LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD (Rotkäppchen)
by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, 1812

"Little Red Riding Hood" ("Rotkäppchen"), a fairy tale whose canonical version comes down to us from the brothers Grimm, is among the most popular stories of all time. While the original version was a traditional folktale—and the brothers Grimm claimed to reproduce exactly the traditional version—the way that they combined features of different regional versions to make a tidy fictional narrative converted it into a short story.

According to their notes they put together several plots from several regions to make the fairy tale more attractive. They wanted to present several versions as one, and in this, according to folklorist Alan Dundes, "they committed a cardinal sin in folk lore." But if it was inaccurate as folklore, it was highly successful as an aesthetically satisfying and entertaining fictional narrative.

The Grimms got their version of the tale from a French Huguenot storyteller, Marie Hassenpflug, which leads many researchers to suspect that she led them to Charles Perrault's version. Thus, according to Jack Zipes, we have the Grimms' "literary reworking of a literary reworking of the original oral tale." The main change that the Grimms made was in giving the story a happy ending, which probably accounts for its great popularity.

"Little Red Riding Hood" tells the story of a charming little girl whose mother sends her to take some bread and wine to her sick grandmother. Since the way to the grandmother's house passes through a forest the girl is warned by her mother not to go off the path or to speak to anybody. On her way, however, she runs into the wolf, and despite all the warnings of her mother she stops to chat with him. By cleverly questioning her the wolf discovers where the grandmother lives, and, distracting Little Red Riding Hood into picking a pretty bouquet, he beats her to the house. He devours the grandmother, and, disguising himself in her cap and gown, lies down in her bed to wait for his next victim, Little Red Riding Hood. When the girl arrives she is surprised to find the door open, but despite her anxious feelings she walks into the house. She notices that her grandmother looks very different and that her cap is pulled down to partially conceal her face. In a famous dialogue Little Red Riding Hood notices that her grandmother's ears, eyes, and hands are strangely larger than before. When she says, "Grandmother, what a terrible big mouth you have!," the wolf leaps out of bed and gobbles her up. In Perrault's version this is the end of the story, but the Grimms provide a convenient huntsman, who, finding the satiated wolf snoring in the grandmother's bed, cuts open the wolf's stomach and liberates Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother. After this close call Little Red Riding Hood piously decides that she will always stay on the path and never disobey her mother again.

The Grimms also extend the plot of the fairy tale with a second encounter with a wolf who tries to entice Little Red Riding Hood off the path on her way to her grandmother's. But this time she goes straight on her way and tells her grandmother about it. By the time the wolf arrives and pretends to be Little Red Riding Hood, they have prepared a terrible punishment for him. When they won't let him in, he hides up on the house roof to wait for Little Red Riding Hood to come out so that he can sneak up and devour her under cover of darkness. But the grandmother tells Little Red Riding Hood to fill the big stone trough in front of the house with the water she has used for making sausage; the wolf smells the sausage, stretches his neck further and further toward it, and finally slides off the roof and drowns in the water.

The Grimms' version of this fairy tale became the subject of folklorists' criticisms and evoked a wide range of interpretations from literary critics of different schools. The myth/ritual interpretation falls into two classes: seasonal ritual with Little Red Riding Hood representing spring and escaping from the winter wolf; or puberty rites with Little Red Riding Hood's journey symbolizing the various stages of the girl leaving home, experiencing the onset of menses, and fulfilling set tasks in preparation for marriage and maturity. Psychoanalytic critics since Freud have paid an incredible amount of attention to this particular fairy tale. A characteristic reading is that of Erich Fromm, who finds in every detail a symbol of the dangers of sex. Fromm sees the "little cap of red velvet" as a symbol of menstruation and the mother's warning "not to run off the path" as a clear warning against the sexual danger. For him the tale "speaks of the male-female conflict; it is a story of triumph by man-hating women, ending with their victory." Jack Zipes, on the other hand, argues that the story is "a male creation and projection … and viewed in this light, it reflects man's fear of women's sexuality—and of their own as well."

But however complicated and varied these theoretical interpretations become, they have had little effect on the tale's continuing popularity with readers. Though the brothers Grimm did not intend to address an audience primarily of children, it is as a children's story that the "Little Red Riding Hood" tale achieved lasting appeal.

—Marina Balina