Fairytales play an important role in the formation of personality in childhood. Knowing this, most parents read stories to their children. In fact, every fairy tale has a moral lesson that is presented in the form of a narrative. And children, by reading stories, automatically learn certain truths. However, some fairy tales might be more than instructive stories. Sometimes they can have quite ambiguous subtext. This paper analyzes the fairy tale "Red Riding Hood" by Charles Perrault. Probably everyone used to read this story as a child. It seemed that everything is clear in it. This paper presents a deep interdisciplinary analysis of this tale, which encounters the second bottom of this tale.
The fairy tale “Little Red Riding Hood” by Charles Perrault is so well-known that there is no need to recall the plot. Many psychologists have tried to analyze the “Little Red Riding Hood” fairy-tale and obtained different results of their analysis. Nevertheless, they are all convinced of one thing: this story is not as innocent as it may seem at first glance.
One of the most popular psychological analyses of this fairy-tale was done by Eric Berne. This psychologist examined all the tale characters as participants of the social game (Berne, 2010). He found many interesting discrepancies in the story and started asking questions. For example, Berne wonders why my mother sent her daughter alone to her grandmother through the dark wood? And also, why a helpless grandmother lived so far away in the suburbs and also kept the door open? It becomes apparent that many "accidental" details in the fairy tale characters` life were made specifically (e.g. granny`s opened door, or reckless mother`s decision to send a little girl in a dark forest). Therefore, Bern wants to show that everything happens just like all the participants of the social game wish.
Developing Eric Berne`s way of thinking, it is necessary to think over some more unclear issues in this fairy-tale. It is clear from the plot that the little girl lives with her mother. The first question is where is the father of this girl? Does he exist in nature or is he dead? It is unknown. The reader can only operate on the facts, and they are stubborn: it is a family where there are no men. The story shows that the relations between the little girl and her mother are not healthy because the girl`s mother sends her into the dark forest despite the fact that she, as it is stated in a fairy tale, loved a girl with no memory. Why did mother let her daughter walk in a dark forest alone? There are several ideas. The first is that the mother is ill (perhaps she drinks), or very naive. The second is that mother wants to get rid of her daughter forever. The third explanation is that the mother decided to have fun with some men and sent her daughter out of the house. Mother is an adult woman, so she should have known, that the forest is the habitat of wolves, that it is dangerous, and that the little girl could get lost. Here, the reader faces with a situation where the parents, who should have taught their children to take care of themselves and to warn them of the dangers, are not doing this for some unclear reasons.
Some researchers see obvious sexual overtones in the whole tale. Reid (2014) found it in the episode, where the girl finds a wolf in the granny`s house. She is not surprised because of the rough voice of "grandmother" behind the door and bravely enters the house. Furthermore, for her it is not surprising that "grandma" offers her to take off her clothes and lay down next to “her”. If grandmother was really ill, she should have been afraid of infecting her granddaughter. But Little Red Riding Hood obediently gets into bed with the wolf and "naively" wonders: why are you, grandma, your hands, ears, and eyes are so big? (Reid, 2014) In fact, that is hard to believe that Little Red Riding Hood is so naive. Seems like she already knows what final is waiting for the stupid Wolf. That is why she plays with confidence in her game.
If to consider that in the Charles Perrault`s times people married early, the grandmother apparently was not even fifty years old. She used to be quite a young woman. In the fairy tale the grandma seems to be specially prepared and already in bed. She does not live with her daughter for some reasons. Apparently for her it is more fun to live alone on the edge of the village. When Wolf knocks, naive grandmother for some strange reasons does not distinguish his voice from the voice of her granddaughter. It might mean that the expected for a Wolf (who is a prototype of a man).
Some authors estimate the red color in the girl’s image in terms of her sexuality. Helen Gavin (2012) considers the "calling card" of the main heroine that is her red hat. In all cultures, red color is associated with sexuality. It is the color of blood and the color of ripe fruit. This color is associated with excitement and passion. If a woman wants to attract attention, she chooses red color. Perhaps Little Red Riding Hood chooses red pretending to be more mature, more passionate than she is in reality. Perhaps the lack of men in her family did not allow her to form a correct idea of the adequate behavior of girls.
Some specific attention should be payed to the Wolf. The first fact is that Little Red Riding Hood is not surprised that some unknown Wolf also wants to visit her grandmother. She calmly walks down the long road, picking flowers with no hurry. Maybe her mother had also invited such Uncle Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood knows that she should better go somewhere at this time?
However, Gavin (2012) makes an assumption that Wolf is just a simple, who is susceptible to various temptations. He quickly turns the game with a well thought-out Little Red Riding Hood. He has a plan, he wants to “eat” (or to enjoy with, if to translate into a human language) two women at once (the grandmother and Little Red Riding Hood).
An intelligent man would ask at least something about the family, but the wolf did not. After all, if neither the grandmother nor mother has a husband, it means that in this family men disappear somewhere. But the wolf was nervous, naive, and he did not care. Eric Berne (2010), who has already been mentioned in this paper, makes a very curious conclusion regarding “Little Red Riding Hood”. The psychologist claims that morality of this fairy tale is the following: Wolves should stay away from such little girls and their grandmothers and in any case not to walk in the woods alone (Berne, 2010). By and large, dysfunctional family creates the same patterns from generation to generation, and if grandmother somehow "ate" her grandfather, as well as mother, the granddaughter will also entertain in this way. Little Red Riding Hood knows how to spoil the life of a man who thinks he is the Wolf. In fact, a real predator in this tale is Little Red Riding Hood, which only seems to be an innocent and naive small girl.
At first glance, these are the wolves who are dangerous and insidious. However, in the case of such "Little Red Riding Hood," the wolves are always the losers, as they are usually lured and "thrown away". Karpman (2011) states that «Ageing, for Little Red Riding Hood, probably means first playing her mother and later her grandmother» (Karpman, 2011). A woman of the Little Red Riding Hood type knows that there is always the hunter, woodsman, or knight, who will save her and punish the evil wolf. But, unfortunately, there are always a lot of hunters. That is why dexterous Red Riding Hoods, thanks to theis an innocent look and attractive appearance, lure their next victim, which is ready to succumb to Red Riding Hoods` manipulations.
In the end, it is necessary to say that everyone should be wary of Red Riding Hoods, in order not to be physically or psychologically killed and unjustly accused. The result of the research, which was made in this paper, shows that those who are familiar with the Red Riding Hoods in reality, are often very sorry about that day, when they met. Therefore, the real Wolf in the fairy tale is she, the girl with the name Little Red Riding Hood. The conclusion is simple: not every obvious thing is exactly what it seems. It is the real reason why the "Little Red Riding Hood" has been the subject of so many psychoanalysts` analyzes.
References
Berne, E. (2010). What Do You Say After You Say Hello?: The Psychology of Human Destiny. Random House.
Gavin, H. (2012). The damsel in distress: not as sweet as she is painted? In: 4th Global Conference on Evil, Women and the Feminine, 6-8 May 2012, Prague, Czech Republic.
Karpman, S. B. (2011). Fairy tales and script drama analysis. Group Facilitation, (11), 49.
Reid, J. (2014, November). Wolves in Sheep's Clothing: Transgressive Sexualities in ‘Little Red Riding Hood’and Angela Carter. Postgraduate English: A Journal and Forum for Postgraduates in English (No. 29).
