Little Red Riding Hood

The story of a girl deceived by a wolf has been common in France and Italy since the Middle Ages. In the Alpine foothills and in Tyrol, the tale has been known since at least the 14th century and was particularly popular. The contents of the basket varied: in northern Italy, the granddaughter brought her grandmother fresh fish, in Switzerland — a head of young cheese, in the south of France — a pie and a pot of butter. A mother sends her daughter to her grandmother with milk and bread. She meets a wolf, a werewolf, or an ogre, and tells him where she's going. The wolf overtakes the girl, kills the grandmother, cooks food from her body and a drink from her blood, dresses in her grandmother's clothes and lies down in her bed. When the girl arrives, the wolf offers her food. Grandma's cat tries to warn the girl that she is eating her grandmother's remains, but the wolf throws wooden shoes at the cat and kills her. Then the wolf invites the girl to undress and lie down next to him, and throw the clothes into the fire. She does so and, lying down next to the wolf, asks why he has a lot of hair, broad shoulders, long nails, big teeth. To the last question, the wolf answers: "This is to eat you as soon as possible, my child!" and eats the girl. This is how most of the recorded versions end, although in some cases the girl uses cunning to escape from the wolf.

Charles Perrault has treated the folk story in a literary way. He removed the motif of cannibalism, the character of a cat and its murder by a wolf, and introduced the red chaperone, which went out of fashion in cities during Perrault's time, but was popular with women in rural areas.

The version of the fairy tale that has become a classic in modern children's literature was written down a century after Perrault's death by the brothers Grimm, they heard it from Maria Muller, who worked as a housekeeper in the house of Wilhelm Grimm's future wife. A good ending was added to the tale: in this version, the lumberjacks passing by, hearing the noise, kill the wolf, cut open his stomach and save Grandma and Little Red Riding Hood. Perrault's moralizing about the relationship between the sexes has disappeared from the fairy tale, as have all sexually tinged motifs.

The illustrations of the fairy tale in Russian usually depict the actual maiden's cap (according to the fairy tale of the brothers Grimm) instead of the cape-hood of the French original. The same situation exists in many other countries, where the word "chaperone" has been replaced with "cap", "hat", "cap".

In psychology and sexology, the tale of Little Red Riding Hood is understood as an example of "games", life scenarios. Practically, its archaic background is extracted from the modern treatment of the fairy tale for the second time, but the seducer is not the wolf, but Little Red Riding Hood herself, who embodies one of the teenage scenarios. Another interpretation involves the disclosure of the scenario triangle "Victim — Rapist — Rescuer" with a rotation of roles.

Erich Fromm interprets the fairy tale from the point of view of psychoanalysis, in which the main attribute of the heroine — little red riding hood — is a symbol of menstruation. And the story is not about a small, defenseless girl, but about a mature woman who is faced with the problem of sexual relations. Fromm interprets his mother's advice "do not turn off the path into the forest" as a warning that one should not engage in sexual intercourse, and the act of cannibalism of a wolf as a sexual act. However, in addition to the morality about the dangers of sexual relations, the fairy tale contains the idea of conflict between men and women. As Fromm writes, the tale of Little Red Riding Hood is "a story of the triumph of women who hate men, a story that ends with the victory of women."

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