lil red

I feel it isn’t odd that the grandmother does not mention wild animals lurking in the woods, but warns against a wine bottle breaking. Little Red is an innocent young girl and safety would be a top priority. As long as little red doesn’t know about the wild animals in the woods she would not fear it. Thus, if she listened to her grandmother and stayed on the path she would never be confronted by the wild animals. Also, if little red was warned against going into the woods, that would defeat the authors purpose in the telling the story and destroy the plot.

The Story of Little Red Ridding Hood contains various forms of sexual and gender symbolism portrayed through the characters and their behaviour in this story .To begin with the story revolves around women and they are depicted as being the weaker sex and always taken advantage of. The wolf in this story portrayed as the male gender is seen to be the wicked animal waiting to prey on the sweet and vulnerable young girl and her aged and sick grandmother. This is an illustration that the story is very gender biased. Yet another indication of gender distinction is also evident from the fact that the hunter comes to the rescue of the Little Red and her grandmother again demonstrating the women as being the weaker sex.

The colour red which is the main colour used in this story symbolises energy, passion, love. The colour red worn by Little Red in the story could also have attracted the attention of the wolf while she was walking through the forest.

Aesop’s fables tries to provide children today with a moral education and does so through allegories. The wolf has always been attributed with the traits of being sly and cunning. These fables therefore use these traits to indicate how the wolf as a bystander either tries to deceive or have an impact on innocent individuals. This can be observed through the story of ‘The Wolf and the Crane’ wherein on one hand it can be seen how it was the crane that volunteered to remove the bone from the wolf’s throat expecting a reward in return; the wolf however taught the crane a lesson through his unarguable justification that when volunteering to do good for others one should not always expect a reward. However on the other hand the sly nature of the wolf comes into play as he had agreed to give anything to the individual who removed the bone lodged in his throat and could be seen going back on his word once the job was done by the crane.