Hart has degrees in English literature and creative writing and is a copyeditor and published writer. In this essay, she looks at the feminist twists in Carter's fairytale parody of desire, death, and transformation of the virginal female by comparing it to the Brothers Grimm tale, "Little Red Cap."

In an obituary in London's Guardian upon Carter's death, Lorna Sage says that Carter had a "founding feminist perception." Carter was, she says, "a writer who always demonstrates how vital countercultural impulses are to the very existence of any worthwhile tradition." It is with an eye focused on both Carter's feminist perceptions and her countercultural impulses that this essay will examine her short story "The Erlking," with the "worthwhile tradition" being, in this case, the fairytale, a form that many of Carter's stories emulate.

In many of the traditional fairytales, especially those reinterpreted by the Brothers Grimm, some...