Ntxiag Thor – Little Red Riding Hood and Her Tales

Little Red Riding Hood was a story I could never understand thoroughly. The reason is that when the wolf ate grandma and was in her old sleeping spot, Little Red Riding Hood just couldn’t distinguish why her grandma had such big eyes or such big ears. Right then and there, if it was me, I would suspect something is wrong and be on guard when I can clearly see that it’s not my grandma anymore. Rather, Little Red Riding Hood just kept asking until she got too close and got eaten by the Wolf. Coles is right about the stories not being a solution or resolution. It’s more about the moral lesson of each story. Though some of them are interpreted in a different way, all of the stories are portrayed towards a similar lesson.

It always start with Little Red Riding Hood going into some sort of forest to head over to her grandma’s place. Then she meets a wolf who she tells the wolf where she is going and how far the it is. In my opinion, this relates to how it is in real life. A innocent girl gets approached by a stranger and doesn’t really know what’s good from bad. She then tells a little too much information to the stranger and ends up putting her family at risk, or even her own life. My question though, is why is it a girl playing this role? Why not a boy? Well, I think it’s mainly because in society, women are targeted the most. Through generations, women are often overlooked and underestimated. They tend to be more friendly and easily approachable, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t fend for themselves.

Years after years of women being the easy targets, many have adapted and grown smarter. Compared to the original story where Red Riding Hood gets eaten, France changed it to how she escaped just in time as the Wolf ran outside to eat her. Generations of learning and growing, women has become smarter and more intellectual when situations get tough. Girls learn not to speak to strangers when approached by them and seek help immediately the instant something is not right. Even so, not every stranger always look shady and suspicious. Some can take on different forms such as being friendly and nice, but also persuasive and up to no good. The wolf in the Little Red Hat version from Italy/Austria was replaced as an Ogre. Thus, making the idea that strangers can be anyone. This doesn’t mean that everyone is all bad. It just means that we should be more aware of our surroundings and pay closer attention to these incidents. These stories aren’t meant to have any resolution, but I feel as though the sole purpose of these “fairy tales” are here to make us become aware of who we talk to and to listen to our instincts when they are flaring with red signs to let us know we need to get out of there.