When picking apart Perrault’s Little Red Ridding Hood, I mostly feel a sense of pity, rather than sympathy or empathy, surrounding his main character. The LRRH here is just so one dimensional, so paper thin, that her lack of depth makes it easy to blow away any sort of complex emotional connection with her. She is defined by appearance; she is named after clothes she didn’t pick out and her short build (which is very rude), and is “the prettiest you can imagine”. She is the walking stereotype of pretty and stupid, as all of her actions makes me think oh you “poor child” (CFT 16). 

The wolf is a little more complex, only because he is defined not by appearance but rather action. He is given the appearance “big” which conveys a dominating figure and tone, but also is rounded out through instinct, haven “eaten nothing in the last three days”, and is clever (though I would argue that he doesn’t need to try that hard) (CFT 17). He could be seen as the main character, as he is certainly has more of a presence than the girl, and perhaps not even as the villain, if you play the wild predator instinct card.

When I was younger, I was subjected to my father’s performances of what he liked to call “reading aloud”. Through his often silly oral renditions, I grew up with the idea that reading was something to enjoy. It was my first exposure to the world of words, gorgeous creatures that fly like flocks off of the pages and settle on the branches of the readers’ minds. Like a biologist might be curious about the flight patterns of the pigeon, a few years later I became curious about the inter-workings of this flight and fester perfected by word. My love for reading was a bottomless cavern, where I learned that I could consume words then scrape at the jewels within them, pulling them out to examine and use later. That was when I became curious about creating, nurturing my own flocks to then have them fly off. I came to college to mostly expand my curiosity and my ability to ask questions, to study the flight path of words and to learn how best to examine the mined jewels.

So far, I believe that literature is not one defined thing but a collection of various types of written and oral word, evolving like a flock to new environments and needs. Trying to fit things into a box, especially something so up to interpretation, creates unenviable spillage and a mess. I believe that, instead of trying to define what literature is and getting so caught up in the little details, questioning and thinking critically about everything you read is far more important and worthwhile. Like with our current discussions of fairy tales, whether they are literature or not isn’t as important to me as exploring my curiosity of their inter-workings all while enjoying a set of fun tales.