Fairytales depict a world of arbitrary violence and frightening animism. What’s so unrealistic about that – especially from a child’s perspective? They suggest the world is full of monstrous adults: parents who abandon or imprison their children; envious, cold step-parents; stupid giants; hungry witches and ogres; lecherous fathers.
Little Red Riding Hood, in the earliest version, doesn’t disobey, she errs, in the most literal sense, wandering away from the path. But in Perrault’s tale she isn’t warned not to, and so is not punished for heedlessness. She is simply too innocent to know better, and gobbled up by the wolf, without the last-minute rescue by a huntsman to soften the blow for the children listening…Little Red Riding Hood cautions innocence from the perspective of experience, warning of external dangers. There be wolves. Duly noted.
From Justice and punishment in fairytales. By Sarah Churchwell
