The Wolf, the Crone, and the Maiden in Red: A Brief Comparative Analysis 

Greetings, wandering soul! The Ink-stained Archivist welcomes you to the Library of the Lost—where, for each lost soul, a story might be found. 

You’ve traversed quite far, haven’t you? Over the river, through the woods, and under sprawling stars in search of a lantern in the gloom. Of course, my beloved library is a haven for all in direst need of respite. 

Now, tell me, traveller, did you happen to encounter any unsavory characters along your perilous journey? Dangerous creatures do dwell in the woods just beyond my library’s threshold—ravenous, clever wolves with teeth that tear and talons that rend. 

But be at ease! You are well and truly safe within these sacred walls. Such fabled beasts dare not trespass here. No, they much prefer plundering cottages and gobbling up little girls. 

Which reminds me…

Tales of “Little Red Riding Hood” Through Time

      One of the most famous fairytales, whose ambiguous origins likely date roughly to some bygone early European community, focuses on a young girl as she embarks upon an unexpectedly perilous journey to deliver treats to her ailing grandmother. Three notable iterations of this popular tale—Charles Perrault’s “Little Red Riding Hood,” the anonymously published“The Story of Grandmother,” and Angela Carter’s “The Company of Wolves”—possess an analogous framework while still simultaneously standing independently from the myriad retellings in circulation today. Carter’s rendition, for instance, features ostentatious and ornate language. However, the other two tales mentioned above are expressed via ascetic diction and simpler syntactical structures. This is likely because these early tales were intended to be enjoyed by women and children who dwelled within Europe’s rural villages. Additionally, Carter’s “The Company of Wolves” and the anonymous “The Story of Grandmother” were obviously created to entertain adults. “Little Red Riding Hood,” in contrast, was designed to function as a cautionary tale uttered to frighten careless, errant children. Each of the aforementioned stories possesses an archetypal depiction of the crafty Wolf, Little Red’s grandmother, Little Red’s mother, and the eponymous Little Red herself—though these characters appear within the tales to varying degrees of importance. 

Feminine Archetypes in the “Little Red” Fairytale 

      Little Red’s mother, for example, plays a vastly different role in Angela Carter’s short story than in the other two iterations mentioned above. In “The Story of Grandmother,” as well as in Charles Perrault’s classic tale, Little Red Riding Hood is instructed by her mother to deliver to her sickly grandmother a parcel of scrumptious treats. However, in Angela Carter’s darkly imaginative short story, the Little Red Riding Hood character, in a display of naive rebellion, informs her rightfully concerned mother of her desire to visit her beloved grandmother. Despite her prudent mother’s forewarnings, Carter’s Little Red elects to embark upon a journey that is keenly physical and mental in equal measure. Inevitably, this transformative journey alters Little Red and Grandmother in both a literal and figurative sense: from child to woman, from crone to corpse. An illuminating illustration of human mortality and the fluid cycle of womanhood unfurls like the winding forest path poised before the red-hooded heroine herself. Interestingly, the conspicuous presence of three feminine archetypes—the maiden, mother, and crone—is consistent across almost every iteration of Red Riding Hood’s tale. Three women, each born in a different generation of the same family, effectively also symbolize the chronological cycle of womanhood: maidenhood, motherhood, and wisewoman.  

The Wolf, the Hunter, and the Girl in Red 

      Still, other such similar characteristicss—those nigh imperative elements of Little Red Riding Hood’s iconic tale—are present within all three of the aforementioned renditions. In each tale, Little Red carries with her into the forest a basket of goodies prepared for her grandmother. Her donning of the iconic red article of clothing for which she is named, lovingly crafted for her by her doting grandmother, is also consistent across the three tales. Ultimately, in each story, Little Red Riding Hood encounters a seemingly friendly wolf. Though in Carter’s gothic-inspired depiction, the Wolf appears in the guise of a charismatic human hunter, his enticing alternate form. Analogous expressions—such as the infamous, and apparently customary, “what big eyes you have” dialogue exchange—feature prominently. Consistently, the oblivious Little Red Riding Hood directs the Wolf to her grandmother’s house in each version and proceeds to dawdle along her journey, granting the cunning Wolf ample opportunity to reach her grandmother’s cottage before Little Red’s fateful arrival. 

Fairytale Symbols of purity  

Of the three stories previously introduced, “The Company of Wolves” and “The Story of Grandmother” are the most congruent; they share numerous significant symbols and essential plot events. Two of the most poignant symbols in both stories are that of needles and blood. In “The Story of Grandmother,” two divergent courses unwind toward Grandmother’s cottage: the path of needles and the path of pins. Little Red chooses the path of needles, a momentous decision for a girl of her age. Emblematic of women, the needle was believed to be an antiquated representation of a young girl’s biological maturity—of her waning maidenhood. In her rendition, Angela Carter strategically alludes to her protagonist’s fate when the Hunter pointedly places a needle-bearing compass into the pubescent girl’s palm. Blood, implied to be a means of sacrifice, is also a prevalent theme within both tales. In “The Company of Wolves,” Carter’s protagonist concedes her maidenhood to the Hunter during her first foray into sexual exploration—an act often associated with the spilling of virginal blood and a woman’s most fundamental loss of innocence in the eyes of patriarchal society. This clever imagery, of course, aligns seamlessly with the symbolism of the needle, an implement known to prick the unwary. After the Wolf from “The Story of Grandmother” savages Little Red’s feeble grandmother, he pours her lifeblood into a wine bottle. When Little Red arrives at the cottage, the Wolf—now disguised as Little Red’s grandmother—instructs Little Red to drink the contents of the wine bottle. Oblivious to the Wolf’s treachery, she imbibes her late grandmother’s blood, thus symbolically gaining her familial matriarch’s wisdom. This is perhaps a biblical allusion to the Eucharist; Religious symbology, as we know, famously abounds in oral traditions.

Virginity and Sexual Dominion 

 In both Carter’s short story and the anonymously authored tale, Little Red is ordered to hurl her clothing into the blazing fire. However, in “The Company of Wolves,” Carter’s protagonist also throws the sinister shapeshifter’s clothing into the inferno along with her own garments. Of the three versions mentioned here, only Perrault’s protagonist ultimately perishes. Angela Carter’s protagonist confidently conquers her wicked Wolf by deftly taming him via her wily sacrifice of her virginity—a fascinating subversion of the banal trope in which an unbridled, vivacious young maiden is sexually and socially quelled by a much cannier, stronger, older male authority. Fortunately, despite her regrettable lack of clothing and subsequent vulnerability, the protagonist in the anonymous “The Tale of Grandmother” outwits the sly Wolf, scurrying through the forest and back to her family home.

Morality and Mortality 

Charles Perrault‘s austere interpretation, aptly titled “Little Red Riding Hood,” is the most dissimilar of the three—possibly because it is, by virtue of its author, the most traditional iteration. Therefore, Perrault’s portrayals of these famous fairytale characters serve as indisputable models. His predecessors and admirers alike, curiously, tend to shy away from pursuing the gory demises of both Little Red Riding Hood and her ailing grandmother. In glaring contrast with the others, Perrault’s rendition of Little Red Riding Hood’s story abruptly concludes with the ravenous, crafty Wolf greedily consuming the foolhardy Little Red and her frail grandmother. This morbid portrayal was pursued, no doubt, in order to impose a moral lesson upon young audience members—more specifically, wayward children who fail to heed their elders’ warnings regarding untrustworthy strangers. 

Awakening Agency of a Fairytale Heroine 

Interestingly, Perrault was the only storyteller of the three to use the phrase ‘once upon a time” in his tale. Perhaps the most profound difference between Perrault’s presentation of Little Red Riding Hood’s story and the aforementioned versions, however, is his protagonist’s failure to wrest control of her grievous circumstances. Her agency is never fully cemented, which inevitably leads to her downfall. This is not the case, thankfully, in the other two versions of this tale. Both protagonists seize power away from their respective hunters—be he wolf or man—and enforce their will upon their own narratives. Angela Carter’s protagonist, in contrast to Perrault’s, swiftly assesses the direness of her situation and manipulates it to suit her ends. Instead of allowing herself to be ravished by the Wolf, she coaxes him via her burgeoning feminine wiles, brazenly luring the masculine predator to her, and only then proceeds to usurp dominion over the precarious scenario in which she finds herself. For her part, the protagonist of “The Story of Grandmother” eventually realizes the Wolf’s dastardly scheme mere seconds before she was to meet her doom. Thus, both Angela Carter and the anonymous storyteller reimagine the Little Red Riding Hood narrative as a reclamation of female agency, subverting the rigid patriarchal moralising of Charles Perrault’s more traditionalist tale.      

 

Dear me, but the hour wanes. I’ve kept you from your travels with my prattling on about imaginary beastly terrors and heedless young maidens. The trees clamor for your return, brave wanderer.  Best you leave now, yes? But remember to be ever-watchful; you never know what predators like within these woods. Sheepish smiles often conceal wolfish whims. 

If you’ve enjoyed this moment of literary mischief, please consider subscribing. Each time we publish a new article, a mysterious, technologically-minded wizard will promptly notify you. But please do not ask me to expound upon how any of that nonsense is achieved; I would, in my befuddled ineptitude, only embarrass myself. 

Your Ink-stained Archivist bids you farewell. 

Works Cited

Carter, Angela. “The Company of Wolves.” The Bloody Chamber, Penguin, 1979, pp. 110-118.

Perrault, Charles. Histories or Tales of Past Times Written for Children. Edited by J. Saxon Childers, London: The Nonesuch Press, 1925.

The Story of Grandmother. 11 Oct. 1996, www.sjsu.edu/faculty/harris/StudentProjects/Student_FairyTales/WebProject/Fairy%20Tales/The%20Story%20of%20Grandmother.htm.