Little Red Riding Hood can no longer be considered a frail child without any control over what becomes of herself. Instead, Angela Carter makes the moral of this traditional fairytale into a modern day lesson: you can do anything. With great detail does Carter present her setting, which adds to the fearfulness the reader feels for Red as she encounters the wolf. As a result, we begin to fear the wolves as well, because in this small village wolves are more than mere beasts, they are were-wolves. Carter sets the scene for our pre-adult heroine who is afraid of nothing even though the whole town is ripe with fear. Women and children are taught to stay indoors at night while the men fear for their own humanity. Despite all of this Little Red Riding Hood has no qualms about setting off into the woods to get to grandma’s house. Why does she not fear what all girls do? Based off the feministic elements, the act of sacrifice and applying our own abilities to a situation we understand much more about Red than before.
“It is a tale of girl becoming . . . more than just meat or nourishment for the quest.” states Wendy Swyt about Carters version of Little Red. The idea that Little Red knew what she was giving up in order to gain her life gives a chilling realism to difficult decisions we must face in our own lives. Swyt gives the understanding that Little Red has something to teach us yes, but maybe for Carter that lesson surely is not ‘don’t talk to strangers’. In fact, I argue Carter wants us to, because only in this way can we prove ourselves.
In Girard’s “Violence and the Sacred”, violence and the act of sacrifice is a way for society to be kept in balance. Not only is Little Red a victim, so are the were-wolves in this story. Specifi...
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...d the ability to manipulate, the situation one can turn a bad situation into one that need not be feared.
Works Cited
Carter, Angela. “The Company of Wolves.” The Bloody Chamber. Penguin Books. New York: 1979. Pages 110 – 118
Girard Rene. Violence and the Sacred. Excerpt from Chapter One: “Sacrifice”. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Baltimore Maryland 1977. Pages 2-16
Swyt, Wendy. "'Wolfings': Angela Carter's becoming-narrative." Studies in Short Fiction 33.3 (1996): 315+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 30 Nov. 2010.
Zipes, Jack. "The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood." The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood. Routledge, 1993. 17-88. Rpt. in Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800. Ed. Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 56. Detroit: Gale Group, 2000. Literature Resource Center. Web. 29 NOV. 2010.
“The wolf did with the lambkin dwell in peace. His grim carnivorous nature there did cease. The leopard with the harmless kid laid down. And not one savage beast was seen to frown.
Dubus, Andre. "Killings." Meyer, Michael. In The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 107 - 120.
Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian” does a marvelous job of highlighting the violent nature of mankind. The underlying cause of this violent nature can be analyzed from three perspectives, the first being where the occurrence of violence takes place, the second man’s need to be led and the way their leader leads them, and lastly whether violence is truly an innate and inherent characteristic in man.
of the wolves and finds that they are more than the savage and merciless hunters
Byatt, A.S. “The Thing in the Forest.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. 11th ed. New York: Norton, 2013. 352-67.
Through powerful visuals and specific vocabulary, Cormac thoroughly portrays the main character’s sorrow that was prompted by the loss of the animal he highly respects. The protagonist seeks to find a suitable burial site for the wolf, hoping to uncover and reveal the perfect place from Night’s blanket of darkness. Detailed descriptions establish a sense of deep respect as the main character “cradled the wolf in his arms and lowered her to the ground and unfolded he sheet. She was stiff and cold and her fur was bristly with the blood dried upon it” (McCarthy 5-8). The main character’s actions reveal great care and love for the wolf. It is difficult for an individual to cope with the death of an animal he/she places high regard for. Although wolves are often seen as brutal and deadly animals, McCarthy uses elaborate details to portray wolves as majestic and brave creatures. Such contrast is also achieved through a precise use of diction. He touches the “cold and perfect teeth”. The wolf’s “eye turned to the fire gave no light,” until the ...
A question that arises in almost any medium of art, be it music, film or literature, is whether or not the depiction of violence is merely gratuitous or whether it is a legitimate artistic expression. There can be no doubt that Michael Ondaatje's long poem The Collected Works of Billy the Kid is a violent work, but certain factors should be kept in mind before passing it off as an attempt to shock and titillate; certainly, the poem does both of these, but they are not the primary purpose of the work. For one thing, social context needs to be considered; Billy lived in the "Wild West", a time associated with range wars, shoot-outs and great train robberies. The entire legend of Billy the Kid has been built around his criminal activities and notorious reputation; indeed, the more popular this myth becomes, the more people he is accused of having murdered. If anything, it was a cultural fascination with violence that "created" the legend, perhaps even more so than anything the "real" Billy ever did. Michael Ondaatje comments on this phenomenon and actually offers an alternative vision of who Billy the Kid was; perhaps he was not just a blood-thirsty killer but a man who, due to circumstance and human nature, was continually being pushed over the edge. Ondaatje is more concerned with the motivations behind the acts of violence than the acts of violence themselves: "A motive? some reasoning we can give to explain all this violence. Was there a source for all this? yup -" (54). If they shock, it is to shock the readers out of complicity and encourage them to think about the nature of violence and their own capacity for it.
“I've told her and I've told her: daughter, you have to teach that child the facts of life before it's too late” (Hopkinson 1). These are the first three lines of Nalo Hopkinson's short story “Riding the Red”, a modern adaptation of Charles Perrault's “Little Red Riding Hood”. In his fairy tale Perrault prevents girls from men's nature. In Hopkinson's adaptation, the goal remains the same: through the grandmother biographic narration, the author elaborates a slightly revisited plot without altering the moral: young girls should beware of men; especially when they seem innocent.
“I've told her and I've told her: daughter, you have to teach that child the facts of life before it's too late” (Hopkinson 1). These are the first three lines of Nalo Hopkinson's fairy tale “Riding the Red”, a modern adaptation of Charles Perrault's “Little Red Riding Hood”. Perrault provided a moral to his fairy tales, the one from this one is to prevent girls from men's nature. In Hopkinson's adaptation, the goal remains the same: through the grandmother biographic narration, the author advances a revisited but still effective moral: beware of wolfs even though they seem innocent.
“What?!” shouted Little Red. Her mother, who was in shock at her tone, replied, “ Little
National Statistics of the U.K. 08 Mar. 2005 http://www.statistics.gov.uk/images/charts/442.gif>. Otten, Charlotte, ed., pp. 113-117. The Literary Werewolf Anthology. 1st.
Over the course of history, violence amongst men has shaped the world in which we live through wars, political protests, or social conflicts. Sadly, enough, this is a factor of human nature which resides in all individuals and cannot be controlled or avoided. Not only have these events of man’s inhumanity been documented, but they have also become the underlying theme for many well known works of literature. Both Golding and Wiesel shed light on the immorality of mankind’s actions by putting it under close scrutiny, leaving the reader left to wonder how human beings are capable of so callously hurting and killing one another.
Throughout time, mankind has forged stories and legends to explain the unknown. As years went along the stories and tall tales were passed down to each generation. Each recount of the inherited stories are always told differently, how the story was told usually depended on the person and their particular region of habitance. Thus leading to hundreds of different versions of a single story told throughout the world, written and told by different people. Not only are these stories told as pure entertainment, they serve as wise life lessons and set examples for children when they were eventually introduced to society. These stories are so prominent in human history that even to this day the same stories that were told to children centuries ago
In this essay, I will be exploring the notions of violence in Sophocles’ Antigone. In examining these notions, I will be referring to and explaining both Hannah Arendt’s ‘On Violence’ and Walter Benjamin’s ‘Critique on Violence’. By referring to these two political philosophers, key theories and terms relating to violence are discussed and analysed, and the play Antigone is examined in the context of these two essays
Perrault, B. (2003). Little red riding hood. In Schilb, J. and Clifford, J. (Ed.) Making literature matter (pp. 667-669). NY: Bedford/St. Martin?s.