Roald Dahl’s Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf is, certainly, by no means unique. Without the already existent idea of Little Red Riding Hood, the tropes that Dahl leans upon for humour—Little Red Riding Hood’s familiar listing of what big this that or the other thing for instance—wouldn’t have nearly as much humour. The subversion of the expected lends the work its punch, with the remaking of Little Red Riding Hood into Miss Riding Hood. At the same time, beyond the expected tropes and borrowed plotline, Dahl’s authorship, sense of rhythm and rhyme, are something that many authors would struggle with and give the story a unique feel—the flickering eye, drawn pistol, and lovely furry wolfskin coat.
And bang bang bang, she shoots him dead.
Clearly it’s a work, distinct in its own way and possessing artistic merit in its own right, but at the same time such a work is heavily reliant on the pre-existing narrative of Little Red Riding Hood. In a sense, Roald Dahl’s version of Little Red Riding Hood is essentially just fan fiction of the ‘original’—in so far as anybody knows the original—tale of Little Red Riding Hood.
Then, when considering authorship, and what works can and should be critically and academically studied, how far off is fan fiction, in the modern context, from that? Fairy tales were once considered not worthy of applied academic rigour—now it’s a sizable field in its own right. Fan studies is currently more the study of the culture of ‘fandom,’ but I’d hope one day it incorporates literary examinations of works of fan fiction as literary works in their own right, similar to what happened with fairy tales.
All in all though, the idea of authorship, of borrowed plotlines and reused tropes is one that’s interesting to me.
I appreciate your viewpoint on Roald Dahl’s Little Red Riding Hood, as it is somewhat different than mine. I enjoyed your focus on his “authorship, sense of rhythm and rhyme” and think it was wonderfully put. I also found your description of Dahl’s work as fan fiction humorous in a way, and again enjoyed/appreciated this different perspective.
The only thing I find myself a little confused on is the third line in your first paragraph, as I think I may be missing the full point of what you are saying. This however does not take away from the full depth of your post, and I really enjoyed it!
I really like how you Dahl’s authorship as a “sense of rhythm and rhyme” because I would have never thought to describe it that way and it works perfectly. I had trouble with interpreting what you were trying to portray in the third line of your first paragraph but other than that, your post is written beautifully.
I think you raise a really interesting point relating the many versions of fairy tales to the many spin off versions of novels, movies, and other stories in fan fiction. I never thought about the similarities between the origin of both–adapting a story from another. I think it is important to note, however, the difference in the origin of the two bodies of literature: one comes from oral tradition and the other from already written media. That said, there seems to be a similar desire to share a version of a story we heard within fan fiction. One thing to note in your blog is that you tend to use long sentences with a lot of punctuation (like the two making up the paragrpah under the picture). Sometimes long statements can confuse the reader. I do the same thing a lot in my writing and have been working on breaking up my sentences. These long sentences can seem super clear to the writer, but as a reader sometimes it can get confusing.
I like the idea of Roald Dahl’s story as fan fiction. I think that is very true. Maybe some day in the future, fan fiction will be studied like fairy tales. Like some of the other commenters, I am also confused by the third sentence in the first paragraph, but otherwise, I understand your analysis and like it very much.
Your comparison of Roald Dahl’s poem to fanfiction was really interesting to me. I think that it would be a very interesting discussion to decipher what makes something fanfiction vs. a retelling of a story. At times reading this post, I struggled a bit with the dashes, I think that they interrupted the flow of the piece more than a comma would. Nevertheless, that’s up to you, and if you feel a strong affinity for the dash then that’s totally your stylistic choice. I also really enjoyed the photo you included, this illustration style always has been such a good symbol to go along with Roald Dahl’s writing!
Fan fiction is somewhat taboo when it comes to literature. I have mixed thoughts about the idea of fan-fiction as an academic source of writing. I only think I have this thought because it is not really the author’s original work that they’re making: it’s characters from a different media, put in a new situation (the fanfiction), and possibly different characteristics. I feel the basis and requirements of fanfiction would need to be altered quite a bit before I would personally consider it as a work of legitimate literature to study.
I find the point you make to be really interesting and thought provoking! I had never really thought about that myself until reading your post. I think you bring up really good points in this, but maybe adding specific evidence in this would also help prove your point even further.
I do not know if understanding any interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood as ‘Fan Fiction’ is helpful. It is not a static story. Every version you see is a rewrite.
Fan fiction divides contributors of a story’s corpus into author and fan. With Little Red Riding Hood, that is useless. Roald Dahl is a ‘fan’ in this dichotomy, and there is no authoritative author to compare him to. We could say that Dahl’s poem is ‘essentially a fan fiction of the original’ but there is no original to compare it to. Even if we could find some original story that is essentially Little Red Riding Hood, would it be recognizable as Little Red Riding Hood? Additionally, you omit that every other written version of LRRH is fan fiction to the same degree.
The fan fiction comparison, while funny and technically accurate, is not ultimately helpful to our understanding of Fairy Tales.
Though your point at the end is good. Like a Fairy Tale, Fan Fictions draw from common plot points, symbols, and characters to reinterpret stories for a different subculture. I would also argue that like Fairy Tales, Fan Fictions are essential for the writer to evolve their own writing.