Who's Afraid of the Wolf? Rewriting Red Riding Hood

In 1697, Charles Perrault published a French tale about a girl in a red hood who is tricked and eaten by a wolf — full stop, no rescue, no happy ending. It was a blunt warning to young women about talking to strangers. In 1979, writer Angela Carter published 'The Company of Wolves,' where the girl looks the wolf in the eye, laughs, and chooses to sleep by his side — because she is 'nobody's meat.' Same basic plot, same forest, same wolf. Completely different message about who has power in the story.

- How the Grimm Brothers' 1812 version differs from Perrault's original 1697 warning tale - What 'feminist reread' means when applied to a folktale - How Angela Carter's 'The Company of Wolves' rewrites the girl's role from victim to agent - How to identify whose perspective a traditional tale centers, and whose it silences

Perrault's 1697 'Le Petit Chaperon Rouge' ends with the wolf eating the girl — no woodsman, no rescue. Perrault even attached a moral in verse warning that pretty young girls should fear smooth-talking wolves (men) who follow them into their own bedrooms. When the Brothers Grimm retold it in 1812 as 'Rotkappchen,' they added a huntsman who cuts the wolf open and saves both Red and her grandmother alive — restoring a male rescuer to fix what the girl's 'disobedience' caused. Notice: in both versions, the girl is punished or saved because of choices made by men around her, not because of her own actions.

In 'The Company of Wolves' (1979), Carter's heroine walks into the wolf's cottage knowing exactly what he is. When he says 'All the better to eat you with,' she does not scream or flee — she laughs at him, undresses by the fire, and 'freely gave the kiss she owed him.' Carter isn't removing danger from the story; she's removing the girl's powerlessness. The girl chooses her fate instead of having it decided for her by a wolf, a mother's warning, or a huntsman's axe. This is what scholars call a 'feminist rereading': keeping the bones of a traditional tale but rebuilding who gets to act, choose, and speak.

Folklorist Jack Zipes has traced over 100 documented literary versions of Red Riding Hood since 1697, and the girl's role shifts almost every time: sometimes she's naive, sometimes clever, sometimes a full accomplice to the wolf. Comparing versions side by side reveals that a 'traditional' story is rarely as fixed as it seems — it's a living argument between eras about who deserves blame, who deserves rescue, and who gets to be the hero of their own forest.