James Thurber's delightful version Little Red is a hard-boiled no-nonsense dame. Bettleheim writes an 18 page essay suggesting that Little Red seems more than passingly aware of the wolf's desire and anatomy: "What great arms you have grandma!" "The better to embrace you, my child." "What great legs you have!" "The better to run with, my child." (So deep down, she knows what'sīut wait a few years, and the tale turns yet again, this time taking a more feminist bent. The wolf, Bettleheim declares, is a father figure, and the wolf's eating of Little Red represents the seduction. Little Red, it seems, was unconsciously seeking to be seduced by her father. Th centuries, psychoanalysts - chiefly Bruno Bettelheim - took Little Red and gave us yet another reading, this one fraught with subconscious urges. That's a lot nicer.Īccording to science writer Martin Gardner, in the 19 So with a hunting knife, he opens the wolf's intestine, and releases Grandma and Little Red, unchewed, back into the world. Those snores catch the attention of a local hunter who looks in, and seeing a wolf dressed in grandma's nightgown, decides what's called for is a quick bit of surgery. In their version, grandma is eaten whole (like Jonah in the bible), same for Little Red, then the wolf falls asleep and begins to snore contentedly. This is not the gentlest of bedtime stories.Ī generation later, the Grimm Brothers reworked the tale and made it, well.less grim. In the earliest version, she meets the wolf in the woods, the wolf scrambles to Grandma's house, eats grandma, gets into grandma's bed and when Little Red arrives, the wolf gobbles her too. Now we have a 21st century version, but before we go there, here's a little review: She's been visiting grandma since 1697, when her story was first published in a French anthology of children's stories.
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