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c As children, few of us saw the classic fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood as more than a

fanciful story of an innocent girl being preyed upon by a wolf with an insatiable appetite for

children. Little did we, or most of our parents for that matter, know that Little Red Riding Hood

is a story drenched in metaphors and sexual overtones that all center around one of the most

vicious acts of mankind: rape.

Little Red Riding Hood is one of the most widely known fairy tales in the western world

with countless variations ranging from the classic tales read to us as children to modern feature

length films and video games. The origins of the tale date back to 14th century France, where it

was told among the peasant class as a form of entertainment (Tatar 3-10). The oral tales were

probably just as varied as the later written versions of the tale, but The Story of Grandmother,

which was first written down by French folklorist Paul Delarue in 1885, is the most well-known

of these oral versions of the story.

In this version, as with most versions, the ³wolf´ is not a wolf at all; he symbolizes a

male sexual predator. But in the oral tale, he specifically symbolizes a male from the French

aristocracy, who were known to prey on the peasant girls at their leisure. Indeed, the inspiration

for the cross dressing aspect of the wolf may have been intended as a shot at the feminine

appearance of the French noblemen¶s clothing and wigs.

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 Little Red Riding Hood, on the other hand, is a spunky, street smart peasant girl who is

not as easy to fool as the wolf would like to believe. In fact, she is able to see through the wolf¶s

not so clever disguise early on and seems to enjoy leading him on, even going so far as to

perform a strip tease for him before she hops into the bed. But unfortunately for the wolf, it

remains just a tease as Little Red Riding Hood slips away and walks home to safety. This rather

feministic ending, where Little Red Riding Hood saves herself from the wolf, would not be

popularized again until the 20th century.

The tale eventually made its way to the ears of the French aristocracy and unsurprisingly,

they seemed more than displeased with it. But one of the principle rules of fairy tales is: ³if you

don¶t like it, make your own´ and author Charles Perrault set out to do just that. He changed the

previously unnamed wolf to the much more friendly ³Neighbor Wolf´ and Little Red Riding

Hood changed from the sexy but clever peasant girl to a girl who would likely be the butt of

³dumb blonde´ jokes in the modern era.

Indeed, Charles Perrault¶s Little Red Riding Hood doesn¶t seem to mind occupying her

time with such mundane tasks as chasing butterflies or gathering nuts and the naïve girl even

makes the fatal mistake of telling old Neighbor Wolf where her grandmother¶s house is. In fact,

Perrault turns Little Red Riding Hood into such a dunce that she cannot tell the difference

between her grandmother and a cross dressing old wolf. One can only expect a girl of such

naivety to be taken advantage of, or so Charles Perrault would like us to believe, and she is

³eaten up´, metaphorically speaking, by Neighbor Wolf.

As if Perrault¶s point wasn¶t already clear enough, he adds his own moral to the end of

the story in which he says ³young girls«are wrong to listen to just anyone, and it¶s not at all

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strange if a wolf ends up eating them.´ After all, as a modern Charles Perrault might say,

³Wolves will be wolves.´

As this fairy tale tit for tat was going on between the aristocracy and peasants in France,

the Brothers Grimm had begun rewriting and compiling fairy tales for children in their native

Germany. But as Zohar Shavit notes in his essay The Concept of Childhood and Children¶s

Folktales, ³The µamusement¶ perception of the child was replaced in the Grimm Brothers¶ day

by an µeducational¶ perception which gave primary importance to«educating the child.´ (Shavit

317-332) The Grimm Brothers were interested in enforcing a strong Christian moral in their fairy

tales and Perrault¶s moral at the end of Little Red Riding Hood didn¶t exactly fit that mold. But

besides Perrault¶s questionable moral, there were other problems the Grimms had with the

previous versions of the tale. The oral version was too crude in its humor, Perrault¶s version had

a gruesome ending for Little Red Riding Hood, and both tales were far too sexually explicit.

The Grimm Brothers decided to keep the airheaded Little Red Riding Hood from

Perrault¶s version, but make the wolf much more of a wicked character, closer to oral tale¶s. The

ending of the Grimm¶s version was clearly of a spin-off of Perrault¶s ending, but they added a

happy ending involving the huntsman that also conveniently reinforced the church¶s patriarchal

dominance teaching. Thus, the girl is raped, but she is eventually saved not by her own wit, but

by the aid of a strong man.

There is one aspect of the ending, however, that truly makes it stand out from the others:

the wolf is killed. Both Perrault and the French peasants seemed to agree that no matter the

outcome of his attempt on Little Red Riding Hood, the ³wolf´ would live on to rape again. The

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wolf¶s death in the Grimm¶s tale is important because it brought in a sense of justice to the story

and marked a milestone in the evolution of Little Red Riding Hood.

By the 20th century, authors began to take a more satirical look at the now classic Little

Red Riding Hood and sought to make parodies of it. James Thurber¶s The Little Girl and the

Wolf starts with the classic plotline, but when Little Red Riding Hood enters her grandmother¶s

house, she immediately recognizes the wolf and pulls a gun out of her apron, shooting him dead.

With that bullet, Little Red Riding Hood kills the old, cliché rapist and ushers in a new era of

attitudes on rape, mainly characterized by women standing up for themselves and delivering

justice to their attackers.

But it is Roald Dahl¶s Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf and The Three Little Pigs that

truly brings the character of Little Red Riding Hood full circle. Not only does she shoot the wolf

dead, but she makes a wolf skin coat out of his corpse and dons it in placement of her famous red

hood. Any ³wolf´ that sees her in that coat will certainly think twice before attempting to ³eat

her up´.

Dahl also tacks on a humorous ending in The Three Little Pigs where she kills one of the

pigs for daring to bother her with his own wolf problems, but not before shooting that wolf dead.

Thus, Little Red Riding Hood goes from rape victim to champion of women¶s rights to

fashionista villainess.

Little Red Riding Hood shows us that the very nature of fairy tales is to evolve. Whether

responding to large cultural changes or being manipulated by a particularly clever author, no true

fairy tale can remain stagnant. Likewise, society¶s perception of crime and punishment evolves

as well and the two inevitably intertwine. Through Little Red Riding Hood, we see rape seen as
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everything from an unfortunate common occurrence to the most vicious act that deserves only

the highest punishment. And thus we learn that fairy tales are not, never have been, and never

will be ³just children¶s stories´.

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Perrault, Charles. "Little Red Riding Hood." The Classic Fairy Tales. Comp. Maria Tatar.

1999. Print.

Shavit, Zohar. "The Concept of Childhood and Children¶s Folktales." The Classic Fairy

Tales. Comp. Maria Tatar. 1999. Print.

Tatar, Maria. The Classic Fairy Tales. 1st ed. 1999. 3-10. Print.

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