Little Red Riding Hood, a sex symbol?

 

      

        The Little Red Riding Hood I know from the childhood fairy tales from such collections as The Brothers Grimm is nothing but a good, sweet, and naïve girl in desperate need for some supervision and protection. The big bad wolf is just that, a wolf. But now another side of the story has become very clear to me, another side of Red, the sexual, seductive and owning a strong will. Angela Carter tells the story of Red as I never read it before, so sexually charged but carrying the main elements from the traditional fairy tale within it, in “The Company of Wolves”. She now carries her red cape as a symbol of her femininity, and to signal she is a full bloomed woman, waiting for that one special man.

A little late-comer, had been indulged by her mother and the grandmother who’d knitted her the red shawl that, today, has the ominous if brilliant look of blood on snow; her breasts have just begun to swell; her hair is like lint, so fair it hardly makes a shadow on her pale forehead; her cheeks are an emblematic scarlet and white and she has just started her woman’s bleeding, the clock inside her that will strike, henceforward, once a month. (Carter 3)

         Carter’s version is a story of Red and the wolf but in this case a werewolf, both a man and a wolf. Red is charmed by the human side of the world she meets in the dark forest while on her way to the grandmother’s. She is not afraid, she is intrigued. She now carries a knife with her to show her independence and ability to protect herself, and she also is well aware not to stray from the path. The whole story of her now can be defined by one sentence: “she knew she was nobody’s meat.” (Carter 6)

         The sexual side of her is shown as she interacts with the wolf at the grandmother’s, after the wolf already killed the grandmother. She still isn’t afraid. “The firelight shone through the edges of her skin; now she was clothed only in her untouched integument9 of flesh. This dazzling, naked she combed out her hair with her fingers; her hair looked white as the snow outside. Then went directly to the man with red eyes in whose unkempt mane the lice moved; she stood up on tiptoe and unbuttoned the collar of his shirt.” (Carter 6) She will face the wolf and despite the danger, she is more curious about the sexual tension between them she is feeling. She will not run, she will not fight, but she will seduce the wolf, and go to bed with that man, and there is the ending. Makes me wonder what happens with Red and her lover next.