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Essay / Telling Little Red Riding Hood Through the Lens of Feminism
Little Red Riding Hood is a poem by Carol Ann Duffy published by Picador as part of her 1999 poetry collection, "The Woman of the World." The book involves retelling fairy tales, mythology, female figures in history and folk tales. In these stories, Duffy gave voice to these female characters, allowing them to express themselves and giving her audience an experience of seeing the world through a female perspective. She also allowed characters to be important or dominant, which contrasted with the usual male dominance and patriarchal ideas. Duffy is well known for her feminist literary works and Little Red Hat is one of many works in which she allows us to see the world through a feminist lens. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayLittle Red Hat is the new version of Brother Grimm's “Little Red Riding Hood”. The very first thing that gives us insight into the nature of the character is in the title itself. Little red cap instead of LRRH, the protagonist instead of the usual hood now wears a cap. The hood which is usually associated with modesty, shyness or something normally worn by women is replaced by a cap which is not so traditional, very unique, unisex and not so commonly worn by women at that time , which shows that this little red-cap is not someone who looks like the usual girls of that era, she is different. And also the little red cap herself tells this poem in the first person, which is very important because it tells us that she had her own voice, which is rare in a patriarchal society where female voices are often closed and neglected. According to John Welford, “Red Cap is the name given colloquially to the Royal Military Police of the British Army. Anyone who knows this is therefore probably expecting this young lady to be a girl with a do not disturb attitude. “At the end of childhood” we see that the protagonist has now reached biological maturity. She is now entering adulthood. Since reaching puberty, it is natural for young girls to want to know more about the world, explore, gain new experiences, find themselves, discover their passion and even explore love life, which is what we see women doing. protagonist. She is seen embarking on a new journey from well-civilized areas to less populated areas and finally she stops at the edge of the forest. A young girl who has just entered puberty started a journey all alone without any adult accompanying her to give us an idea of her enthusiasm for exploration and another quality that the protagonist seems to have is courage and self-confidence. Nowhere in the poem do we see the little red cap being afraid even though the places she goes are scary and full of dangers like the forest. It's possible that her departure into the forest means that the protagonist is a free-spirited girl. “That’s where I saw the wolf for the first time.” The majority involve not only physical changes but also hormonal changes. filled with passion. We see the protagonist exploring love life where she tracks down a wolf twice her age, which is brave for someone her age. The character in the little red cap is seen exploring a sexual fetish that many young girls have for older men and even bad boys. More than exploring love, she seems lustful as she notices the wolf from head to toe. She is mad with sexual desireand attraction to the wolf. “He stood in the clearing, reading his verses aloud.” Another thing that tells about Little Red Cap's character is that she loves poetry and knowledge, she seems eager to learn wisdom and thinks the wolf is the way to get his hands on her. on poetry and books tell us that she is not naive, rather she is intelligent and manipulative knowing how to get things done. “In the meantime, I made sure he spotted me, sweet sixteen, I was never a baby, waif, and brought me a drink,” she seduces the wolf by highlighting all her good qualities attractive and even the fact that she is a virgin When we compare Little Red Hat to Little Red Riding Hood, we see major differences in the character. In Brother Grimm's version, Little Red Riding Hood is seen as a naive and. Innocent However, in this story, Duffy made significant changes to the character, such as that of an indomitable girl. Additionally, we see Little Red Cap approaching the wolf instead of the wolf approaching her, she breaks the stereotype that the male is always supposed to make the first move According to Molly Clark Hillard, this poem shows the predations of poor girls in a market economy. This is evident in the poem where she is seen selling herself, listing her. marketable attributes, “sweet sixteen”. “I’ve never been there baby.” Etc. Although we see her selling out, I strongly disagree with Molly's statement, we see that Little Red Cap makes her own decisions, we see her lure the wolf towards her by making the first move. We cannot claim that Little Red Hat is a prey animal, but rather she can be considered a predator as we saw that the wolf in the original version had hidden motives from Little Red Riding Hood on how he planned to eat her and her grandmother and in this version, the little red cap hides his motivation to acquire knowledge. on wolf poetry. However, one of the attributes she uses to describe herself to the wolf is "waif", meaning a homeless or abandoned person, especially a child. This shows us that she is trying to portray herself as someone who has no one and is pitiful, which indicates that she is also quite diplomatic. Later in the fourth stanza we see her say "The wolf, I knew, would lead me deep into the woods." She seems well aware of what the wolf is going to do but she always accompanies him without fear and curiosity. of the unknown. She embraces all dangers just to get her hands on poetry and knowledge. We see that the protagonist's path to learning poetry and knowledge of the wolf cost her to sacrifice her virginity "my stockings torn to shreds, pieces of red from my blazer". This line tells us about the sexual encounter she has with the wolf and also about this encounter. appears to be aggressive because we see that her stockings are torn, red scars, the color red could represent blood and through "murder clues" tells us that she not only lost her virginity but that she was instead murdered, and a red blazer tells us about Little Red Hat's appearance, the red blazer could represent her school uniform and it's somehow ruined during her sexual encounter with the wolf, tells us that She has now left schoolgirl life behind and started a journey to becoming a woman. “I lost both my shoes.” The two shoes could be a symbol of her virginity and innocence that she loses during this encounter. Another way to look at it is as if she was entering into a business deal by trading her virginity and innocence for money. 2020.