Reaction Paper

Little Red Riding Hood & Three Little Pigs

Between the two stories, I definitely enjoyed reading the Red Riding Hood stories more, probably
because I appreciated the humor better compared to Three Little Pigs’ and slightly more intriguing in
general.

In Perrault’s version of Little Red Riding Hood, what probably stood out to me the most were the
underlying sexual elements (wording, imagery) and overall theme in this version of Little Red Riding
Hood Somehow it just really imprinted some rather perverted, malicious and generally suggestive ideas.
For the earliest known printed version of this story (is it safe to assume that this is really the origin?) to
be like this, one question popped into mind: Was this really meant to be a fairy tale? Because a wolf
asking a little girl to come up on bed with him and the latter who subsequently “took off her clothes”
prior to doing so certainly isn’t one of the most fluffy fairy tale-ish scenes of all time. Similarly with the
other versions by the Brothers Grimm (the ending of which was especially gory and violent), the PC
version (which was, as expected, full of wit and sarcasm and had a touch of feminism/”girl power” as
well) and Roald Dahl’s version (a surprising revelation of a ‘kickass’ Little Miss Red Riding Hood)
everything seemed really… not so rated PG. I mean, I already knew the general gist of Little Red Riding
Hood already but after reading all these, it just left me hoping that the version on the books they sell for
children are not this extreme!

On the other hand, with Three Little Pigs, my thoughts on it generally would be the same as what I
thought about Little Red Riding Hood. I always had the gist of what the story was about, but reading all
these new details and angles made it more interesting to me and certainly more than a children’s “fairy
tale”. My favorite version would be Dahl’s which involved Little Red Riding Hood’s cameo, and the twist
it had at the end, showing another mischievous side of the supposedly innocent little girl we came to
know.

I’m actually really glad that I got to read all these versions of Little Red Riding Hood and Three Little Pigs
now, since everything really was interesting. I remember reading an alternate version of Snow White
during our English 11 class (that of which, mind you, successfully tarnished the image Disney’s Snow
White had in my mind) and it certainly was one of the most amusing and mind-boggling pieces of
literature I’ve read. These two stories certainly are the same and are certainly as mind-boggling and
amusing in their own right.