Sleeping Beauty and Little Red Riding Hood

Fairy tales have been embedded in the practice of telling children’s

stories, children are oddly fascinated by tales of witches and fairies, goblins and elves,

or brave princes and their evil counterparts. What draws kids to these horrific fairy tales

that never end? Why do kids enjoy rereading them for the thrill of themselves? Some

fairy tales empower anti-feminists. Explicit sexual content was frequently eliminated or

toned down in modern retellings of fairy tales as compared to earlier versions. This

illustrates the shifting social attitudes regarding sexuality and how certain cultures view

it as a taboo subject.

In Charles Perrault, “Little Red Riding Hood”, sexuality recurs frequently.

By analyzing this fairy tale plot carefully, it becomes clear that the wolf is actually a

rapist. Perrault stated how lovely the little girl is and how much everyone adores her, so

when the wolf first laid eyes on the child he did not want to physically devour her;

instead, he fell in love with her beauty and wanted to have her for his own pleasures.

Little Red Riding Hood is unaware that the wolf is disguised as her grandmother, who is

attempting to rape her later in Perrault’s version when the wolf is in bed dressed as the

grandmother. She obeys the wolf’s order to climb into bed with him because any young

child would respect their purportedly ill grandmother. The little girl climbs into bed with

no option to escape, allowing the wolf’s arrangements to go exactly as planned. The

wolf takes his chance and rapes poor Little Red Riding Hood. He used pathos in his

arguments to evoke feelings of empathy for Little Red Riding and the Grandmother in

the audience. As a result, the audience would feel sorrow and sympathy. He persuaded

readers of various emotional arguments using pathos appeals.

This is a matter of perspective, the majority of fairy tales date back to the

Middle Ages and have strong religious overtones. In addition, because men were the

“bread winners,” they were confined to the public realm and women to the home. The

purpose of fairy tales is to instruct children in proper behavior but some fairy tales do

not give the correct morals. Instead they enhance anti-feminist messages. This

connects with genders in tales. They are stereotyped as men are seen to have power

and being violent, while women are seen as submissive, kind, and trying to fight for their

well-being by using their intelligence. Heroines are frequently passive, they lose their

voices, or fall into slumber and are saved by helpful huntsmen or princes. They often

experience bad luck during puberty. Writer, Sarah Selzer, mentions “Many fairy tales

that have permeated the collective unconsciousness are known for these misogynist

tropes and particularly for their warnings about female sexuality and its existence as

both a threat and as threatened.”.

In Sleeping Beauty, it is told that a princess is cursed by an evil fairy to

slumber for one hundred years until a charming prince awakens her with a kiss. But

since fairy tales are mainly for little children, we leave the disturbing, dark, and twisted

parts out such as rape and abuse. Stories involving a young lady in distress and having

a prince save and then marry the story’s heroine is generally appealing to young girls in

particular. Giambattista Basile’s “Sun, Moon, and Talia”, tells a story of a King raping

and impregnating an innocent and unconscious girl, not of a young woman and a faithful

prince falling in love. When Talia wakes up she doesn’t seem mad at her situation.

Normally a young girl would feel violated and traumatized if she woke up from being

unconscious with her rapist that gave her two children. But Giambattista Basile doesn’t

give the correct moral of the story. As outrageous as it may appear, this story ends in a

belittling proverb: “Those whom fortune favors, Find good luck even in their sleep.”

Younger children might grab hold of this version and afterwards think it is normal to fall

in love with a person that sexually assaulted you. Personally, I would never describe

being raped, forced to give birth unwittingly, and afterwards transformed into a wife,

mistress, and mother as good luck. Talia had no control over her body or her life

overall. The Brothers Grimm’s “Little Briar Rose” partly sanitized this. I’m not

advocating for this fairy tale to be wiped off earth, however, children are the main

audience for these tales. We do need to think about how we correctly and effectively

frame these behaviors and rewrite these stories to better suit our times and to reveal

oppressions if we are going to keep sharing them through books or Disney Plus

subscriptions.