the wolf” And the old grandmother came out, and she too was alive, though she could hardly breathe. Little Red Cap ran outside and brought big stones, and they filled the wolf’s belly with them.
When the wolf woke up, he wanted to run away, but the stones were so heavy that his legs wouldn’t carry him and he fell dead.
All three were happy; the hunter skinned the wolf and went home with the skin, the grandmother ate the cake and drank the wine Little Red Cap had brought her and soon got well; and as for Little Red Cap, she said to herself “Never again will I leave the path and run into the woods when my mother tells me not to.”
Little Red Riding Hood
by Charles Perrault
ONCE upon a time there was a little village girl, the prettiest that had ever been seen. Her mother doted on her. Her grandmother was even fonder, and made her a little red hood, which she loved so well that everywhere she went by the name of Little Red Riding Hood.
One day her mother, who had just baked some cakes, said to her: “Go and see how your grandmother is, for I have been told that she is ill. Take her a cake and this little pot of butter.”
Red Riding Hood set off at once for the house of her grandmother, who lived in another village.
On her way through a woods she met old Father Wolf. He would have very much liked to eat her, but dared not to on account of some wood-cutters who were in the forest. He asked her where she was going.
The poor child, not knowing that it was dangerous to stop and listen to a wolf, said: “I am going to see my grandmother, and I am taking her a cake and a pot of butter which my mother has sent to her.”
“Does she live far away?” asked the Wolf.
“Oh yes,” replied Little Red Riding Hood; “it is yonder by the mill which you can see right below there, and it is the first house in the village.”
“Well now,” said the Wolf, “I think I shall go and see her too. I will go by this path, and you by that path, and we will see who gets there first.”
The Wolf set off running with all his might by the shorter road, and the little girl continued on her way by the longer road. As she went she amused herself by gathering nuts, running after the butterflies, and making bouquetes of the wild flowers she found.”
The Wolf was not long in reaching the grandmother’s house.
He knocked. Toc Toc.
“Who is there?”
“It is your granddaughter, Red Riding Hood,” said the Wolf, disguising his voice, “and I bring you a cake and a little pot of butter as a present from my mother.”
The worthy grandmother was in bed, not being very well, and cried out to him: “Pull out the peg and the latch will fall.”
The Wolf drew the peg and the door flew open. Then he sprang upon the poor old lady and ate her up in less than no time, for he had been more than three days without food.
After that he shut the door, lay down in grandmother’s bed, and waited for Little Red Riding Hood.
Presently she came and knocked. Toc Toc.
“Who is there?”
Now Little Red Riding Hood on hearing the Wolf’s gruff voice was at first frightened, but thinking that her grandmother had a bad cold, she replied:
“It is your granddaughter, Red Riding Hood, and I bring you a cake and a little pot of butter from my mother.”
Softening his voice, the Wolf called out to her: “Pull out the peg and the latch will fall.”
Little Red Riding Hood drew out the peg and the door flew open.
When he saw her enter, the Wolf hid himself in the bed beneath the counterpane.
“Put the cake and the little pot of butter on the bin,” he said, “and come up on the bed with me.”
Little Red Riding Hood took off her cloak, but when she climbed up on the bed she was astonished to see how her grandmother looked in her nightgown.
“Grandmother dear!” she exclaimed, “what big arms you have!”
“The better to embrace you, my child.”
“Grandmother dear, what big legs you have!”
“The better to run with, my child.”
“Grandmother dear, what big ears you have!”
“The better to hear with, my child.”
“Grandmother dear, what big eyes you have!”
“The better to see with, my child.”
“Grandmother dear, what big teeth you have!”
“The better to eat you with!”
With these words, the wicked Wolf lept upon Little Red Riding Hood and gobbled her up.
Moral
From this story one learns that children,
Especially young lasses,
Pretty, courteous and well-bred,
Do very wrong to listen to strangers,
And it is not an unheard thing
If the Wolf is thereby provided with his dinner.
I say Wolf, for all wolves
Are not of the same sort;
There is one kind with an amenable disposition
Neither noisy, nor hateful, nor angry,
But tame, obliging and gentle,
Following the young maids
In the streets, even into their homes.
Alas! Who does not know that these gentle wolves
Are of all such creatures the most dangerous!
Dances with Wolves
Little Red Riding Hood’s Long Walk in the Woods
Walter Crane, 1875 |
These days the social and sexual messages of fairy tales are no secret. Feminists in particular have long recognized that fairy tales socialize boys and especially girls, presenting them with lessons that must be absorbed to reach adulthood.
But what exactly are those lessons? We tend to think of fairy tales as timeless and universal, but in fact they express our collective truths even as those truths shift over time and place.
Take the story of Little Red Riding Hood, for example — a tale we all know well, though not as well as we think.
Once upon a time, “Little Red Riding Hood” was a seduction tale. An engraving accompanying the first published version of the story, in Paris in 1697, shows a girl in her déshabille, lying in bed beneath a wolf. According to the plot, she has just stripped out of her clothes, and a moment later the tale will end with her death in the beast’s jaws — no salvation, no redemption. Any reader of the day would have immediately understood the message: In the French slang, when a girl lost her virginity it was said that elle avoit vû le loup — she’d seen the wolf.
Penned by Charles Perrault for aristocrats at the court of Versailles, “Le petit chaperon rouge” dramatized a contemporary sexual contradiction. It was the age of seduction, notorious for its boudoir histories and its royal courtesans, who rose to power through sexual liaisons and were often celebrated at court; those who made it to the King’s bed might earn the title maîtresse-en-titre, official mistress.
Nonetheless, chastity was the feminine ideal, demanded by the prevailing institution of marriage — not the “fairy tale wedding” of modern fantasy, but the mariage de raison, orchestrated by parents for social or financial gain and often no more than a crass exchange of assets.
Hence the age of seduction was also an age of institutionalized chastity: Girls were raised in convents. By law a man could sequester daughters (or any female relatives) until marriage. Men and women alike could be disinherited, banished or even sentenced to death for the crime of rapt — meaning seduction, elopement or rape (among which the law made scant distinction). And young women were repeatedly warned of the dangers of unscrupulous suitors.
Perrault cloaked his heroine in red, the color of scandal and blood, suggesting the girl’s sin and foreshadowing her fate. Her chaperon, or hood, also took on the tale’s lesson, acquiring the meaning in English, which it already possessed in French, of one who guards girls’ virtue. For good measure, Perrault added an explicit rhyming moral admonishing demoiselles — that is, young ladies of society — to remain chaste:
Little Red Riding Hood |
Perrault, 1697 |
Little girls, this seems to say, Never stop upon your way, Never trust a stranger-friend; No one knows how it will end. As you’re pretty so be wise; Wolves may lurk in every guise. Handsome they may be, and kind, Gay, and charming — nevermind! Now, as then, ‘tis simple truth — Sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth!
Though Perrault’s moral would eventually be eliminated from the fairy tale, his metaphor has survived to this day. Today we still use the term “wolf” to mean a man who chases women.
In the 19th century Red Riding Hood grew more discreet, and also acquired a man to safeguard her. A fatherly woodsman rescues Red from the beast’s belly and gives her a second chance to walk the straight path through life in “Little Red Cap,” published in 1812 by the German brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. This is the version of the tale that most people know today.
The Grimms did not faithfully preserve the lore of common folk, as they claimed in the preface to their first edition of Children’s and Household Tales. Rather, they adapted the tale for a new children’s audience, excising all erotic content along with Perrault’s incriminating moral. Their revision suggested spiritual rather than sexual danger, and stressed the most important lesson of the day: obedience. That lesson easily found purchase in the social landscape of Victorian Europe.
1953 Max Factor ad in Vogue |
Not until the 20th century was the bowdlerized Red Riding Hood defrocked, so to speak, and redressed. Advertisements transformed the heroine, once a symbolic warning against the female libido, into an ode to Lust. Ripe young “Riding Hood Red” lipstick would “bring the wolves out,” Max Factor promised, in a poster-sized ad appearing in Vogue in 1953. A 1962 advertisement in The New Yorker offered Red as a glamorous femme fatale, on her way to Grandma’s in her “little Red Hertz.”
And, “Without red, nothing doing,” said a 1983 French advertisement for Johnnie Walker Red Label Scotch whisky, which showed a wolf bypassing a crestfallen girl clad in white. (Who wants to buy a drink for bleached goody-two-shoes?)
Storytellers from the women’s movement and beyond also reclaimed the heroine from male-dominated literary tradition, recasting her as the physical or sexual aggressor and questioning the machismo of the wolf. In the 1984 movie The Company of Wolves, inspired by playwright Angela Carter, the heroine claims a libido equal to that of her lascivious stalker and becomes a wolf herself. In the Internet tale “Red Riding Hood Redux,” the heroine unloads a 9mm Beretta into the wolf and, as tufts of wolf fur waft down, sends the hunter off to a self-help group, White Male Oppressors Anonymous.
The 1996 movie Freeway cast Reese Witherspoon as a tough runaway in a red leather jacket who is more than a match for the serial killer she meets while hitching her way to grandma’s trailer park. And about that macho wolf? A 1989 “Far Side” cartoon by Gary Larson cast the beast on a psychiatrist’s couch, in a floral nightgown. “It was supposed to be just a story about a little kid and a wolf,” he says, “but off and on I’ve been dressing up as a grandmother ever since.”
Modern fairy tales with strong heroines have abounded since the 1970s, when second-wave feminists such as Simone de Beauvoir, Andrea Dworkin and Susan Brownmiller pointed out how the classic fairy tales of Perrault and the brothers Grimm showcase passive, helpless, beauty-queen femininity. Such tales, they argued, made little girls long to become “glamorous victims.”
Since then, men and women alike have rewritten many of the classic tales to reflect more modern ideas about women. But few outside the field of folklore know that some of our most popular stories have oral roots that are strikingly different from the literary tradition and feature heroines who are far from passive. Little Red Riding Hood is such a case.
Folklorists trace the origins of tales the same way paleontologists study the origins of species: by collecting, dating and comparing samples, noting common traits that suggest common ancestry, and attempting to construct a lineage. In the mid-20th century, scholars and collectors found a substantial body of stories from France . All were remarkably similar in plot and many shared an abundance of details, including cannibalism, defecation, a striptease, and a bedroom encounter with a beast.
They lacked, however, the usual fairy tale moral scolding the heroine. And most of them shared one more remarkable element: a clever heroine who escapes by her own wits. One memorable version of the story genre ends like this: Lying in bed with the villain — this time, a bzou, or werewolf — the heroine pretends she has to relieve herself. The bzou tells her to do it in the bed, but she refuses —“Oh no, that will smell bad!” she says in another variation —so the bzou ties a cord around the heroine’s ankle and lets her out on the leash, tugging periodically to ensure she does not get away.
Once outside, however, the girl unknots the cord and ties it around a tree. With the bzou in belated pursuit, she escapes. Folklorists are now reasonably certain that this is how Little Red Riding Hood’s adventure was told many years ago, around the fire or in the fields, long before she found her way to print. . . .
But oral fairy tales were often told by women, to the repetitive rhythms of work, until spinning a yarn and telling a tale were one and the same. Spinning and sewing terms often appear in fairy tales — Rumplestiltskin spins straw into gold, Sleeping Beauty pricks her finger on a spindle, and in the oral ancestor of Red Riding Hood, the heroine meets her adversary at “the path of pins and needles.”
Such terms, symbolic of women’s work and skills, serve to remind us that these stories were once wives’ tales — that is, stories told by women — before that term came to mean a lie. Should it be surprising that a woman storyteller would cast her heroine as more clever than her adversary? Or represent female maturity in different terms from male authors of history?
If these stories came only from one city or country, perhaps one would begin by searching for a particular explanation in that particular locale. But as it turns out, Red Riding Hood’s empowered sisters have been found all around the globe — not only in France but throughout Europe and in lands as far away as China — which ought to make us broadly question our so-called timeless and universal stories about women, and our very notion of a heroine.
Catherine Orenstein is the author of Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale (Basic Books, 2002).