The Trials And Tribulations Of Little Red Riding Hood

First Published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First Published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

An introduction to over 30 of the best versions of this familiar tale, providing a detailed examination of the social history behind the literary Little Red Riding Hood.

"Alan Dundes of the University of California, Berkeley, continues his exploration of well-loved fairy tales with this casebook on one of the best-known of them all: Little Red Riding Hood. The twelve essays are by international scholars representing an impressive cross section of theoretical approaches."--Page 4 of cover.

Reveals the intricate sexual politics, moral ambiguities, and philosophical underpinnings of the folktale, tracing its history from the court of Louis XIV to its applications in modern marketing, and showing how it has served as a measure of social and sexual mores for women. 25,000 first printing.

Much research has been done on the social messages conveyed to children reading or listening to fairy tales. In this highly original study, the emphasis shifts from content to linguistic expression. The language and linguistic organization of a dozen versions, old and new, of the Little Red Riding Hood story are analyzed using a variety of theoretical approaches, including Critical Discourse Analysis, Conversational Analysis, Functional Grammar and Critical Stylistics, to uncover the contribution of fairy tales to the discourse of gender relations over time.

The fairy tale may be one of the most important cultural and social influences on children's lives. But until Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion, little attention had been paid to the ways in which the writers and collectors of tales used traditional forms and genres in order to shape children's lives – their behavior, values, and relationship to society. As Jack Zipes convincingly shows, fairy tales have always been a powerful discourse, capable of being used to shape or destabilize attitudes and behavior within culture. For this new edition, the author has revised the work throughout and added a new introduction bringing this classic title up to date.