Fairytale Comparative Analysis: Little Red Riding Hood

Fairytale Comparative Analysis: Little Red Riding Hood

The classic story of Little Red Riding Hood that everyone knows is not the only storyline. In “Little Red Riding Hood” by Charles Perrault, he tells the classic fairytale of the little girl going to her grandma’s house and gets stopped by a wolf. In “The Company of Wolves” by Angela Carter is a twisted, dark fairytale about a pack of wolves who capture a little girl in the woods. According to Kimberley J. Lau, Carter actually translated Perrault’s fairytales, which today are the base line for most Disney movies. After translating and getting into the mind of Perrault, Carter decided to rewrite his stories the way she viewed his morals (Lau). Because Carter got the baseline of the fairytale from Perrault, there are similarities like; plot summary and character type, but there are also major differences such as; diction and feminist viewpoints.

“The Company of Wolves” uses diction to describe a dark and evil tone and “Little Red Riding Hood” uses a different kind of diction to set a lighter tone. Carter writes, “—of all the teeming perils of the night and the forest, ghosts, hobgoblins, ogres that grill babies upon gridirons,

Perrault is trying to show that girl who are raised by women only might be more susceptible to failing for a man’s charm than those who are brought up with man and woman. He made a point to only make women characters and the evil wolf being a male. The father or grandfather are not mentioned in the story which shows his idea that women raise “feminine” children if they do it alone. Whereas, Carter creates a little girl that is afraid of nothing and does not budge when the wolves eat her grandmother. The little girl in “The Company of Wolves” is much braver and does not show fear or weakness. The sexist take on both of these stories could be because one author is male and one author is