"Red's Riding Hoods" -an Interesting Interpretation to the Famous Fairy Tale

While I was doing research for my paper, I came across this YouTube video of another interpretation of “The Little Red Riding Hood”. I found this interesting because unlike all the other stories I have read or watched on this fairy tale, this one represented the wolf as being ignorant and innocent and Red, who makes “riding hoods” as the villain. The wolf was bringing a basket to his grandmother wolf, and when he ran into Little Red Riding Hood he stated “my mother warned me about you”. Little Red Riding Hood characterized these events in other stories. Little Red Riding Hood ran to grandmothers house, disguised herself as the wolf’s grandmother and then in the end the wolf sold his “grandmother” (Little Red Riding Hood) for one thousand dollars. I liked this version of the fairy tale because it ironically switches the roles of each character. 

Hans Christian Anderson: "A Young Boy's Fairy Tale Life"

The famous fairy tale writer, Hans Christian Anderson was born in the spring of 1805 in Denmark. He came from a poor family, the son of Hans Anderson and Anna Maria. These people who raised him and other family members, had the most influence on how Hans Christian becomes the famous storyteller in the 18^th century. From his mentally insane grandfather, delusional and imaginative mother, and his grandmother who took him to work at the mental hospital.

There were many interesting characters in Hans Christian’s life, including his whimsical mother and senile grandfather. Everyone around the town knew that Han Christian’s grandfather was mentally ill, “he would take long lonely walks in the woods, and when he returned home, he would often be wearing a wreath of flowers on his head” (Varmer, Hjordis 8). Whenever his grandfather would brave the town’s streets, people would laugh and run after him. Hans Christian did not speak of his grandfather because he was “afraid of the eccentric old man, and he worried that one day people might call him mad, as well” (Varmer, Hjordis 8). This is what began Hans Christian’s introverted personality, opening up solely through his “stories and make- believe".

His mother was also an eccentric influence in his life. During their family’s outings to the woods, his mother would gather branches from a beech tree and decorate their home. Some would go as far to say she may have been insane too, “she also hung a plant called orphine, or livelong, that she used to predict the future, she claimed that the herbs could tell her how long the people she knew would live” (Varmer, Hjordis 8). Many of his family members would be thought as “crazy”, but this craziness did him well for his later career, sending him into an alternate reality and sparking his creativeness.

Another family member who inspired Hans Christian was his grandmother worked at mental hospital, where Hans Christian’s story telling began. He would play in the hospital garden and some of the patients would come to see him. The patients would tell him stories of their lives, then he would tell stories and sing for them in return. Hans Christian loved to talk and tell them the stories he would remember from his parents, and if he could not remember them he would just make up his own.

Clearly Hans Christian Anderson’s tales are influenced by the mentally insane, and the fanciful world in which he was raised. His parents helped him realize his love for writing and reading, grandfather and mother gave him his distinctive voice and his eccentric style, while the mental hospital revealed his passion of story telling. All these events that marked his life growing up paved the way for him to write world renounced fairy tales like the Thumbelina and the Little Mermaid, for other curious and imaginative children to read and watch.

Little Red Riding Hood: Personal Response

When I read this descriptive gruesome fairy tale, the thing that stuck out the most for me was the character of the wolf (as the grandmother). The whole time I was reading this characters role, I couldn’t help but think of a pedophile, or rapist, in today’s society, especially the rapist who affected my neighborhood and surrounding houses.

The wolf was too “afraid” to eat the little girl in public, what a normal wild animal would do, and instead goes to her mother’s house and gains entry by pretending to be the little girl. This reminded me of the man that almost raped my next-door neighbor. He would travel around to neighborhoods and look for houses up for sale. He then would knock on the door and ask to look at the home, misleading them like he was interested in buying it. He made sure than the man of the house had left for work, and at this time the mother and daughter were the only ones home. When he went to the door, the daughter opened the door and he gave his “dialogue”, that had unfortunately worked for other innocent houses. She refused to let him in and told him to contact their realtor for an appointment. This didn’t work and he barged his way through, but luckily for the girl the mother was in the nearby kitchen and heard what was happening. The mom called 911 and the man was arrested and charged with “rape”, for the other previous events, and “breaking and entering”.

…I tried to look up the article that was posted in the newspaper but I couldn’t find anything since it was years ago, when I was in Middle School.

In every version of the Little Red Riding Hood, the wolf (as the grandmother) has a creepy and perverted vibe to him. You not only are frightened because he is the villain in this fairy tale, not to mention he is a terrifying WOLF, but I believe he is also sexually sick, and does not just want to eat her…