SOURCE: “The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood,” in The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood, Routledge, 1993, pp. 17-88.

In this excerpt, Zipes discusses the origins of the “Little Red Riding Hood” tale and analyzes how Perrault transforms it for a bourgeois-aristocratic audience.

Little Red Riding Hood has never enjoyed an easy life. She began her career by being gobbled up by the wicked wolf. Later she was saved by an assortment of well-meaning hunters, gamekeepers, woodcutters, fathers, grandmothers, and fairies. Of course they all scolded her for being too carefree, and she obediently promised to mend her ways. However, she was not always compelled to be obedient and rely upon saviors. Using her wits, Little Red Riding Hood also managed to trick the wolf all by herself in many different ways. Sometimes she cut her way out of the wolf's dark belly and...