Little Red Riding Hood and Grandmother’s Tale

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Little Red Riding Hood and Grandmother’s tale

Folktales has created men as the most powerful character in most stories but that does not mean always as there’s a difference in Grandmother’s tale and Little Red Riding hood. Different genders have different expectations according to their characteristics. The Red Riding Hood and Grandmother’s tale has produced ideas such as how a girl’s life is looked upon in the past and how the male has the upper hand in most situations according to the stories. This essay will argue about how the girl’s gender played a major role in the context of the story and how the wolf is represented by a male character and why the male is not always the most powerful character in all stories and the comparison between the two stories.

A way in which folktales in the past has created ideas about gender is how the female plays a specific roles in the story according to her gender. Both stories uses the forest as a path the girl had to take. This could be represented as how the forest was an experience of how a girl’s life is changed because as soon as she enters the forest she meets the wolf and listened to what he said. She did what the wolf asked her to do by gathering nuts in Red Riding Hood and picking up needles which already shows that men has the upper hand because the female is doing what she is told to do. For instance, in both stories she strips naked and gets onto the bed with the wolf, which could be interpreted as how a girl is experiencing sexual experiences for the first time in her life. And the flowers that was told in the story could mean she was perhaps deflowered. So, this may seem that women will do whatever the men says according to folktales, however it is a great mistake to assume t...

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... on. This may be interpreted as how the female gender is more intelligent than what was assumed of her. The girl understands what the wolf was trying to do so she goes out with a thread tied to her ankle but ‘she cuts the thread with her sewing scissors and ties it to a plum tree’. She managed to escape from the wolf which tells us the female can be unpredictable at times and physical strength from men does not always necessarily mean an instant victory. The girl escaped from the wolf and asked for help from the laundresses who is a women as well so she helped her cross the river but when the wolf came to ask she helped him until he was half way but as soon as he reaches the deep part of the river she lets go. This shows that a women should never be underestimated and there is no such thing as a stereotypical folk tale which always results in men taking charge.

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