Analysis of Little Red Riding Hood
The psychologist Sigmund Freud created many theories on how people are and why they do the things they do. His psychoanalytic theories are used today to for a better understanding of and to analyze literature. Freud’s three key zones of mental process are the id, the ego and the superego. The id is one of the most important of the three when talking about “Little Red Riding Hood” by Charles Perrault. The author tries to show that being impulsive and basically giving in to your id is not the best way to live one’s life.
In the beginning of “Little Red Riding Hood”, the little girl is happily skipping through the forest. “…she met a wolf, who wanted to eat her…” (Stories, 1066) and proceeds to have a friendly conversation with him. This is her first mistake. Being young and uninformed about the ways of the world, she thinks it is perfectly normal to talk to a big, scary wolf. “The poor child did not know how dangerous it is to chatter away to wolves…” (Stories, pg. 1066). Since the little girl is young and impressionable, she jumps on her impulses to talk to any stranger she comes across. She does not think of what could come of her informing the wolf of her every move. She is not concerned with what might happen due to her irrational choice of speaking with a similarly irrational wolf.
The wolf is also guilty of giving in to his amoral desires. When he first sees the little girl, he “…wanted to eat her but did not dare to because there were woodcutters working nearby.” (Stories, pg. 1066) He refrained from giving into his impulses only because he was afraid of being hurt by the people nearby. However, the wolf did not stay hungry for long. Giving into his animalistic desires, he beat the girl to her grandmother’s house and proceeded to eat her. He could not ignore his desires anymore. The wolf thinks with his stomach and not his mind. “The id is, in short, the source of all our aggressions and desires.” (HCAL, pg. 130) The wolf shows the fundamental characteristics of the id. He relies on his aggression and desires to obtain what he wants.
At the end of the story, the irrationality of the main characters comes to an all time high.
Little Red Riding Hood, by Paul Galdone, is a children’s book that inspires and is meant to remind the audience to follow directions. It inspires the audience by combining fable characters to real world experiences such as children talking to strangers and listening to your parents and being more careful when going places you are not as familiar with. While some of the dialogue of Little Red Riding Hood, by Paul Galdone could be more in the intended audiences reading level, it's interesting storyline, visual elements, and focus on the value of following directions make this book more than worthy of inclusion on list of the “Top 100 Children’s Books”.
According to the Oxford Student’s Dictionary, adulthood is associated with being “grown to full size or strength, mature” (Seuss.14). Then why is it presented in underlying ways, in works that are considered to be children’s texts? The assumption is that children’s texts are supposedly “childish” which means “ unsuitable for a grown person, silly and immature” (pg.172). However, while studying Dr. Seuss’ The Cat In The Hat, Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, “The Story of Grandmother”, Charles Perrault’s “Little Red Riding Hood” and Brothers Grimm “Little Red Cap” and “Snow White”, it was evident that adulthood was both reinforced and subverted through the use of literary and narrative techniques.
Weldon-Lasiter, Cynthia. Review of Little Red Riding Hood: A Newfangled Fairy Tale. Book Links. 11:4 (Feb/Mar, 2002):11. . ProQuest Direct. Penn. Coll. Kib., Williamsport. 22 August 2004. <http://www.proquest.umi.com/pdqweb>.
A large proportion of all crimes committed throughout the United States are committed by juveniles. In the United States there are roughly 73.8 million youths; youth being defined as being under the age of eighteen years old (CrimeSolutions). The total U.S population is roughly 317,800,000 million people making juveniles account for about twenty-three percent of the whole population (Census Bureau). Although there are not as many juveniles as there are adult’s, juveniles account for a good portion of crimes that are committed. For violent crimes about twenty percent of the crimes are committed by juveniles and twenty-five percent of property crimes (FactSheet). Although, the total amount of juvenile offenders has gone down throughout the years, there is still more that needs to be done to prevent the crimes that are being committed by juveniles. There are many different programs that are out there to help prevent juveniles from committing crimes or recommitting a crime. There have been many different studies to show the specific time period juveniles commit crimes most throughout the day, which programs help juveniles and what ones do not, and studies that show the sex and race of the most juvenile offenders that are convicted.
The reason for the lack of sufficient changes in juvenile delinquency is that the problems that leads to juvenile delinquency starts in the home and there has not been enough attention paid to the family dynamics which causes delinquency. Parents are the first relationship chi...
Juvenile delinquency is the participation of illegal behavior by minors. Usually crimes committed by a child under the age of 18. The young people who usually live in difficult circumstances are the ones who are at risk of becoming “delinquents.” Juvenile delinquency is becoming more complicated and universal. This is a local problem happening in our cities today. It is easy for people to view “juvenile delinquents” as thugs or criminals. The reality is many of these so called “delinquents” has either been abused, lack proper supervision and support, or have been untreated fairly in schools.
The United States has always had criminals walking around the streets or locked up in an everyday life situation. Crimes are committed everyday by young children, adults, seniors, or any kind of man or woman that may look like a bad influence or others that look like innocent people walking down the streets who have never committed a crime before. Juveniles ages 7-15 should not be sentenced to life without parole for crimes they commit because it would not be fair for them to spend the rest of their lives in jail for committing a mistake. Reasons can be found on why juveniles should be left inside a cell and arguments can build up if people disagree with one another. Some adults commit crimes and are left with freedom after a satisfied amount
There has always been alarm and despair over escalating juvenile crime. In the 1950s there were reports about the mushrooming problems with youthful gangs in the big cities. In the 1960s we began to hear about a surge of juvenile crime in areas that had been regarded as virtually crime free. In the suburbs as well as the inner cities, youngsters were dropping out of school, using drugs and committing crimes. In the 1970s and 1980s, juvenile court dockets became increasingly jammed with criminal cases. According to the Department of Justice, the percentage increases in arrests from 1985 to 1994 have been greater for juveniles than for adults. During 1994 alone, 2.7 million juveniles were arrested. During the latter part of this century, juvenile courts that customarily provided social services in order to rehabilitate rather than punish lawbreakers were faced with an onslaught of children who were not simply wayward youths, but hardened repeat offenders. The 1980s witnessed an increasingly desperate outcry for courts to take more extreme measures to contain juvenile crime, which is assuming ever more serious forms.
“I've told her and I've told her: daughter, you have to teach that child the facts of life before it's too late” (Hopkinson 1). These are the first three lines of Nalo Hopkinson's fairy tale “Riding the Red”, a modern adaptation of Charles Perrault's “Little Red Riding Hood”. Perrault provided a moral to his fairy tales, the one from this one is to prevent girls from men's nature. In Hopkinson's adaptation, the goal remains the same: through the grandmother biographic narration, the author advances a revisited but still effective moral: beware of wolfs even though they seem innocent.
Presently, juvenile justice is widely acknowledged as being in a state of flux in the United States. The early 1990s saw the most substantial rise in violent crime committed by juveniles ever experienced in this country. On the heels of decades of skepticism about the effectiveness of parens patriae (the state as parent), this rise was the "proof" for many "experts" who believe that the juvenile justice system should be abolished. These skeptics reason that one criminal court could still have some latitude when sentencing younger offenders, but that kids are now committing adult crimes, so it is time to treat them as adults.
The thought of Freud has a total focus on an individual’s mind and how this internal struggle effects how humans interact within society. Freud argues that every human has three functional parts of their personality that exist within the mind itself: the id, super-ego and the ego. Thurschwell describes these three layers as how they relate to each other. The id is the deepest level of the unconscious, which is dominated by the pleasure principle and has no concept of time except for the present, demanding instant gratification of sexual and aggressive (Eros and Thanatos) urges. The superego originates through identification with the individuals parents, functioning as an internal censor witch represses the dangerous urges of the id. The ego starts as part of the id but is more sensible as it has knowledge of the outside world. Unlike the id, the ego is dominated by the instinct to protect oneself. Although these three layers cannot be physically mapped out in the mind they do show how Freud constantly focused on the internal mind...
... stories show symbolism for Little Red learning and maturing. The moral in Perrault?s story is weaker, because it ends in tragedy with Little Red being eaten and dying. In the Grimm brother?s story, because the woodsman comes to their rescue, Little Red learns from her mistakes. She knows not to wander off the path when going to her grandmother?s house, and she learns that talking to strangers can lead to trouble. Even if most children will never encounter a talking wolf, it shows that talking to strangers can put children in harms way Also, the moral of Perrault?s story addresses only ?attractive, well bred young ladies,? (Schlib, 2003, 669) which may not lead some readers to identify with the moral. Also, a child reading this story may not understand the relation between a wolf eating the little girl and talking to strangers, because it is written as a fairy tale.
as the most crime-prone. (Between 1966 and 2001, 18 - 24 showed a 62% increase
The two stories of course are similar and of course not the same. In the Grim tale, The story centers around Little Red Cap. In Roald Dahl’s version, the story is centered around the wolf. Both stories have the wolf eat the grandma, but Grimm had the wolf ask Little Red Cap where her grandma lived whereas in Roald Dahl’s version, it is implied that he already knew where she lived and knew that Little Red Riding Hood would come for a visit. Both stories had the wolf dressed as grandma to deceive Little Red Riding Hood(Cap) but Roald Dahl goes more in depth in describing what the wolf does to pull it off right. When Little Red Riding Hood(Cap) goes in to grandma’s house, they both have that whole dialogue:
This fairy tale was most likely told to children to scare them into obedience. It registered to children essentially as a warning to listen to what your parents say and not to talk to strangers. Just as Little Red Cap subjects herself and her grandmother to danger and is saved by a passing huntsman, she told herself, "As long as I live, I will never leave the path and run off into the woods by myself if mother tells me not to", promising to herself to not be as reckless in the future (Grimm). Little Red Cap also uses her past experiences to learn from her mistakes. The second time she makes a dangerous journey to her grandmother's house, she encounters a second wolf with similar motives at the first. This time, however, Little Red Cap makes a beeline straight to her grandmother’s and makes sure she to not stray from the path once. When Little Red Cap reaches her grandmother’s, she exclaims, "If we hadn't been on a public road, he would have eaten me up"(Grimm). These lessons connect with children, cautioning that the world outside their individual spaces is a dangerous place and should not be taken lightly. Even to this day, this story is told to relate to children and stresses a point to not disobey your parents and stray far from