The hunter and the wolf : male gender roles in little red riding hood

Perrault’s appropriation of the Little Red Riding Hood tale, which was originally told by female peasants to socialise their daughters into an exclusively feminine tradition, resulted in a written version incorporating the patriarchal upper class ideology of the French court. By re-envisioning the f...

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Main Author: Au, Dawn
Other Authors: School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Format: Final Year Project
Language:English
Published: 2011
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Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10356/44829
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-448292019-12-10T13:02:00Z The hunter and the wolf : male gender roles in little red riding hood Au, Dawn School of Humanities and Social Sciences Samara Anne Cahill DRNTU::Humanities::Literature::English Perrault’s appropriation of the Little Red Riding Hood tale, which was originally told by female peasants to socialise their daughters into an exclusively feminine tradition, resulted in a written version incorporating the patriarchal upper class ideology of the French court. By re-envisioning the figure of Little Red Riding Hood as foolish, sinful and warranting punishment for straying off the straight path, Perrault entrenched her in popular culture as a sadomasochistic object on which it is acceptable to enact violence. Young boys reading the story internalize its reductive stereotypes of women, and come to envision there being only two equally reductive roles for themselves: as the wolf, devouring a Little Red Riding Hood whom it is implied has deserved her fate, or as the hunter introduced in the Grimms’ version, needing to rescue a little girl too weak or stupid to fend for herself. In my paper, I intend to examine the ways in which the Little Red Riding Hood tale has changed over time – from the oral folk tale version to Perrault’s and the Grimms’ – and show how the models of masculinity it presents for young boys are harmful, particularly in their effects on perceptions of power relations and violence between the sexes. I will also compare two modern adaptations of the Little Red Riding Hood tale – poet Anne Sexton’s Red Riding Hood and novelist Angela Carter’s The Company of Wolves – and demonstrate how they act to redress the reductive gender stereotypes which the original versions endorse for young boys. Bachelor of Arts 2011-06-06T03:23:52Z 2011-06-06T03:23:52Z 2011 2011 Final Year Project (FYP) http://hdl.handle.net/10356/44829 en Nanyang Technological University 38 p. application/msword
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
country Singapore
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic DRNTU::Humanities::Literature::English
spellingShingle DRNTU::Humanities::Literature::English
Au, Dawn
The hunter and the wolf : male gender roles in little red riding hood
description Perrault’s appropriation of the Little Red Riding Hood tale, which was originally told by female peasants to socialise their daughters into an exclusively feminine tradition, resulted in a written version incorporating the patriarchal upper class ideology of the French court. By re-envisioning the figure of Little Red Riding Hood as foolish, sinful and warranting punishment for straying off the straight path, Perrault entrenched her in popular culture as a sadomasochistic object on which it is acceptable to enact violence. Young boys reading the story internalize its reductive stereotypes of women, and come to envision there being only two equally reductive roles for themselves: as the wolf, devouring a Little Red Riding Hood whom it is implied has deserved her fate, or as the hunter introduced in the Grimms’ version, needing to rescue a little girl too weak or stupid to fend for herself. In my paper, I intend to examine the ways in which the Little Red Riding Hood tale has changed over time – from the oral folk tale version to Perrault’s and the Grimms’ – and show how the models of masculinity it presents for young boys are harmful, particularly in their effects on perceptions of power relations and violence between the sexes. I will also compare two modern adaptations of the Little Red Riding Hood tale – poet Anne Sexton’s Red Riding Hood and novelist Angela Carter’s The Company of Wolves – and demonstrate how they act to redress the reductive gender stereotypes which the original versions endorse for young boys.
author2 School of Humanities and Social Sciences
author_facet School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Au, Dawn
format Final Year Project
author Au, Dawn
author_sort Au, Dawn
title The hunter and the wolf : male gender roles in little red riding hood
title_short The hunter and the wolf : male gender roles in little red riding hood
title_full The hunter and the wolf : male gender roles in little red riding hood
title_fullStr The hunter and the wolf : male gender roles in little red riding hood
title_full_unstemmed The hunter and the wolf : male gender roles in little red riding hood
title_sort hunter and the wolf : male gender roles in little red riding hood
publishDate 2011
url http://hdl.handle.net/10356/44829
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