Little Red Riding Hood Revisited

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fineartamerica.com

We seem to be constantly haunted by fairy tales. They’re old, dusty, witty but not at all rusty. We all had an encounter with them at some point, we passed them by and thought they would be just another literary memory. But they are back. Red Riding Hood and others resurged in modern suits. If it suits them well or not, it’s not for me to judge, I just acknowledge their subtle arrival. Wanda Gag’s take on the red-capped girl takes the reader into the crude whirling reality of an urban nightmare. The home is no longer a safe haven for the child, but the center of her utmost unhappiness. Emotional and sexual abuse is what Gag pictures in her “Wolf”. Additionally, she deconstructs a couple of myths associated with fairy tales. She depolarizes characters, and in doing so, we have a sense that human complexity is being honored at a higher extent than the rather simplistic view that fairy tales usually adopt when filtering characters through the tight good/evil dichotomy. However, we do have a clear sense of the pure evil figure, the abusing “wolf”. The urban Red Riding Hood is now at a watershed: she needs to decide her own faith. Unlike Perrault's passive feminine figure, the renewed Riding Hood asserts herself through reason, processing and the ability to make a decision that will result into escape from the “evil”. Grimm’s hunter is not there to rescue her, let alone the prince whose charm doesn't suffice to make him appear. Whatever happened to both of them, the reader is left adrift. An entire mythology of the golden age fairy tale is left behind, and rightfully so. 

Wanda Gag abandons a long held tradition of the fairy tale narrative only to follow the same path that Perrault first took when he collected the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Gag may not be addressing the French aristocrats of the 19^th century, but she is essentially faithful to the function of the text, that is appealing to the audience through an honest reflection of the contemporary social background. She doesn't punish Red Hood like Perrault did, but she offers her redemption. Not only is Red Hood rescued, but she comes to a safe shore through her own doing, which to the patriarchal ear of Perrault would have been a pretty jarring idea. Gag celebrates the female hero and in doing so, a feminist undertone floats around the text, leading the audience to both a nightmare tale, but also a redemption tale that empowers the woman.