The more I look into fairy tales…the more I love. I’m currently working on my book of fairy-tales re-told, but here’s a piece on the Little Red Riding Hood traditions from The Annotated Brothers Grimm by Maria Tatar:
“ The French and German titles for the story–”Le petit chaperon rouge” and “Rotkappchen –suggest caps rather than hoods. Psychoanalytic critics have made much of the color red, equating it with sin, passion, blood, sexuality and thereby suggesting a certain complicity on the part of Red Riding Hood in the symbolic seduction enacted in the tale. But these views have been rebutted by folklorists and historians, who point out that the color red was first introduced in Perrault’s literary version of the tale and that it can have political as well as moral associations. These days, a girl wearing red produces a nearly automatic association to the story, and advertisers ceaselessly exploit that allusion as they turn Little Red Riding Hood from a childish innocent into a red-hot femme fatale.”

Lil Red Riding Hood by Karri Klawiter www.redbubble.com
