One of my favorite authors in my youth was Roald Dahl. The wit, humor, and emotional potency of literature like The BFG and Matilda left a strong impression. To this day I think of his description of the meat pie from Danny, the Champion of the World. With all that in mind, it is needless to say that I was excited to read Roald Dahl’s adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood when it was assigned for this class. Red in this adaptation is a completely different character than in most other variations of the story, being beyond capable. Her pulling out a gun and shooting the wolf was a magnificent ending that only Dahl could’ve done justice.

The Disney adaptation of The Little Mermaid lacks one thing… women. This is not a good thing (when would it be?). Ariel, the film’s semi-protagonist and the main character lives “under the sea” with her other sisters and father. She hopes to fulfill her dreams of marrying a prince on shore, but in doing so must strip herself of her voice. There could be an entire two-thousand-word blog post about the symbolism of the threshold of the water and the land being a woman’s subconscious mind and the threshold of being a good and “tame” wife, but this blog post is 200 words maximum, and I will save that for an essay (it is not a bad point). I think that the isolation of Ariel as the only woman (with screen time, if this makes sense) makes viewers feel a sense of sadness towards her plight. We feel prepared to be in her corner in her fight to achieve her goals, whatever they might be. I believe that the reason we feel so strongly for her is that she is isolated in a world of men, even if they are only her goofy sidekicks.

Before reading Roald Dahl’s version of the Little Red Riding Hood, I could have never pictured this version of the “sweet and innocent” little girl that is typically portraited in media. I loved how she wasn’t given the typical treatment that young girls usually have, instead, she had agency. My jaw physically dropped open when I read that she pulled a “pistol from her knickers”. Flipping the typical script to have Little Red Riding Hood as a cold-blooded killer completely shocked me. Instead of a man rescuing her, or barely being able to slip away from the wolf, she was walking around with a wolf-skin coat and pistol underneath. The imagery of this is incredible. No longer wearing her iconic red hood but instead covered in the skin of the animal that ate her grandmother. I don’t think this tale will elicit the same reactions within every reader. Some may prefer the classic Grimm or Calvino stories, but I think the revenge in this version is so satisfying to read.