First Blog Entry

I chose to discuss the Italian/Austrian "Little Red Hat" for a few different reasons; the first of which is I found this story interesting because the wolf character in the other versions has been replaced by an ogre (where I instantly picture Shrek, making the story extra ridiculous), and secondly, I was amused by the language used in the last line: "...and BAM, he swallowed Little Red Hat with one gulp."  I find it interesting this stranger, the ogre, invites himself to grandmother's house, but instead of traveling with Little Red Hat across the stones which seems the easier of the two routes, he instead ventures through the thorns.  Similar to most other versions of the fairytale, Little Red Hat happens upon a flowering meadow where she got "what her heart desired," temporarily forgetting her soup delivery in lieu of getting what SHE wanted, and for this she gets punished.  I find the placing of the blood, teeth, and jaws in the kitchen cabinet and replacing the door latch with grandma's intestines rather odd, and the closest thing I could think of for symbolism would be the teeth and jaw representing a warning not to talk to questionable characters, in this case an ogre.  I also think it's interesting that the girl never truly questions her 'grandmother's' orders, because when the ogre confesses to Little Red Hat what it is she is actually ingesting and telling her to keep quiet, all she responds with is "what did you say?" and continues to do as told.  The way the ogre is described in the end as kind of this old, wise, hard-working, listening man is also interesting because while this is a tale of caution to young girls, this version suggests men are perhaps better than women, and therefore, the ogre himself is not punished, like in other stories, by a passing huntsMAN.

The physical conflict is easy to spot between the ogre and the girl and even the ogre and the grandmother, and we also know there is an internal conflict focused around the girl in "Little Red Hat," but there is no sort-of third person omniscient narrator telling the reader of the girl's decision between flower gathering and delivering soup, wondering why her 'grandmother' wants her to hop in bed naked with her, or questioning the strange features of her grandmother.  You could argue that the external conflict between Little Red Hat and the ogre starts when they meet, but I think it's not until the girl actually shows up at Grandma's and is forced to open the gate by pulling on an intestine that things actually begin.  This also is where the internal conflict begins between girl and ogre, and is proven when she begins questioning the ogre by stating "Grandmother, this thing is so soft!"  Despite somehow believing human teeth were rice, jawbones were slabs of meat, and blood was wine, she still continues to obey with little apparent resistance.  Even at the end when the ogre exclaims that his big mouth "comes from eating children," the story doesn't include any kind of physical resistance or disagreement from being gulped down by the ogre.  So it goes.