Ashley N Delgado Lopez

Professor Sam Bellamy

FIQWS- Exploratory Essay

October 1, 2020

    What lies behind Little Red Riding Hood

We all know the story of Little Red Riding Hood, but what we don’t consider is the different versions of the story that we choose to read. There are many representations of the story depending on the perspective that it is being viewed and written from. There will always be a deep meaning behind the story, in this case, one of the main topics is there being a sexualization towards the protagonist. In the story of The Little Red Riding Hood there are many parts of various different stories that Little Red Riding Hood is being sexualized. 

In Angela Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber” featuring the story of The Company of Wolves, the story revolves around little red riding hood being sexualized throughout the story. The story actually has a turn of events in the end, where Little Red Riding Hood falls for the wolf and ends up not saving her grandmother or going back home. The character herself is expressed in a different manner by the author. An example of this is when Angela Carter writes, “she is an unbroken egg; she is a sealed vessel” (Carter 77). This represents the way Little Red Riding Hood in Angel Carter’s story is being portrayed and what details about the main protagonist stands out. In this case the detail that Angela Carter is pointing out about her is that she is a virgin and that she has not been touched. This connects back to the main protagonist in the story “Little Red Riding Hood” being sexualized since they started representing her as something holy because of not having have sex yet. Later on in the story Little Red Riding Hood showed her liking for the wolf and there was more of an intimate scene between the two, Carter wrote, “her small breasts gleamed as if the snow had invaded the room” ( Carter 80). This quote from the story describes the way Little Red Riding Hood is, more specifically there is a description of her breasts. This shows little red being sexualized because no one would describe a young girl that way, but the way the author used “gleamed” to describe her chest it signifies that the breasts stood out to the wolf. After that the story goes, “as she freely gave the kiss she owed him” (Carter 80). The use of words here are carefully chosen. “Freely” meant there were no restrictions and it was all up to little red’s choice. “Owed” also is used as if the kiss was something that she had to give back to the wolf. But both words are used in the same sentence and mean the complete opposite, which results in Little Red Riding Hood being portrayed as someone who will give in in an intimate situation and results in her being sexualized. 

The article “Little Red Riding Hood: werewolf and prostitute” by Richard Chase Jr and David Teasly goes in depth with how Little Red Riding Hood is being portrayed by the authors. Chase Jr and Teasly point out certain details from the stories that stand out that describe how Little Red Riding Hood is being sexualized throughout many parts of the stories. An example of this is that, “Any female who chose to be alone placed herself outside the social norm. In the case of red riding hood, an unnatural independence can be seen to have resulted in prostituion and witchcraft” (Chase Jr. and Teasly). Chase Jr and Teasly are emphasizing that in this Little Red Riding Hood story a girl that seems to be an outsider compared to the rest is most likely associated with either prostitution or witchcraft. Little Red Riding Hood is very independent but that results in her being portrayed as something else. With the discussion of prostition is also shows that Little Red Riding Hood is being sexualized since prostitutes associate themselves with sex work. Another example is, “The sexual connotations suggested in the act of eating the girl would have implied an oral sex act that most likely would have been considered so unnatural and filthy as to he fit only for devilish enjoyment” (Chase Jr. and Teasly). Certain sayings can be interpreted differently, and that is what Chase Jr. and Teasly are implying. They are saying that when the story says that the wolf is about to eat Little Red Riding Hood, it actually signifies a sexual act between the two. That just shows how Little Red Riding Hood is again being sexualized because she is being put in a sexual act. 

Jack Zipes article “A Second Gaze at Little Red Riding Hood’s trials and tribulations” gives more of an insight look at the different stories based on Little Red Riding Hood and their different origins. There are many topics that he touches upon specifically the one where Little Red Riding Hood is sexualized and how the author’s perspective plays a role. Jack Zipes writes, “Little Red Riding Hood is not really sent into the woods to visit grandma, but meet the wolf and to explore her own sexual cravings and social rules of conduct” (Zipes 87).  Zipes is pointing out that Little Red Riding Hood is actually setting her own path in order to learn more about herself and her sexual desires. That’s why Zipes explains that there is actually another reason towards why Little Red Riding Hood is being sent out to the woods and it is not to see her grandmother. Much later on in the article Jack Zipes also points out that,  “In the case of the Red Riding hood illustrations and the classical texts by Perrault and the Grimms, the girl in the encounter with the wolf gazes but really does not gaze, for she is the image of male desires” (Zipes 107). The overall idea that Zipes points out is that most of the stories that are based off of the Little Red Riding Hood story it is through a males perspective. But with the perspectives being mostly male based, they are portraying what their desires are using Little Red Riding Hood. This also results in many of the situations being sexualized and mainly the protagonist being also sexualized. 

Overall, the protagonist of the story, Little Red Riding Hood, is being sexualized through the various versions that there are. Perspectives play a significant role whether they are writing the story or analyzing it. Through the perspectives of the writers, Jack Zipes, Richard Chase Jr and David Teasly, and Angela Carter, they describe Little Red Riding Hood in more of a sexualized way. David Teasly, Richard Chase Jr, and Jack Zipes are able to explain and analyze towards why this is happening in this particular fairy tale. 

Works Cited

Carter, Angela. “The Company of Wolves.” The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, 

by Angela Carter, Penguin Books, 1985, pp. 74–81. https://uniteyouthdublin.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/1-the-bloody-chamber-and-other-stories-1979.pdf

Chase, Richard, Jr., and David Teasley. “Little Red Riding Hood: werewolf and prostitute.” 

The Historian, vol. 57, no. 4, 1995, p. 769+. Gale Academic OneFile, 

https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A17404087/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=f15b

5998.  Accessed 25 Sep. 2020.

Zipes, Jack. “A Second Gaze at Little Red Riding Hood’s Trials and Tribulations.” 

The Lion and  the Unicorn, 7/8, by Jack Zipes, Johns HopkinsUniversity Press, no. 1, 1983, pp. 78–109., doi:10.1353/uni.0.0105.