Little Red Riding Hood: A Tale of Heroism and Fearlessness

This essay analyzes the character of Little Red Riding Hood and her fearlessness in the face of danger. The story highlights the importance of female heroes and their ability to defend themselves. The essay also examines the societal context in which the story was written and how it reflects the dark realities of the time.

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Professor Jeremy Brown
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“Little Red Riding Hood” girl’s reaction in the story and her fearlessness
The Little Red Riding Hood, a European based fairy tale about a young girl and a Wolf.
In the later version of the story, the woodsman or hunter rescues the girl (Tehrani). The story
examining a little girl going to the woods and upon returning finding her grandmother to be
strange looking. The wolf was dressed as her grandmother, which did not effectively impend any
sort of fear on the girl. The girl bravely walks out of the house leaving behind the wolf to wonder
how clear the girl was to discover its presence. The girl depicts a cleaver character, who is
heroic in nature as demonstrated from her characteristics (Karpman). It draws on an unusual
theme to alluring, violent and disgusting reality that exists in the society. An analysis of the
entire tale reveals the dark character side existing in the tale highlighting Alice important
character. Her character and nature is critical in the story and reveals human sexuality as the wolf
enters the house and slips off in her bed. At the time the story was written there have been
several incidence of child abusing, which is reflected in this theme. Moreover, character of Little
Red Riding Hood is a set against the generic past to set a character in a new form.
The depiction of new version of Little Riding Hood provides heroic characteristics of the
little girl. The company of Wolves could not cause her any fear as she ceased to be afraid. Hero
is a masculine noun that depicts achievements and qualities. They wanted to portray women
having strong characteristics with no fear and being able to defend themselves easily. In Little
Red Riding Hood also, the female character was shown to have intelligence and witty
characteristics, as against other depiction showing women as being weak or witless. These
stories were reflecting part of social life at that time. The perception was to extend a female hero
at that time in order to divert attention from acceptable female modes then (Zipes).
A heroine is the female counterpart but is assumed not to get her hands dirty in fight.
Victorian folk tale anthologists shared various strong illustrations of female heroes (Bacchilega).

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This story is in sharp contrast to previous stories that are set to examine only males characters as
being heroes. The character begins her life similar to other small children of her age and goes
on to become heroic in her self-defense. As she is faced by a monster within her house she makes
a valuable decision that prevents her from getting eaten and from saving her own life. Her
confidence or ability to distinguish between the bad and the good makes her fearless. Her heroic
acts are defined in her expression where she is able to evaluate the bad against the good.

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Bibliography
Bacchilega, C. Postmodern fairy tales: Gender and narrative strategies. University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2010.
Karpman, Stephen B. "Fairy tales and script drama analysis." Group Facilitation (2011): 49.
Tehrani, Jamshid J. "The phylogeny of little red riding hood." PloS one 8.11 (2013): e78871.
Zipes, Jack. "The trials and tribulations of little red riding hood." The Trials and Tribulations of
Little Red Riding Hood. 17-90: Routledge, 2017.