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Article: Perrault's Little Red Riding Hood.(Charles Perrault )
- Article from:
- The Explicator
- Article date:
- January 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Heldref Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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"Little Red Riding Hood" began as an oral folk tale and continued to be told to children for centuries before being published in French version by Charles Perrault in 1697, and then in 1812 in the German version by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.
Over the years, scholars have piled an entire cosmos of meanings on this small girl's shoulders. Some call her tale a seasonal myth, an allegory of the sun swallowed by night, or the personification of Good triumphing over Evil. Her basket of wine and cakes, it's said, represents Christian Communion; her red cape stands for menstrual blood. Some see the tale in Freudian terms as the Ego overcome by the Id; others see it as symbolic of ...