Category: Little Red Riding Hood

‘The Company of Wolves’ is an editorial by Angela Carter which is a gothic, women’s activist, moralistic and honorable great fantasy. It retells the story of ‘Minimal Red Riding Hood.’ The wolves are utilized as a similitude to appear and speak to the men who might be out to take the virginity of a young lady or a lady. The closure of this story is at where the young lady surrenders to the misfortunes and weights of the wolves however she feels in charge of each activity and engaged simultaneously. The spread out structure of the fantasy in any case shows how a young lady is a casualty of wolves, also shows how the Red Riding Hood could turn into a prey of the wolves, and in conclusion, it winds up that the young lady is in full control and has the expert in their relationship. This unquestionably exhibits ladies ought not generally acknowledge men’s ways yet ought to have the option to direct how they convey themselves. In the opening two pieces of the fantasy, the wolves are alluded to as monsters on the grounds that the unfortunate casualties are the women. When comparing both ‘The Company of Wolves and ‘Little Red Riding Hood, it is evident that the portrayal of men is seen as wolves through the power and objectification they possess that seems to give them the ability to have control over women’s sexuality in a violent way and disguise themselves into getting away with it but where in some circumstances the girl has some power.

Angela Carter’s women’s activist perspective makes a topic of manipulative force and the generalization of ladies. This is a piece of the ‘inert substance’ that Carter attempted to uncover in the old fantasies. In the greater part of the first stories, there is as of now a partition between a poor, virginal courageous woman and a well off, influential man/beast, however in Carter’s forms, this separation additionally prompts sexual abuse. These originals of unfortunate casualty and con artist lead a large number of the accounts to the distinct typification of a lady. ‘In the Company of Werewolves’, the force that the man appears to have. The short story starts with the externalization of ladies. The ladies are put under their cliché jobs. Toward the start of the story, the ladies are agreeable and require a man to take on their conflicts. At the point when the wolf assaulted a young lady, she ‘made such an upheaval’ and the enormous tough men with rifles needed to spare her, just as when a youthful spouse was taken from her, her siblings went on a quest for him while she remained at home and cried. In ‘Minimal Red Riding Hood’ Little Red is now observed as a solitary solid willed female, voyaging a remote place on her dejected comprehending what’s out there. She is unafraid and brings her own insurance of a blade. Despite the fact that she succumbs to the wolf’s stunt, she despite everything holds a type of intensity. At the point when she makes the arrangement with the ‘huntsman’ that he would win a kiss in the event that he made it to grandma’s home before she did, she controls the game by strolling gradually to ‘ensure the attractive man of honor would win his bet.’ When Little Red lands at grandma’s home, she shows her insight by paying heed to the peculiarities in the room. Her grandma’s book of scriptures is shut, the pad has no indent and she sees a lock of her white hair on a sign in the fire. She quickly acknowledges what the wolf had done yet at the same time stays unafraid since she knows ‘she was no one’s meat.’ In contrast with Perrault’s ‘Little Red Riding Hood,’ the young lady wasn’t viewed as savvy or attentive as Litte Red in Carter’s rendition. This may have been like this as the time Carter kept in touch with her form the ladies in power were simply becoming though, in Perrault’s rendition, ladies weres still observed as items to required insurance.

Angela Carter delineates the possibility that sex is regularly inseparably connected with savagery. The brutality Carter partners with sex and sexual arousing frequently prompts typification and control also. Indeed, even in a ‘glad’ finishing like that of ‘The Company of Wolves’ sexual opportunity just comes at the cost of an agony. This repetitive topic brings about the gothic, sexy tone of the tales as they show how fantasies depict the darker side of human want. The transformational picture of the exposed man into the craving brute is principally sexual and it gives us that stripped men are perilous and are to be dreaded just as the sexual wants are very savage. A proposal that the fallen angel is a large portion of the wolf that have heart, legs and the genital of the wolf is very all together particularly right now. The incredible enticer, the lord of the illegal foods grown from the ground orchestrator of the allurement of ladies is compared to the half man and half animal of the wolf who is portrayed as all awful, dreadful, wicked the lady being his most noteworthy objective. Carters version is different from Perraults as it there is so sexual brutality or anything like that. In Perraults “Little Red Riding Hood” the girl is simply tricked and ends up getting eaten. The different version of these stories both posses a different meaning for people reading them during the time it was published. Again, Carter emphasized on women being more independent and smarter about the world around them and not letting men manipulate them. Where Perrault message continues to be that girls shouldn’t be out alone and need someone with them to be safe. Which on todays society isn’t true. The theme of sexuality and violence continues to how men are able to easy manipulate their way out of situations like this.

Like every oppressive man who can get away with it, the man’s first aptitude is one of pantomime: he is skilled at claiming to be acceptable. He fools his way into the grandma’s home by professing to be the granddaughter, kills her, at that point fools the young lady into coming in by claiming to be the grandma. There is an awful homicide scene that is aromatic of assault: the man strips bare to assault the older lady on the bed. The outrightly sexualized savagery is possibly finished ‘when he had completed with her’ and she is wrecked, totally generalized and deprived of each human identifier. She isn’t alluded to as ‘she’ – just ‘the unappetizing hair’ and ‘the bones’. Like the other human trackers in the assortment, he keeps a trophy of his execute to boast over it – the grandma’s nightcap – and sits ‘persistently, misleadingly’ for his next injured individual, hiding the ‘obvious recolored’ sheets, again a twisted picture of a sexual assault. The wolf and man were able to manipulate both girls in Carters “The Company of Wolves” and in Perrault’s “Little Red Riding Hood” through the way that the girl in carters version didn’t see anything wrong at first with the huntsman and in Perrault’s version in how the girl was easily tricked and ended up being dead for it.

In conclusion, Angela Carter in her work “The Company of Wolves” projects on the issue of Women being objectified and how girls should now be more independent and not trust any man. She emphasizes on how women were manipulated by men for too long and how they need to take control over their own destiny. Carter is able to project these messages through the themes of Power and objectification, sexuality and violence and manipulation. Perrault focuses on one thing in his version of Little Red Riding hood and that’s how women need protection. Overall, both version presented different messages as they were both written during different times of generations.

Everyone knows the classic fairy tale “Little Red Riding Hood.” But what some people don’t know is that the story has had several adaptions, each of which have been reimagined into something that is like the original story, yet more interesting. Some of those adaptations, however, were written as exaggerations of what the narrator was saying. One example of an LRRH adaptation that has been recreated – yet not exaggerated – is “The Company of Wolves”, in which certain plot points have been recreated and the characters are portrayed differently. My sources will show the comparison of the fable to “The Company of Wolves”. The similarities and differences will be established and explained in detail while showing reader response criticism.

“Red Riding Hood, Home at Last, Tells Her Mother What Happened,” written by Ron Koertge, summarizes what Red Riding Hood says to her mother when she somehow returns home safely. The story is written in first person and has a few twists to the original story. Red Riding Hood says that she is glad she is safe because it was dangerous for her walking in the forest alone with the wolf. The wolf gives Red Riding Hood some compliments when she arrives, along with his own e-mail before going over to Grandma’s house and eating Grandma whole. Instead of bones being hiding under the bed and hair being thrown into the fireplace, Grandma was inside the wolf’s belly. Red Riding Hood notices this when she arrives and compares it to one of her friend Amber’s grandma’s vacations. When the narrator was inside the wolf after being eaten herself, she describes what being eaten alive by a wolf feels like and then the wolf falls asleep. This made Red Riding Hood giggle a bit because she said it reminded her of how her father snores. A woodsman then came from somewhere else in the forest and kills the wolf by cutting him open, thus freeing Red Riding Hood. She then describes the time spent with the woodsman before heading back home, safe at last.

The article expressed irony in it because the woodsman talks with Little Red Riding Hood, or teenager, about the concept of stranger danger. She expresses “I’m into danger” (Koertge, 73), not realizing the wolf is following her. The narrator seems unfazed by the woodsman even though he saved her Grandma. His lecture on stranger danger and his attempt to have her come back to see him fell on deaf ears. The story that Koertge wrote was an exaggerated story so that the narrator could impress her friends.

“The Company of Wolves”, written by Angela Carter, has a wolf as one of the main characters, who was being portrayed as a hybrid of man and wolf. Carter describes him as an assassinator of the forest who can really keep people on their toes when they’re in the forest. In one part of the essay, Carter talks about an ointment that the Devil gives to men that will turn them into werewolves when applied. Therefore, one would have to run away immediately when he or she sees someone naked in the woods. The worst thing that one can know about the wolf is that he is more than what he is. The wolf and its traits are the main points of the essay because they give the reader a new point of view of how a wolf could be portrayed in the remaking of a classic fairy tale.

“The Company of Wolves” contrasts to the original story because it portrays Little Red Riding Hood not as a little girl, but a “daring, pubescent girl” (Lynley) who is in her teenage years. This is because she is loved so much that she never feels afraid of anything. The plot of the essay is similar to the original fairy tale in a lot of ways, but in the end, instead of the heroine being eaten alive, she gets into the bed with the wolf and they start to form a relationship with each other. The setting is different because Carter describes the forest using words that make it a terrible place to be, especially since the weather is colder and harsher. “This version is not appropriate for kids and it really never was intended for a young audience” (Owlcation).

In Carter’s essay, the main characters’ feelings are greatly portrayed. The wolf’s howling is called a wolfsong because just the sound of it will make the reader feel sad inside. In one part of the essay, we get information about how a woman’s husband – who was a werewolf – disappears on their wedding night and comes back as a human. When he finds out that the woman started a new family, he wishes himself back into a wolf and attacks the family. Carter once said, “If there’s a beast in men, it meets its match in women, too” (Lynley). LRRH met with the wolf in the forest, and when she arrives at Grandma’s, the wolf is wearing her clothes. Instead of being afraid, LRRH rips off the wolf’s clothes and throws them into the fireplace, along with her own clothes after she took them off. This signifies that the heroine was feeling affectionate for the wolf. Based on the ending, it turns out that the wolf was just wanting someone to love again. Carter’s essay shows the readers how deceit and feelings can change people and their hearts.

Wolves are known for being main characters in myths and fairy tales. In “Company of the Wolves,” they are described as beasts of the woods, with their glowing eyes and sharp teeth. They are described to be carnivorous and cunning, and a lot of people fear them. Despite how cunning, the wolf is, the girl in the essay is portrayed to be just as smart and cunning as he is. There are myths about how people could become werewolves. The method described in Carter’s essay describes a person taking of his or her clothes and becoming a werewolf. Despite there being different, more revised adaptations of “Little Red Riding Hood,” they all give an important lesson in the battle of good vs. evil and how not to trust strangers, since they can be dangerous.

In conclusion, certain fairy tales can be exaggerated to make them feel and seem more interesting. It can also allow the person to see a certain fairy tale from a different point of view. But sometimes fairy tales can be reimagined into something that isn’t age appropriate. In “The Company of Wolves, everyone saw the wolf as a dangerous monster, but in the end, the wolf became a sensitive creature just looking for love. This was what gave Carter’s essay a transgressive ending compared to other versions. The wolf’s traits, the main characters’ feelings, and the overall contrast to–can really change the way a person views the original story.

Works Cited

1. Koertge, Ron. “Red Riding Hood, Home at Last, Tells Her Mother What Happened.” Lies,
2. Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses, Candlewick Press, 2012, pp 72-75.
3. “The Company of Wolves by Angela Carter.” Slap Happy Larry, edited by Lynley, Stace,
4. 2015. https://www.slaphappylarry.com/short-story-study-the-company-of-wolves-by-angela-carter/. Accessed 12 October 2019.
5. “The Little Red Riding Hood: Summary and Symbols Explained.” Owlcation, 2016.
6. https://owlcation.com/humanities/red_riding_hood. Accessed 12 October 2019.

The defeat of the damsel in distress

Chapter One: The Most Beautiful Child of Them All

In order to understand the journey of defeating the ‘damsel in distress’, it is needed to analyse the first variations. Often when referring to Little Red Riding Hood, it could be argued that both the Perrault and Grimm’s Brothers versions are canonised together, making it often forgettable to identify the differences. In 1697, Charles Perrault, a French writer, published the first written variation of Red Riding Hood, titled Le Petite Chaperon Rouge, in his collective book Mother Goose Tales. In Perrault’s version, he introduces the little girl as “the prettiest creature that ever was seen”[footnoteRef:1], and a “good woman”[footnoteRef:2]. Her mother’s tell her to go visit her sick Grandma, so she embarks on a journey, through the woods and encounters the Wolf. He is depicted as a creature that conspires to eat the little girl up, which then asks the little girl for directions to Grandma’s house, and without a seconds thought Red Riding Hood tells him. Once parted, the Wolf takes the shortest route and runs to the house, whereas the naive heroine takes a longer route purely because the Wolf tells her to take that route. As the Wolf reaches Grandma’s house, he disguises himself as the young heroine, and swallows Grandma up, and then disguises himself as Grandma, hoping that this will also trick the little girl – which his plan works. In bed, the Wolf “falls upon”[footnoteRef:3] and “eats her all up”[footnoteRef:4]. Red Riding Hood is naive, however, she isn’t completely gullible to the trick, and has some sort of questioning to her Grandma after “hearing the big voice of the Wolf”[footnoteRef:5]. What is puzzling about Perrault’s choice of ending is that, even though it is clear how the heroine is not naive and is doubtful towards the Wolf, this still concludes to her taking her clothes off and getting into bed. Perrault’s Red Riding Hood ends with the moral: [1: Charles Perrault, ‘Perrault: Little Red Riding Hood’, Pitt.Edu, 1697 [Accessed 13 March 2019].] [2: ibid] [3: ibid] [4: ibid] [5: ibid]

“… young ladies should never talk to strangers, for if they should do so, they may well provide dinner for a wolf. I say “wolf”, but there are various kinds of wolves… charming, quiet, polite, unassuming…it is these gentle wolves who are the most dangerous”[footnoteRef:6]. [6: ibid]

Similar to Perrault, The Grimm’s’ version, Little Red Cap, functions to justify the limitations of women’s behaviour and actions. Drawing parallels to Perrault’s, The Grimm’s’ version heroine sets off to her Grandma’s house, however, in this tale her mother gives her specific directions and instructions on how to behave. As well as clearly stating how to “not leave the path, or you might fall”[footnoteRef:7]. Although this version follows the same path as Perrault’s, the Huntsman is introduced to save both the Grandma and Little Red Cap after they have been eaten by the Wolf. He releases the females by cutting the Wolf’s stomach and places stones in his stomach and he dies. Concluding with the moral of the heroine stating “as long as I live, I will never leave the path and run off into the woods by myself if mother tells me not to”[footnoteRef:8]. Therefore indicating that it is wrong to leave the right path and adventure into the woods alone. [7: Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm, ‘Little Red Cap’, Pitt.Edu, 1812 [Accessed 12 March 2019]. ] [8: Ibid. ]

Rapunzel, another tale by The Brothers Grimm, opens with a wife and husband who are very poor but desire to have a child. The husband goes to the garden of a witch and steals some food (salad called rampion) which his wife is longing for. When the witch finds out about this she is furious, yet allows him as much rampion as he wishes as long as “you must give me the child which your wife will bring into this world”[footnoteRef:9]. The mother then gives birth to the child, who is introduced as “the most beautiful child under the sun”[footnoteRef:10], and the witch retrieves her and places her locked in a tower, isolated from everyone else. However, even though she is hidden away, her singing enables the prince, who hears her, to fall in love with Rapunzel. Upon declaring “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair to me”[footnoteRef:11], the prince climbs her “fine as spun gold”[footnoteRef:12] hair in order to reach his ‘fortune’. Rapunzel is alarmed at first, but then she also falls in love. However, the witch later finds out and cuts Rapunzel’s hair and took her into a desert, later luring the prince up to the tower. The prince thus escapes, however, becomes blind due to him falling on thorns. Blinded, he finds the princess and twins which she has given birth to, and her tears bring back his eyesight, living “happy and contented”[footnoteRef:13]. [9: Jacob & Wilheim Grimm, ‘Rapunzel’, Pitt.Edu, 1812 [Accessed 13 March 2019].] [10: ibid.] [11: ibid.] [12: ibid.] [13: ibid.]

Grimm’s’ 1812 tale, Little Snow White, begins with the queen wishing for a daughter “as white as snow”[footnoteRef:14], of which she later does, however soon after she dies. The stepmother to this child, who is now the king’s wife, cannot comprehend any other beauty apart from hers and often speaks to her talking-mirror asking: “mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all”[footnoteRef:15], which the mirror states that no-one can match her beauty. However, once Snow White turns 7 years old, the mirror reveals how Snow White is more beautiful than the queen, thus the queen orders a hunter to kill her. The hunter, however, spares Snow White and she escapes to the woods to live with the Seven Dwarfs. Making three attempts, the stepmother tries to kill Snow White; the first attempting to sell a poisonous comb; the second selling laces which would kill her; thirdly, with a poisonous apple. Once eating the apple, the dwarfs are unable to wake Snow White up, thus while mourning her, they place her into a glass coffin. While passing, a prince sees Snow White sleeping and falls in love with her, and while moving her coffin she awakes and falls in love with the prince. The story ends with them getting married and the wicked stepmother is told her must wear red hot iron shoes. [14: Jacob & Wilheim Grimm, ‘Little Snow White’, Pitt.Edu, 1812 [Accessed 13 March 2019].] [15: Ibid. ]

Beginning with ‘once upon a time’ as most fairytales do, the Brothers are credited to captivate children through “what Perrault began… the Grimm’s completed… and the English Fairy Tale became a melange confus of Perrault and the Grimm’s”[footnoteRef:16]. However, these tales, as I will analyse below, conduct a structure which portrays patriarchal notions of a ‘proper woman’, through the form of a bedtime story read by parents, often seen as a ritual, to prevail the ideologies of women. The Grimm’s Brothers aimed to educate children through their tales, yet arguably the reconfiguration of these tales displays the limitations of the female characters and audience. Through sanitisation of the fairy tales, as John Locke believed that children’s literature should be the product of an “easy pleasant book suited to [the child’s] capacity”[footnoteRef:17], often the elements of sex, violence and ironically female independence are not included in these variations, due to its nature of not being a ‘pleasant’ read. This can be seen with the evolution of Perrault’s Little Red Riding Hood and the Grimm’s version, of which the lessons from each tale have been sanitised: Perrault’s lesson warns women the dangers of men and their manipulations to sex, whereas Grimm’s teach girls to obey their parents and stay on the ‘right path’. Maria Tatar argues that the Brothers had to “delete every phrase unsuitable for children”[footnoteRef:18] in order to publish these tales. However, Jack Zipes argues that Rapunzel addresses “the initiation of a virgin, who must learn hard lessons”[footnoteRef:19], backed up by Bettelheim who argues that the tale is about “a pubertal girl…a jealous mother who tries to prevent her from gaining independence”[footnoteRef:20]. The troubling concept of these variations is that even though these heroines are portrayed to be adventurous enough to explore the woods where beasts lurk, they are also depicted as being naive and innocent when facing these beasts. Maria Lieberman explains how “Fairy tales have only one function and that is to shape girls perceptions to conform to a gendered identity through stereotypical characters like the wicked mother and helpless daughter”[footnoteRef:21] – so by identifying these features of the ‘helpless daughter’ it will allow me to then understand the limitations of the heroine in tales formed for children and how this can be criticised (seen in Chapter 2) [16: Joseph Jacobs, English Fairy Tales (London: Bodley Head, 1968), Notes and References for English Fairy Tales. Pg. 5] [17: John Locke, ‘Modern History Sourcebook: Some Thoughts Concerning Education’, Sourcebooks.Fordham.Edu, 1962 [Accessed 11 March 2019].] [18: Maria Tatar, The Hard Facts Of The Grimms’ Fairy Tales, 19th edn (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987).] [19: Jack Zipes, The Irresistible Fairy Tale (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012), p. Witch as Fairy/Fairy as Witch: Unfathomable Baba.] [20: Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses Of Enchantment: The Meaning And Importance Of Fairy Tale (New York: Vintage, 1976).] [21: Marcia R. Lieberman, ”Some Day My Prince Will Come’: Female Acculturation Through The Fairy Tale’, College English, 34.3 (1972) . ]

Being saved by a man

Many tales often display similarities within the female character, of which she is an innocent who follows a path which results in her having to be saved, in most cases, by a charming prince. Alice Nikirk states that the narrative for the female often entails on the emphasis that she is “waiting for the prince to appear and take control of her destiny”[footnoteRef:22] in order to live happily ever after. The Grimm’s portray the heroine as weak and unaware of their independence, to which they are unable to fight for themselves. Even though, seen with Little Red Cap, who indicts her acknowledgement of something not right with the repetitive remarks, such as “what a horribly big mouth you have”[footnoteRef:23], rather than voicing her concerns she remains curious but unable to save herself. Her self-reflection, “as long as I love, I will never leave the path and run off into the woods”[footnoteRef:24], indicates the expectations of a child to obey their parents, whether it’s the fictional character or the young reader. The Huntsman, arguably, conveys the gender ideologies of the damsel in distress and the heroic man – due to the tale characterising Little Red Cap as weak and not able to protect herself. The tale suggests that women will either be seduced, by a male Wolf, or saved, by a huntsman. Without the huntsman appearing the save the heroine, she would not have had been able to understand her mistakes and learn to always follow her mother’s instructions. Not only in Little Red Cap, but also Rapunzel and Little Snow White, is the young man expected to ‘save the day’. The heroine in either of these stories is either, locked away by an evil older woman, or in deep sleep due to an evil older woman. The hero, often only introduced to the later end of the story proves his masculinity by saving the weak girl from evil. However, this differs within the tale of Rapunzel, as he shows up and tricks his way into the tower, and attempts to come up with a strategy to save her. Yet this plan fails as falls out the tower and becomes blind, in which Rapunzel’s tears save him – “two of her tears fell into his eyes, and they became clear once again”[footnoteRef:25]. Clearly seen here, the roles are reversed, and Rapunzel takes on the role stereotypically of the prince becoming the hero of the story. The reasoning behind Rapunzel being trapped in the tower firstly was due to the agreement between the witch and her parents, as the parents traded Rapunzel for theirs live – due to her parents mistakes she must pay the consequences, so that already draws questioning as to why the parents did not come to rescue their daughters but instead a man who is a stranger to Rapunzel does. However, it cannot be disregarded that it is the prince who teaches Rapunzel about the outside world and eventually allows her to live happily. [22: Alice Neikirk, ‘…Happily Ever After (Or What Fairy Tales Teach Girls About Being Woman)’, Hilo.Hawaii.Edu, 2019 [Accessed 11 March 2019].] [23: Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm, ‘Little Red Cap’, Pitt.Edu, 1812 [Accessed 12 March 2019].] [24: Ibid. ] [25: Jacob & Wilheim Grimm, ‘Rapunzel’, Pitt.Edu, 1812 [Accessed 13 March 2019].]

Beauty

The emphasis on beauty within these tales can arguably be interpreted as a contest between one female characters beauty and another, emphasising the message of the woman’s appearance becoming one of the finest assets, and most important feature of her portrayed. We see within all three tales by the Brothers that the young heroine is described as “the most beautiful child”[footnoteRef:26], who is pure and innocent. Whereas, women who are not beautiful are depicted as evil and conjuring, and therefore often they are jealous of the beautiful child. The beauty of the child, often the first description told, is the attribute that puts them in danger, because of the evil woman, and results in the heroin becoming a victim. Seen in Little Snow White, the stepmother who is first described as a “beautiful woman, but she was proud and arrogant”[footnoteRef:27], implying that a woman being proud of herself is a fault in their character, owns a mirror who informs her of any other beauty in the land that is not her own. Within this tale, the reader is presented with the illusion that beauty is the sole commodity in a woman, through its role of being the central point of this tale. The beauty of Snow White saves her from the huntsman killing her in the woods: “Because she was so beautiful the huntsman took pity on her”[footnoteRef:28] and released her into the woods, indicating that even though beauty has put her at risk, it is her beauty that will save her. As well as, when the dwarf’s first find Snow White, they firstly draw attention to her beauty stating “this child is so beautiful”[footnoteRef:29], which is a difficult concept to understand as Snow White has broken into their house and has been using the dwarfs belongings – yet due to her beauty they are not disgusted by her behaviour, which could have resulted differently if she was not so beautiful. However, the difference between Snow White’s beauty and the Queens is that Snow White does not glorify her beauty, unlike the Queen who is vain. The Queen becomes evil and ugly when she uses her beauty as her advantage and therefore is punished to wear “iron shoes into burning coals”[footnoteRef:30]. Rapunzel is seen to have hair “fine as spun gold”[footnoteRef:31] which is similar to a depiction of perfection, also seen with the implication of Rapunzel and most other heroines pictured as “the most beautiful child under the sun”[footnoteRef:32] representing not only her beauty but rather their supreme beauty. Additionally, it is said that “when she was twelve years old, the sorceress locked her in a tower located in a forest”[footnoteRef:33], which is significant as readings of her imprisonment arguably are linked to her puberty. Marina Warner claims that fairytales help children grow up ‘correctly’, yet by imprisoning Rapunzel it is seen that this is an attempt to preserve her innocence and a moralistic desire to not grow up, due to hiding her away from lusty men who will fall in love with her and no learnings of her origin and parents. The imprisonment of growing up is also depicted in Little Snow White, in which her body is kept frozen due freeze her sexuality and desires and keep her innocent. [26: Ibid. ] [27: Jacob & Wilheim Grimm, ‘Little Snow White’, Pitt.Edu, 1812 [Accessed 13 March 2019].] [28: Ibid. ] [29: Ibid. ] [30: Ibid. ] [31: Jacob & Wilheim Grimm, ‘Rapunzel’, Pitt.Edu, 1812 [Accessed 13 March 2019].] [32: Ibid. ] [33: Ibid. ]

Bibliography

1. Bettelheim, Bruno, The Uses Of Enchantment: The Meaning And Importance Of Fairy Tale (New York: Vintage, 1976)
2. Jacobs, Joseph, English Fairy Tales (London: Bodley Head, 1968), p. Notes and References for English Fairy Tales
3. Locke, John, ‘Modern History Sourcebook: Some Thoughts Concerning Education’, Sourcebooks.Fordham.Edu, 1962 [Accessed 11 March 2019]
4. Grimm, Jacob & Wilhelm, ‘Little Red Cap’, Pitt.Edu, 1812 [Accessed 12 March 2019]
5. Grimm, Jacob & Wilheim, ‘Rapunzel’, Pitt.Edu, 1812 [Accessed 13 March 2019]
6. Grimm, Jacob & Wilheim, ‘Little Snow White’, Pitt.Edu, 1812 [Accessed 13 March 2019]
7. Tatar, Maria, The Hard Facts Of The Grimms’ Fairy Tales, 19th edn (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987)
8. Neikirk, Alice, ‘…Happily Ever After (Or What Fairy Tales Teach Girls About Being Woman)’, Hilo.Hawaii.Edu, 2019 [Accessed 11 March 2019]
9. Zipes, Jack, The Irresistible Fairy Tale (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012), p. Witch as Fairy/Fairy as Witch: Unfathomable Baba