Subtexts In Little Red Riding Hood
Bettleheim argues that LRRH has an “oedipal complex, claiming that she harbors sexual desires towards the wolf, who symbolizes a father figure” (175).
“He argues that she wants to ‘do away with Grandmother’ so she can be seduced by the wolf because she is driven by her sexual desires” (175).
Lurie talks about class: “Fairy tales usually tell stories about the lower or middle class. These characters tend to be the happiest.”
Critical Analysis of the Story Little Red Riding Hood
“Critics want to subvert and interrogate the meanings of fairy tales, specifically, in terms of gender role, racial identity and identity discrimination.”
Sarah Bonner, in talking about LRRH, suggests that “The girl and the wolf inhabit a place, call it the forest or call it the human psyche, where the spectrum of human sagas converges and where their social and cultural meanings play out.”
“The story Little Red Riding Hood contains images, objects, and scenes that are very sexually symbolic in the perspectives of psychoanalyst….Through the presence of the red cloak, the idea of menstrual cycle enters the scene of interpretation. It is then connected to the ‘dark forest’ of being a woman.”
Annotations for LRRH
“Through the moralizing of both Perrault and Grimms', critics explain that the tale moved away from its obvious sexual and horrific tones, to more closely resemble a fable or cautionary tale (Tatar 1992).”
“In the feminist criticism of the tale, the eating of the grandmother and Little Red Riding Hood is seen as a metaphor for rape.”
“James Thurber's "The Little Girl and the Wolf." Red Riding Hood is not fooled by the wolf, but takes a gun from her basket and shoots him. Thurber explains, "It is not so easy to fool little girls nowadays as it used to be."