Red Riding Hood Vs Little Red Riding Hood

In our world today, people happily expose children to fairy tales, but as those kids grow up and discover the hidden messages inside the stories, they are often provoked with different emotions. I recently experienced this when reading Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s “Little Red Cap,” and Charles Perrault’s “Little Red Riding Hood.” Due to my new maturity and knowledge, I was able to interpret the author'sauthors’ pieces of work in new ways. Their strategic use of pathos led me to be overcome with a feeling of worry, disappointment, and frustration. Despite the fact that they both induced me to experience similar emotional responses, I found myself responding more strongly to one than the other. In both fairy tales Red Riding Hood is described

Which is why I was not surprised to feel the same emotion of frustration as I read each of them. In both of the stories, the wolf beats Red to her grandma’s house, and then eats her grandma before getting into the bed. So when Red arrives, the wolf is pretending to be her grandma. Despite all of the observations that Red picks up on, she still does not realize that it is not her grandma, but the wolf. The Grimm brothers’ write that as “she went to the bed and pulled back the curtains. Grandmother was lying there with her cap pulled down over her face and looking very strange.” This, along with the other signs of “Oh grandmother what big... ears... eyes... hands... mouth you have!” Surely this should have been enough for Red to recognize the wolf and leave before getting eaten. Yet, she still fails to identify him, making this use of pathos extremely successful in setting off a feeling of complete frustration inside me. Perrault's version of the story is almost identical in this sense. Red’s initial thoughts are similar because Perrault writes that “She was greatly amazed to see how her grandmother looked in her nightclothes.” Additionally, the whole incident of “Grandmother, what big arms... legs... ears... eyes... teeth you have!” Once again Red is unaware of the signs that should have made it clear to her that it was really the wolf in her grandma’s bed. Perrault’s element of pathos is similar in these ways, but what sets his usage apart from the Grimm brothers’ is that in the end “Little Red Riding Hood took off her clothes and got into bed” with the wolf. This image is not only disturbing, but frustrating more than anything because in order to ignore all of the clear signs and still do something like that, Red must have seriously not been thinking. Which is why in this case I responded more strongly to Perrault’s version of the fairy