sexy dancing of little red cap

little red cap is doing strip!

"RED" Little Red Riding Hood Horror Film

Little Red Riding Hood & The Wolf Dance Mix

a good visualising and analysis example

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/english/graduate/issue/2/sarah.htm

Visualising Little Red Riding Hood
Sarah Bonner

In recent years contemporary artists have been appropriating and re-inventing traditional fairy tales. Subverting and interrogating received meanings, artists are challenging the traditional parameters of tales which convey ideas of gender role and racial identity. The fairy tale is being translated from literary text into visual culture. The artists recoding the tales address shifts in cultural attitude, engaging predominantly with issues of identity and discrimination. In this paper I examine the visual development of “Little Red Riding Hood,” investigating the manner in which the literary tale has been adopted by contemporary artists, how the visual responds to the textual, and cultural attitudes embedded in reiterations of the tale.

A Fairy Tale with the Metaphors of the Color Red and Menacing Wolves Read more at Suite101: Little Red Riding Hood: A Fairy Tale with the Metaphors

http://fairytales.suite101.com/article.cfm/little_red_riding_hood

Perhaps most well known of the Grimm's tales, Little Red Riding Hood is a story containing two of the most powerful metaphors in the history of literature.

Unlike most fairy tales where people can name a definitive version of the fairy tale, Little Red Riding Hood is a fairy tale that is known today in dozens of variations. Many variations recollect Charles Perrault’s version while other versions are reminiscent of Grimm’s version. However, many variations (especially those written for adults or for advertising) willingly recall the sexually suggestive oral version told by fireside or at the pub.

The Little Girl Who Maybe Wore Red

The most vivid symbol in Little Red Riding Hood is the famed red cape and hood. Psychoanalytic critics have delighted in analyzing the meaning of the color red because it traditionally symbolizes much that titillates us; from sin and blood to passion and sexuality it seems to implicate the little girl in the story. However, the little girl whose story was first told around the fire or over a drink did not originally wear red. Ironically, the color red was introduced by Perrault, who like the brothers Grimm, tried to convert a sexually loaded tale into a cautionary tale with a clear moral.

While the color that has been so suggestive to those with over-active imaginations may not be original to the story, the sexuality was always there. Those who first heard of the girl’s exploits learned of a crafty young girl who does not need a man’s help to escape from the wolf and who is not afraid of her own sexuality. A French version, from the late 1800’s, tells of a girl who performs a strip tease for the wolf’s benefit and proceeds to interview the wolf with a detailed string of questions about the wolf’s own body parts.

One version, collected by the Grimm’s, reflects the strip tease approach when the girl offers the wolf one rich article of clothing after another in her attempt to buy her freedom. She fails and climbs a tree, calling for help. Her beloved races to her rescue but finds only her arms. The resourceful wolf dug up the tree and ate her.

The Big Bad Wolf

Unlike many fairy tales where the predator is supernatural or at least blatantly evil, the wolf is a real beast fulfilling his natural predatory role. As a result, folklorist suggest that

“Little Red Riding Hood may have originated relatively late (in the Middle Ages) as a cautionary tale warning children about the dangers of the forest” (Tatar 143).

Because they are predators and stalkers, wolves are often symbolic of the male with questionable desires. The kind of men who seduces young, naive, and beautiful children so that they can consume their innocence.

Wolves’ predatory nature and their long conflict with humanity has cast them in the role of satanic beast. The woodsman refers to the wolf as ‘you old sinner,’ which allows the story to be interpreted in a Christian light. The cake and wine can be seen as flesh and blood. Flesh and blood are of course consumed in the story when the wolf swallows both Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother. However, in the Grimm version, the child and her grandmother do not have their blood spilled nor their flesh broken as they are swallowed whole.

However, the woodcutter pierces wolf’s side carefully and then slits him open so that the girl and her grandma can escape their dark grave and burst once more into the light of day where they quickly send the wolf to his grave with a belly full of stones. The popular psychoanalytic interpretation of death and rebirth is clearly seen in these versions of the story.

Cleaned Up and the Recycled

The brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault both tried to recast the story as a cautionary tale warning children to do as they are told, not to talk to strangers, and never to leave the path. However, it is nearly impossible for writers, filmmakers, and advertisers of today not to indulge in the rich and titillating symbolism found in the story and recycle the gory and bawdy details of the earliest versions of the story into suggestive material for today’s society.

Psychoanalysis and Fairy-Tales

http://www.freudfile.org/psychoanalysis/fairy_tales.html

Psychoanalysis and Fairy-Tales

By Jean Chiriac

A definition of the fairy-tale should include the idea of artistic creation and also the one of aspiration of the human soul. Therefore, a collective aspiration which found a way of expressing itself through what we call fairy-tale (a form of written and oral literature).

Of course, another characteristic feature of fairy-tale is its fantastic structure. In fairy tales we find supernatural beings and experiences. That's why fairy-tale had among its functions one related to the pleasure of following stories in which the borders of the sensitive world are overreached.

Although, beyond its fantastic character we find aspirations without anything fantastic, shared by people (or by collective soul).

In the fairy-tale "Youth without Aged and Life without Death" we find collective and individual aspirations. The hero's birth in this fairy- tale brings about the messianic expectances of the people: people hoped to have an intelligent/enlighten ruler as Emperor Solomon, says the fairy- tale. But the hero doesn't taste the public life and chooses the search of immortality as the ideal of this ego.

The fairy-tale explains us that at birth the child was crying in his mother's belly and that's why, in order to calm him, he was promised youth without aged...

At the age of adolescence he refuses any social temptation and asks his parents to keep their promise. Thus he goes in search of this ideal, helped by the fantastic horse and by many other magic instances.

At first sight, the analysis of this fairy- tale doesn't raise any difficulties - it is not about unconscious desires, but about clear ideals.

But psychoanalysis doesn't linger on the level of the ego's analysis. It pierces through the crust of appearance and deepens in the investigation of the unconscious processes. There, in the depth of the unconscious mind it finds the resorts of the conscious world, of the motives consciously stated.

In our case, the hero's desire must be understood differently as relating to his refuse to grow up. The title of the fairy-tale may be also translated as it follows: "Forever Youth". But what does this mean?

The wolf as prima materia devours the dead King; in the background: the sublimation of prima materia and the king's rebirth.

A life fixed at the first years level, when the child lives in osmosis with his mother, who offers him protection and food without asking nothing in exchange. His whole libido has as object his own body as a source of pleasure with the occasions of satisfying the organic needs and of cultivating the erogenic zones. At this level sexuality is not yet genital. We have, thus, the pre-eminence of partial instincts.

All psychoanalysts do not, of course, admit this interpretation. Jung would certainly reject it, accusing it of reduction, and proposing a totally different one, in which the characters and the conflicts of the fairy-tale are symbols of our inner world.

Jung states explicitly that fairy-tales as well as myths are collectively elaborated fragments of some inner experiences which are alike in all respects with what he called individuation process.

Thus, to give a single example, the emperor in the fairy-tales is not a substitute for father (as at Freud), but a symbol of Jungian's SELF. This symbolic figure describes or personifies an autonomous complex of archetypal nature, which comes from the depths of the collective soul to get control over the subject's ego.

The symbol of the emperor is extremely often used in alchemist literature where it gets various meanings. There, for example, it represents an Ego incarnation which changes during the individuation process -in symbolic terms it dies in order to rebirth, renewed. In this way, in the work "Psychology and Alchemy" we see an illustration which bears the following significance:

The king's rebirth - under the shape of the king's young son - represents the Ego's rebirth that was restructured through the infusion of a new spirit-ghost. It is the crowning of the individuation process, when the ego integrates the contents of the archetypal and personal unconscious.

psychology and fairy tales

http://www.answers.com/topic/psychology-and-fairy-tales

The psychological significance of fairy tales has been one of the most pervasive topics in the history of fairy‐tale studies. There are many different theories concerning the fairy tale's psychological meaning and value, but most start with the premiss that the stories are symbolic expressions of the human mind and emotional experience. According to this view, fairy‐tale plots and motifs are not representations of socio‐historical reality, but symbols of inner experience that provide insight into human behaviour. Consequently, the psychological approach to fairy tales involves symbolic interpretation, both for psychoanalysts, who use fairy tales diagnostically to illustrate psychological theories, and for folklorists and literary critics, who use psychological theories to illuminate fairy tales.

Although the psychological approach to fairy tales is usually associated with Freudian psychoanalysis and other 20th‐century theories, it actually had its beginnings in the previous century, when nationalistic awareness motivated collectors and scholars to study folk tales as expressions of the folk soul or psyche. Focusing on the relationship of folk tales to myth, scholars looked to these stories for evidence of the values, customs, and beliefs that expressed a specific people's cultural identity. Over the course of the 19th century and into the 20th, mythic and anthropological approaches to the fairy tale relied on the notion that the study of folk tales could reveal the ‘psychology’ of ethnic cultures, especially that of so‐called primitive people. This form of ethnopsychology is exemplified in Wilhelm Wundt's Völkerpsychologie (Folk Psychology, 1900–9), which maintained that the fairy tale is the oldest of all narrative forms and reveals fundamental aspects of the primitive mind.

In contrast to ethnopsychology, Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory attempted to discern the more universal psychology of human behaviour and culture. Freud found fairy tales especially useful for illustrating his theories of the mind because they seemed so much like dreams. According to Freud, both fairy tales and dreams used symbols to express the conflicts, anxieties, and forbidden desires that had been repressed into the unconscious. In writings such as Die Traumdeutung (The Interpretation of Dreams, 1900), ‘Das Motiv der Kästchenwahl’ (‘The Theme of the Three Caskets’, 1913), and ‘Märchenstoffe in Träumen’ (‘The Occurrence in Dreams of Material from Fairy Tales’, 1913), Freud demonstrated that fairy tales used a symbolic language that could be interpreted psychoanalytically to reveal the latent or hidden content of the mind. For example, in his famous analysis of the Wolf Man—described in the essay ‘Aus der Geschichte einer infantilen Neurose’ (‘From the History of an Infantile Neurosis’, 1918)—Freud noted that his patient's dreams used the same symbolism as the Grimms' stories of ‘The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids’ and ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ to express sexual anxiety resulting from traumatic childhood experiences.

Freud's earliest followers produced numerous psychoanalytic studies of fairy tales, in which they elaborated on different aspects of his theories. Franz Riklin's Wunscherfüllung und Symbolik im Märchen (Wishfulfilment and Symbolism in Fairy Tales, 1908) pursued Freud's idea that fairy tales are a form of wish fulfilment that use dream symbolism to express repressed sexual desires. Riklin's work was supported by Herbert Silberer, who similarly argued that fairy tales demonstrate the pathology of sexual repression. In essays on ‘Phantasie und Mythos’ (‘Fantasy and Myth’, 1910) and ‘Märchensymbolik’ (‘Fairy‐Tale Symbolism’, 1912), Silberer analysed ‘The Frog King’ and a female patient's sexual dream of animal transformation to show that the fairy‐tale pattern of enchantment and disenchantment mirrors the psychological phenomenon of repression followed by the healing release that comes from psychoanalysis. In a 1928 paper on ‘Psycho‐Analysis and Folklore’, Ernest Jones also offered a psychoanalytic reading of ‘The Frog King’. In typical Freudian fashion, Jones's interpretation stressed the female's aversion to sexual intimacy, symbolized by the princess's reluctance to allow the phallic frog into her bed.

Otto Rank expanded the discussion about the psychological origin of fairy tales in his influential study Der Mythus von der Geburt des Helden (The Myth of the Birth of the Hero, 1909) and in his Psychoanalytische Beiträge zur Mythenforschung (Psychoanalytic Contributions to Myth Research, 1919). Rank proposed that fairy tales are adult projections of childhood fantasies, and he specifically examined mythological and fairy‐tale heroes in the light of Freud's theories about the Oedipus complex and Family Romance. Freud's idea that fairy tales use the symbolic language of dreams received an intriguing twist in the prolific research of Géza Róheim. In works like The Gates of the Dream (1952) and ‘Fairy Tale and Dream’ (1953), Róheim did not simply agree that fairy tales resembled dreams; he asserted that fairy tales were dreams that had been retold by the dreamer. Applying the psychoanalytic principles of dream interpretation to variants of tales from Europe and around the world, Róheim produced intriguing readings of stories such as ‘Hansel and Gretel’, ‘Mother Holle’, and ‘Little Red Riding Hood’.

Carl Gustav Jung, who had also been a disciple of Freud, developed a new branch of analytic psychology that has had an enormous impact on fairy‐tale scholarship and the popular reception of fairy tales. While Freudian psychoanalytic theory generally viewed pathological behaviours and symbolic expressions as manifestations of the individual's unconscious, Jung looked beyond pathology and beyond the individual mind for the source and meaning of symbols. Jung posited the existence of an impersonal and ahistorical collective unconscious that was a reservoir of images and forms universally shared by all humans. According to Jung, the symbolic language of myths, dreams, and fairy tales was composed of these timeless symbolic forms, which he called archetypes. From the Jungian perspective, archetypes were universal symbols showing the way to transformation and development.

Jung described the archetypal basis of fairy tales in works like ‘Zur Phänomenologie des Geistes im Märchen’ (‘The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairy Tales’, 1948), ‘Zur Psychologie des Kind‐Archetypus’ (‘The Psychology of the Child Archetype’, 1941), and ‘Zur Psychologie der Schelmenfigur’ (‘On the Psychology of the Trickster‐Figure’, 1954). His ideas have not only influenced the literary fairy tales of writers such as Hermann Hesse, they have also generated a great number of fairy‐tale interpretations. One of the best‐known studies is Hedwig von Beit's three‐volume work on the Symbolik des Märchens (The Symbolism of the Fairy Tale, 1952–7), which examines the archetypal basis of fairy‐tale motifs and the quest for self‐realization and redemption. The psychological quest for self‐realization is also taken up by Julius Heuscher in The Psychiatric Study of Fairy Tales (1963) and by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949). The difference between the Freudian and Jungian approaches to symbols is especially well illustrated in Campbell's interpretation of ‘The Frog King’. Campbell reads ‘The Frog King’ not specifically as a story of sexual anxiety and maturation, as the Freudian Jones had done, but as an illustration of the broader archetypal theme of the call to adventure—the individual's awakening to unconscious forces and a new stage of life.

The archetypal studies by Marie‐Louise von Franz have been widely recognized as classic works of Jungian fairy‐tale analysis. Von Franz, too, has dealt with individual development and redemption in Individuation in Fairytales (1977) and The Psychological Meaning of Redemption Motifs in Fairytales (1980). She illuminates the classic shadow archetype in Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales (1974) and explores the basis of the female archetype in Problems of the Feminine in Fairy Tales.

The Jungian treatment of male and female archetypes has been criticized by feminists, who point out that Jung's archetypes are actually socio‐cultural constructions, not timeless psychological truths. None the less, some feminist scholars and psychoanalysts have followed the lead of von Franz and used Jungian analysis to elucidate women's issues in fairy tales. This is the case in Sibylle Birkhäuser‐Oeri's study of Die Mutter im Märchen (The Mother, 1976) and Torborg Lundell's examination of Fairy Tale Mothers (1989). In Leaving my Father's House

Because Jungian psychology stresses universal myths of higher consciousness and redemption, it has quasi‐religious or spiritual overtones, which has given it a wide popular appeal. Eugen Drewermann has combined the perspectives of theology and analytical psychology in a popular series of fairy‐tale interpretations called Grimms Märchen tiefen psychologisch gedeutet (Grimms' Fairy Tales Interpreted According to Depth Psychology, 1981– ). Drewermann's volumes have been criticized for relying too much on archetypal associations and too little on literary or folkloric expertise. Another example of Jungian psychology being mixed with religious beliefs is Arland Ussher and Carl von Metzradt's book Enter These Enchanted Woods (1954), which interprets selected Grimms' tales from a Jungian‐flavoured Christian perspective. Fairy tales have also been interpreted by adherents of anthroposophy, a spiritual movement that grew out of the work of Rudolf Steiner under the influence of psychoanalytic theories. The readings that Steiner included in The Interpretation of Fairy Tales (1929) sought to reveal spiritual truths and became a model for his followers, who considered fairy tales a kind of scripture that could inspire spiritual development. The unusual nature of anthroposophic fairy‐tale interpretation is evident in Paul Paede's book of anthroposophic medicine Krankheit, Heilung und Entwicklung im Spiegel der Märchen (Disease, Healing and Development in the Mirror of Fairy Tales, 1986). Paede's interpretation of ‘Cinderella’ contends that the story's symbolism deepens our appreciation of feet and their role in maintaining spiritual and physiological harmony in the human organism.

The psycho‐spiritual claims of Jungian analysis and anthroposophy are echoed in the many self‐help books of fairy‐tale interpretation published for the popular book trade, especially since the advent of New Age philosophy in the 1980s. For example, in the eclectic German series Weisheit im Märchen (Wisdom in the Fairy Tale, 1983–8), each volume is written by a different author who interprets a single tale to show readers how to achieve better relationships, self‐confidence, self‐acceptance, and other improvements in their lives. The Jungian psychotherapist Verena Kast claims to show the way to personal autonomy and better interpersonal relationships in her popular books of fairy‐tale interpretation, including one entitled Wege aus Angst und Symbiose (Through Emotions to Maturity, 1982). From a Christian perspective the American authors Ronda Chervin and Mary Neill published The Woman's Tale (1980), a self‐help book of pop psychology that promotes the idea that reading fairy tales can help women develop their personal identities. From another perspective, Robert Bly's Iron John (1990) offers Grimms' tale as a story that helps men heal their psychic wounds and realize their true masculine personality.

Although the psychotherapeutic value of reading fairy tales is speculative, some analysts have presented case histories as evidence of the fairy tale's efficacy in treating patients. The Jungian analyst Hans Dieckmann, for example, advocated in many different publications the diagnostic and therapeutic importance of the Lieblingsmärchen—the favourite fairy tale—based on his clinical experience with patients. According to Dieckmann, the neuroses of adults are exposed in their favourite childhood stories. Consistent with his Jungian orientation, Dieckmann maintained that therapy is facilitated when the patient consciously recognizes the identity that exists between the personal psyche and the cosmos. On the other hand, the psychoanalyst Sándor Lorand used a case history in 1935 to point out that fairy tales experienced in childhood can also have adverse effects that cause psychological trauma. He cites in particular a patient whose fear of castration was traced to the tale of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’.

Typically, however, psychologists view the fairy tale as having a significant and positive role in the psychological development of children. These developmental psychologists consider the fairy tale not simply as a useful therapeutic tool in clinical practice, but as children's literature that should be part of every child's experience. The basic premiss is that children learn how to overcome psychological conflicts and grow into new phases of development through a symbolic comprehension of the maturation process as expressed in fairy tale. Among the earliest studies of this kind was Charlotte Bühler's Das Märchen und die Phantasie des Kindes (The Fairy Tale and the Child's Imagination, 1918), which identified psychological connections between the fairy tale and the mind of the child. Bühler pointed out that both the formal and the symbolic aspects of the fairy tale corresponded to the child's imaginative mode of perception, and that because of this correspondence the genre assumed a special function in the mental life of the developing child. In Der Weg zum Märchen (The Pathway to Understanding the Fairy Tale, 1939), Bruno Jöckel stressed the fairy tale's symbolic depiction of the conflicts and sexual maturation that occur during puberty. Josephine Bilz's study of Menschliche Reifung im Sinnbild (Symbols of Human Maturation, 1943) emphasized the maturation process more generally and showed how ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ symbolically enacts the female's development from youth to motherhood. Walter Scherf has made the case in numerous essays and in his book Die Herausforderung des Dämons (Challenging the Demon, 1987) that magic tales are dramas of family conflict in which children can identify their own problems. According to Scherf, these magic stories engage the dramatic imagination of children and allow them to overcome their conflicts, separate from the parents, and integrate themselves into society.

The discussion about the fairy tale's place in child development has been dominated by Bruno Bettelheim's book The Uses of Enchantment (1976). No study of fairy tales has been as popular or as controversial as Bettelheim's. His Freudian readings are based on the idea that fairy tales are existential dramas in which children subconsciously confront their own problems and desires on the path to adulthood. Oedipal conflicts and sibling rivalry play especially important parts in Bettelheim's analyses. Bettelheim's critics object that his psychoanalytic readings are not only reductionist but also blatantly moralistic. Opponents note, too, that Bettelheim proposes a model of socialization that is repressive and sexist. They also point to his ignorance of the fairy tale's historical development and his failure to take into account the many variants of the stories that he discusses—factors that would complicate his premiss that the fairy tale communicates timeless truths. While Bettelheim's influential work has been the focus of much criticism, these objections are typical of those lodged against the psychoanalytic view of fairy tales.

As an alternative to Bettelheim's psychoanalytic view, F. André Favat's study of Child and Tale

Some recent psychological studies of fairy tales have attempted to avoid the reductionism typical of psychoanalytic fairy‐tale interpretations, while others have applied new models as alternatives to Freud and Jung. The folklorist Alan Dundes has argued throughout his research that psychoanalytic theory in the study of a folk tale can be very valuable when adequately informed by a rigorous comparative analysis of the tale's variants. In her book The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales (1987), the literary scholar Maria Tatar illuminated psychological themes by using Freud's idea of the Family Romance within the interpretive constraints demanded by formal aspects, socio‐historical factors, and the editorial history of the Grimms' collection. In Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion (1983), Jack Zipes used Freud's theory of the uncanny in tandem with ideas from Favat, Piaget, and the philosopher Ernst Bloch to develop a theory of the fairy tale's liberating potential; and in his book on The Brothers Grimm (1988), he advocated a new psychoanalytic approach to violence in fairy tales that would build on the work of the Swiss psychoanalyst Alice Miller. In Du sollst nicht merken (Thou Shalt Not Be Aware, 1981), Miller challenged the Freudian notion that violence inflicted by fairy‐tale parents is an inverted projection of the child's own negative feelings towards the parent. Instead, using ‘The Virgin Mary's Child’ and ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ as examples, Miller theorized that some fairy tales are adults' censored projections of abuse that they actually experienced as children, a fantasy possibly more in tune with socio‐historical and familial reality than adults can admit.

Postmodern literary fairy tales for adults have also stimulated new ways of thinking about fairy tales and psychology. Peter Straub's revision of ‘The Juniper Tree’ (1990), for example, links fairy‐tale violence with child abuse in a way that confirms Miller's theory. Other writers like Margaret Atwood, Angela Carter, and Robert Coover have understood the socio‐historical dynamics of the fairy tale and produced fairy‐tale adaptations that complicate, undercut, and frustrate conventional psychoanalytic readings—especially as they relate to the psychology of identity, socialization, gender, and sexuality. Such revisions challenge readers to rethink classical psychoanalytic premisses and search for new models to understand the psychological implications of the fairy tale in social, historical, and cultural contexts. (1992), Marion Woodman, a feminist psychoanalyst, presents a Jungian interpretation of Grimms' ‘All Fur’ and includes commentaries by her patients to show women how to take control of their lives in a male‐dominated society. (1977) used Jean Piaget's ideas about the stages of development to consider the affinity between fairy tales and child psychology. What draws the child to the fairy tale, according to Favat, is not the opportunity to confront conflicts symbolically as part of the socialization process. Instead, the fairy tale relaxes the tensions brought on by socialization and change, and provides a fictional realm where children can re‐experience the pleasure of a magical, egocentric world ordered according to their desires. Experimental psychologists have also worked in various ways with the fairy tale to test the theoretical claims and assertions made about the psychological importance of fairy tales for children. For example, Patricia Guérin Thomas's 1983 dissertation on ‘Children's Responses to Fairy Tales’ used Piaget's theory of cognitive development and Erik Erikson's theory of psycho‐social development to analyse the responses of children to the Grimms' stories ‘Brother and Sister’ and ‘The Queen Bee’. Although Thomas found that children do respond to the stories based on the inner conflicts and moral understanding they have at a given stage of development, she could find no evidence to support the psychoanalytic claim that fairy tales aid children in resolving psychological conflicts.

An Analysis

http://www.answers.com/topic/little-red-riding-hood

The first literary version of this tale, ‘Le Petit Chaperon Rouge’, was published by Charles Perrault in his collection, Histoires ou contes du temps passé (Stories or Tales of Past Times, 1697). Though it is not certain, Perrault probably knew an oral tale that emanated from sewing societies in the south of France and north of Italy. This folk tale depicts an unnamed peasant girl who meets a werewolf on her way to visit her grandmother. The wolf asks her whether she is taking the path of pins or needles. She indicates that she is on her way to becoming a seamstress by taking the path of the needles. The werewolf quickly departs and arrives at the grandmother's house, where he devours the old lady and places some of her flesh in a bowl and some of her blood in a bottle. After the peasant girl arrives, the werewolf invites her to eat some meat and drink some wine before getting into bed with him. Once in bed, she asks several questions until the werewolf is about to eat her. At this point she insists that she must go outside to relieve herself. The werewolf ties a rope around her leg and sends her through a window. In the garden, the girl unties the rope and wraps it around a fruit tree. Then she escapes and leaves the werewolf holding the rope. In some versions of this folk tale, the werewolf manages to eat the girl. But for the most part the girl proves that she can fend for herself.

Perrault changes all this in ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ by making the girl appear spoiled and naïve. She wears a red cap indicating her ‘sinful’ nature, and she makes a wager with the wolf to see who will arrive at grandmother's house first. After dawdling in the woods, she arrives at her grandmother's house, where she finds the wolf disguised as the grandmother in bed. She gets into bed with him and, after posing several questions about the wolf's strange appearance, she is devoured just as her grandmother was. Then there is a verse moral to conclude the tale that indicates girls who invite strange men into their parlours deserve what they get. After the translation of Perrault's tale into many different European languages in the 18th century, the literary and oral variants mixed, and what had formerly been an oral tale of initiation became a type of warning fairy tale. When the Brothers Grimm published their first version, ‘Rotkäppchen’ (‘Little Red Cap’) in Kinder‐ und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales) in 1812, they introduced new elements such as the Jäger or gamekeeper, who saves Little Red Cap and her grandmother. In turn, they cut open the belly of the wolf and place stones into it. When he awakes, he dies. There is also an anticlimactic tale that the Grimms attached to this version in which another wolf comes to attack Little Red Cap and her grandmother. This time they are prepared and trick him into jumping down the chimney into a pot of boiling water.

Since the Grimms' version of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ appeared, their tale and Perrault's version have been reprinted in the thousands in many different versions, and they have also been mixed together along with oral variants. Most of the new versions up to the present have been directed at children, and they have been somewhat sanitized so that the wolf rarely succeeds in touching or gobbling the grandmother and the naïve girl. On the other hand, there have been hundreds of notable literary revisions by such gifted authors as Ludwig Tieck, Alphonse Daudet, Joachim Ringelnatz, Milt Gross, James Thurber, Anne Sexton, Tomi Ungerer, Angela Carter, and Tanith Lee in which the nature of sexuality and gender stereotypes have been questioned and debated in most innovative ways. For instance, there are tales in which a rambunctious grandmother eats up everyone; the wolf is a vegetarian and the girl a lesbian; the girl shoots the wolf with a revolver; and the girl seduces the wolf. Needless to say, these literary alternatives and many films, such as the adaptation of Angela Carter's In the Company of Wolves (1985) directed by Neil Jordan and Freeway (1996) written and directed by Matthew Bright, reflect changes in social mores and customs; as one of the most popular fairy tales in the world, ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ will most likely undergo interesting changes in the future, and the girl and her story will certainly never be eliminated by the wolf.

An Article: How Fairy Tales Shape Our Lives

http://www.folkstory.com/articles/onceupon.html

Once Upon a Time

How Fairy Tales Shape Our Lives

by Jonathan Young Inside Journal magazine - Fall 1997

When the people of Hamelin refused to pay the Pied Piper what they had promised, he led the children of the village away with his magical music. This key moment in a familiar fairy tale carries many insights. It is, at once, a commentary on social values, a vivid example of family tragedy, and a bit of personal psychology. Folklore is compacted wisdom literature that yields more information with each reading. There is much we can learn by reflecting on the stories heard in childhood. Magical characters such as the Pied Piper, the talking frog and the fairy godmother are likely to remain in the imagination for a lifetime. The adventures these stories describe often reflect challenges we face in our journeys. The tales hide a wealth of insights just below the surface. They are clearly more than mere entertainment for children. My own first hearing of many of the old stories was in the places where they originated. Throughout my childhood, our family traveled abroad for several months every few years. There were six children. Keeping all the kids quiet took some imagination. My parents came up with an ingenious, and life-changing, idea, which was to have us study the local tales. When we were in Denmark, we visited the home of Hans Christian Andersen, and discussed his stories, such as The Little Mermaid. In Germany, we went to the village of Hamelin, where the tale of the Pied Piper takes place. In each location, we would thoroughly examine a story and the sites associated with it. In Baghdad, it was the Arabian Nights. While visiting Greece and Egypt, we would discuss mythology. In the temples of India and Japan, the tales of Asia came to life. Seeing how the adventures reflected their settings and how the stories are still alive in those places was a powerful experience. It shaped my sense of the world. Various people can imagine the tales quite differently. I had heard the stories before and had pictures in my mind about what the places looked like. When I saw, for example, the spot in Germany where the Pied Piper supposedly led the children away, it didn't look exactly the same as I had imagined. In a way, noticing that difference made me aware of how our creativity works. It was a glimpse into the power of imagination. I later learned how these stories portray life issues in miniature. The story of the Pied Piper reminds us that every parent has to deal with letting go of their children and every former child has to cope with feelings about how it is to leave home. If we take the tale as a reflection of the inner landscape, we see that all the characters can represent aspects of our own personalities. The village leaders may symbolize a practical, thrifty side that does not sufficiently appreciate our magical qualities or artistic abilities. If we cheat the imagination of appropriate time and resources, things may go badly. Creativity and play engage the childlike energies that can leave us in a state of depression if they depart. These tales are psychological mirrors and we become more complex as we mature. The storytellers intentionally loaded the adventures with heavy symbolism to reveal more meanings as we develop a deeper awareness of ourselves. Bedtime stories have enormous influence over our identities. People identify with certain characters in the stories they heard in childhood. To some degree, many live out these stories, largely unaware of how much the old tales may be shaping our lives. It is a great treasure to know and reveal which tales from our childhood have a hold on us. Once the general pattern or storyline becomes evident, the challenge is to participate in the rewriting of our own story. We may not be able to create the rivers that carry us along but we can certainly navigate the little boats of our lives. Mythic stories make up a kind of collective dream that we all have together. If we want to understand our dreams, in many respects, we can look at these stories and study them. If we want to understand the stories better, we can study our dreams. There is a great inter-relationship between these two forms of our imagination. A talking animal in a story is often the voice of nature. Among other messages, we are being reminded that we are also animals. We are walking around in animal flesh. We sometimes forget this in our excessively mental, all too industrial culture. We are, first of all, animal creatures. We are not just visitors to nature, or merely caretakers of nature. We are nature. Guiding animals are crucial in mythic stories. Psychologically, this might well represent the wisdom of the body. Sinister or wicked characters may represent aspects of ourselves that have been neglected or rejected. Carl Jung noted that the shadow energies in dreams and stories often appear as threatening witches or wolves. Jung insisted that something good can come from this darkness. Something valuable waits for us in the shadow. We are not to exclude that from how we define ourselves. Ultimately, inclusion is the goal. The challenge is to integrate these elements into identity in a constructive manner. The darker elements in some tales often reveal shadow energies in an action, an image, or even a setting. The deep dark forest is a common representation of the feared elements within. The monsters live in the forest. The forest can reflect parts of ourselves that are never entirely tamed, that are always somewhat dangerous and chaotic. These elements sometimes come up in nightmares. They are important parts of ourselves. In some ways, they are the most creative aspects of our inner world. We need to go into the dark forest. It is difficult and mysterious. Still, fresh energies and new ideas come from that place. Often we need the experiences in life that seem like setbacks and shadows. These can be difficult times. On the first reaction we wish we could avoid them. Ultimately, in hindsight, we realize those were enormously valuable moments. Such experiences force us to claim aspects of ourselves that we have neglected to develop. We become more than we thought was possible. There is a tale about a farmer who plowing in his field. Suddenly, his plow catches on something. The farmer digs down to see what the plow has snagged on and he finds it has hooked a large ring. He digs farther, gets the plow unstuck, but sees that the ring emerges from a large flat stone. After more digging, the farmer lifts the ring and the stone. As the stone rises, it reveals the entrance to a deep underground cave filled with treasures. The parable suggests that when something interrupts what we are trying to do, we should not be too sure this is a negative event. If we look into the impediment to our progress, we may open up hidden places in our souls and reveal secret riches. After discovering the buried treasure, we have the task of integrating these deep realms of beauty into our daily lives. Learning to find the guidance in familiar adventures is not difficult but does take a little effort. The starting point is understanding symbolism. Certain significant images communicate helpful information. The key is knowing how to decode the messages. The farmer getting stuck shows how trouble can interrupt our journeys for good reasons that we may not immediately grasp. The tale is a visual experience. Any one of the symbols in a classic story is worthy of a close look. If we meditate on the flow of images, and reflect on the meanings it presents to us, the rewards can be great. The ancient tales have their own lives, each with unique, eccentric qualities. Part of the richness is that the same story will have different lessons for each person who listens. Stories can be like the Holy Grail, which, when passed from person to person, let them drink what they alone desired. Also, when we come back to the same story after a time, it will tell us new things. Stories can speak to us in several ways at once. The practical aspects of our personalities appreciate the assistance they provide in prudent decision-making. Our playful child-like energies find the stories to be great fun. The quiet, spiritual side is grateful to have some time invested in reflection. Poet William Stafford had a favorite image. He said that the work of creativity is to "follow the golden thread." Something catches your attention, a feeling, an image, an idea, the events of a moment. The challenge is to pay attention to that subtle urge and follow it gently. We must roll out the golden thread with care or it will break. Opening ourselves to greater significance in familiar stories requires a certain tenderness of spirit. The notions will be fragile at first. We must hold them gently for a time until they deliver their message to us. The effects of what we learn might well last for a lifetime.

Animation

http://vimeo.com/3514904

Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

Details and Psychoanalysis of the Tale

http://werewolves.monstrous.com/little_red_riding_hood.htm

The Tale and its History

Perrault was the first to write down "Little Red Riding Hood," but the tragic ending of this version has caused some to question whether it has a genuine folk origin. The version most widely known today is based on the Brothers Grimm

The tale makes the clearest contrast between the safe world of the village and the dangers of the forest, conventional antitheses that are essentially medieval, though no versions are as old as that. It also seems to be a strong morality tale, teaching children not to ‘wander off the path’.

The theme of the ravening wolf and of the creature released unharmed from its belly is reflected in the Russian tale 'Peter and the Wolf,' and the other Grimm tale The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids, but its general theme of restoration is at least as old as Jonah and the whale. version. It is about a girl called Little Red Riding Hood, after the red hood she always wears. The girl walks through the woods to deliver food to her grandmother. A wolf (often identified as the Big Bad Wolf) wants to eat the girl but is afraid to do so in public (sometimes thare are woodcutters watching). He approaches the girl, and she naïvely tells him where she is going. He suggests the girl to pick some flowers, which she does. In the meantime he goes to the grandmother's house and gains entrance by pretending to be the girl. He eats the grandmother, and waits for the girl, disguised as the grandmother. When the girl arrives he eats her too. A woodcutter, however, comes to the rescue and cuts the wolf open. Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother emerge unharmed. They fill the wolf's body with heavy stones, which kills him.

Pre-Perrault

The origins of the Little Red Riding Hood story can be traced to oral versions from various European countries and more than likely preceding the 17th century, of which several exist, some significantly different from the currently-known, Grimms-inspired version. It was told by French peasants in the 14th century as well as in Italy, where a number of versions exist, including La finta nonna (The False Grandmother).

These early variations of the tale differ from the currently known version in several ways. The antagonist is not always a wolf, but sometimes an ogre or a ‘bzou’ (werewolf), making these tales relevant to the werewolf-trials (similar to witch trials) of the time. In the French tale "The Story of a Grandmother, the villain is a bzou - explicitly, a kind of werewolf.
The wolf usually leaves the grandmother’s blood and meat for the girl to eat, who then unwittingly cannibalises her own grandmother. Also, once the girl is in bed with the wolf she sees through his disguise and tries to escape, complaining to her ‘grandmother’ that she needs to defecate and would not wish to do so in the bed. The wolf reluctantly lets her go, tied to a piece of string so she does not get away. However, the girl slips the string over something else and gets away.

It has been noted that in these stories she escapes with no help from any male or older female figure, but instead utilises her own cunning. The woodcutter/huntsman figure, added later, would limit the girl to a relatively passive role. This has led to criticisms that the story was changed to keep women "in their place", needing the help of a physically superior man such as the woodcutter to save them.

Other cultures' names for Little Red Riding Hood

* German: Rotkäppchen (red cap)
* Finnish: Punahilkka
* French: Le Petit Chaperon rouge (little red hat)
* Spanish: Caperucita Roja
* Italian: Cappuccetto Rosso
* Portuguese: Capuchinho Vermelho
* Portuguese (Brazilian): Chapeuzinho Vermelho
* Dutch: Roodkapje
* Swedish: Rödluvan
* Slovak: Červená čiapočka
* Czech: Červená karkulka

Charles Perrault

The earliest known printed version was known as Le Petit Chaperon Rouge and had its origins in 17th century French folklore. It was included in the collection Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals. Tales of Mother Goose (Histoires et contes du temps passé, avec des moralités. Contes de ma mère l'Oie), in 1697, by Charles Perrault. As the title implies, this version is both more sinister and more overtly moralized than the later ones.

The story had as its subject an "attractive, well-bred young lady", a village girl of the country being deceived into giving a wolf she encountered the information he needed to successfully find her grandmother's house and eat the old woman while at the same time avoiding being noticed by woodcutters working in the nearby forest. Then he proceeded to lay a trap for the Red Riding Hood. The latter ends up eaten by the wolf and there the story ends. The wolf emerges the victor of the encounter and there is no happy ending.

Charles Perrault explained the 'moral' at the end so that no doubt is left to his intended meaning:

From this story one learns that children, especially young lasses, pretty, courteous and well-bred, do very wrong to listen to strangers, And it is not an unheard thing if the Wolf is thereby provided with his dinner. I say Wolf, for all wolves are not of the same sort; there is one kind with an amenable disposition — neither noisy, nor hateful, nor angry, but tame, obliging and gentle, following the young maids in the streets, even into their homes. Alas! Who does not know that these gentle wolves are of all such creatures the most dangerous!

In this version the tale has been adapted for late 17th century French salon culture, an entirely different audience from what it had before, and has become a harsh morality tale warning women of the advances of men.

The Brothers Grimm

In the 19th century two separate German versions were retold to Jacob Grimm and his younger brother Wilhelm Grimm, known as the Brothers Grimm, the first by Jeanette Hassenpflug (1791–1860) and the second by Marie Hassenpflug (1788–1856). The brothers turned the first version to the main body of the story and the second into a sequel of it. The story as Rotkäppchen was included in the first edition of their collection Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales (1812)).

This version had the girl and her grandmother saved by a huntsman who was after the wolf's skin. The second part featured the girl and her grandmother trapping and killing another wolf, this time anticipating his moves based on their experience with the previous one.

The Brothers further revised the story in later editions and it reached the abovementioned final and better known version in the 1857 edition of their work. It is notably tamer than the older ones which contained darker themes. Modern scholars and audiences have often dismissed it as a mere watered-down version of the older story.

In comparison to the French story, the Grimms' version is less satiric, more naive, and directed to the child alone - for educational purposes. This shift in focus more to the child authorizes the restoration of the happy ending; certainly the history of the story's evolution from a bawdy tale told to mixed audiences to an admonitory tale primarily directed against children reflects the development of a clear sense of distinction between child and adult.

After the Grimms

Numerous authors have rewritten or adapted this tale.

Andrew Lang retold the story as "The True History of Little Goldenhood" [2] in The Red Fairy Book, explicitly saying that the story had been mistold. The girl was saved, but not by the huntsman; when the wolf tried to eat her, its mouth was burned by the golden hood she wore, which was enchanted.

Bruno Bettelheim, in The Uses of Enchantment, recast the Little Red Riding Hood motif in terms of classic Freudian analysis, that shows how fairy tales educate, support, and liberate the emotions of children.

In the twentieth century, the popularity of the tale appeared to snowball, with many new versions being written and produced, especially in the wake of Freudian analysis, deconstruction and feminist critical theory. See below for a number of modern adaptations