Little Red Riding Hood Comparison

I wrote this comparison paper in my advanced comp class last year.
Not exactly the lame assignment I had thought it would be...the versions of Little Red Riding Hood that I grew up on were seriously sugar-coated to the point where I really don't think I got the lesson in the story.

Though Angela Carter’s “In the Company of Wolves” and the Grimm Brothers’ “Little Red Cap” are spawned from the same theme, “Little Red Riding Hood,” by Charles Perrault, their story lines differ in various ways. The morals of each story appear to be similar in nature, yet how each author presents his/her characters are nearly opposite. The following comparisons will show how very different the two versions are based upon each writer’s respective point of view due to differences in gender as well as in era. Each author casts his/her antagonist, Little Red Riding Hood, and protagonist, the wolf, and minor characters, such as the mother and the grandmother, in basically the same roles, but each played in a very different manner; and these differences are shown with use of imagery, plot contrasts, and character descriptions.

The writers’ use of imagery proves a major difference in their stories. The brothers Grimm present the wolf as merely a clever wolf that tricks a child and her grandmother right into his gullet. “He stepped inside, went straight to the grandmother’s bed, and ate her up” (Grimm, 310). Carter’s imagery, however, is much more dramatic. Carter presents her wolf at first showing his very handsome and charming human alter ego. “When she heard the freezing howl of a distant wolf . . . she saw no sign of a wolf at all, nor of a naked man . . . and there sprang onto the path, a fully clothed one, a very handsome young one…” (Carter, 315). The Grimms’ tale is of only one very sly wolf sent to antagonize an assumingly young Little Red Cap right into his belly. “The wolf had scarcely finished speaking when he jumped from the bed with a single leap and ate up poor Little Red Cap” (Grimm, 310). After reading both tales, one might tend to muse that the Grimm brothers’ use of imagery proves that the Grimms’ view young females as naïve and easily duped by one falsely sheepish wolf. Carter not only tells tales of more than one wolf, she tells a tale of wolves who become men, some suave and clever, others brothers to the suave and clever. “Those are the voices of my brothers, darling. I love the company of wolves” (Carter, 318). These stories differ in their use of imagery, and they also vary on their plots a bit.

Though these differences are huge, the biggest differences in plot are in how these authors write their main character, Little Red Riding Hood, and how her actions lead to her ultimate demise in the Grimms’ fable and save her in Carter’s tale. The brothers Grimm tell the story of a naïve child who was not only easily tricked into revealing her plans and destination, but even more easily duped into hopping right into bed with a wolf disguised as her grandmother. Grimms’ victim, Little Red Cap, was presented as a heroine in Carter’s version of the tale. Carter shows a young woman who is very aware of her surroundings, yet was duped by the face of a charming young man rather than the face of a wolf. Upon reaching her destination, she becomes aware that something is awry. “. . . for the first time she’d seen it so, [her grandmother’s] Bible lay closed on the table” (Carter, 317). Carter’s heroine saves herself from being eaten by showing the man-wolf no fear and turning the tables on him using her wits, beauty and charm to keep the villain’s appetite at bay until midnight when “. . . the door of the solstice stands wide open…” and the conquered man-wolf is forever trapped in his wolf persona’s body (Carter, 319). These differences prove that women are viewed somewhat differently by the Grimms as men in their time than by Carter as a woman in her respective time. This theory is also proven by the authors’ description of the common characters in each tale.

Both writers present the same minor characters, such as the mother and the grandmother. The mother is present briefly just prior to the young protagonist’s journey to her grandmother’s house. Both authors tell of a mother sending her young daughter by herself on a trip through the woods to deliver a basket of food to her sickly old grandmother. Grimms’ mother strictly cautions the girl to stay on the path, though she seemed to be more worried about her daughter’s manners. “”Mind your manners, and give her my greetings. Behave yourself . . . and do not leave the path . . . And when you enter her parlor, don’t forget to say “Good Morning” (Grimm, 309). Carter’s mother is mentioned only in passing, but the fact that the young girl thought to take a carving knife leads the reader to believe that her mother taught her more than manners. “She is quite sure the wild beasts cannot harm her although, well-warmed, she lays a carving knife in the basket her mother has packed with cheeses” (Carter, 314). The sickly grandmother, living alone, miles from any neighbors, gets eaten by the wolf in both versions of each tale. In the Grimms’ tale, the grandmother is obviously consumed whole and later rescued “. . . alive but hardly able to breathe” by a passerby who stopped in to check on her (Grimm, 310). Carter, on the other hand, alludes that the grandmother was chewed as a wolf would chew its prey by stating, “He burned the inedible hair in the fireplace and wrapped the bones up in a napkin…” (Carter, 317). This description of the grandmother’s death immediately lets the reader know that the plot allows for no rescue for the grandmother in this version.

One does not have to be a rocket scientist to perceive the differences in these two story lines. The brothers’ Grimm and Angela Carter’s points of view are obviously from two different eras, not to mention their obvious difference in gender. The Grimms are from a time when women were not as well educated as men. It is a possibility that women of that time are used to standing around dumbly waiting for a man to save them. Carter, being an apparently educated woman from a more modern time, shows the concept of a woman who got herself into a jam using what God gave her (this includes a brain) to get herself back out of that jam. In short, the differences in these similar stories are quite clear, although the moral is a good one even now, in the 21st century: Young women should be very careful of strange gentlemen that take pains to appear harmless.