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Lansen Zhao
Lynda Haas
Writing 39B
Rhetorical Analysis First Draft
Cultural Situations Behind Fairy Tales
Fairy tale is an ancient literary genre, mostly in a unique way to let children get entertained
and educated by vivid and interesting readings. It is a special art form to reflect peoples life in
different time period, so basically writers would consider about the audiences, the society they
lived in and then created the fairy tales that able to transmit their purposes and opinions
perfectly. The origin of fairy tales is from the legends and myths all over the world, and many
oral traditional stories restored by collectors. The diversity of literature brings the fairy tales
more attractive and relevant conventions, and makes them changes perfectly along with the time
and culture background changes. As readers in the 21st century, we have read a lot of fairy tales
since we were very little in different versions. When I was little, I have already realized that there
exist different cultures and histories from the society I lived in because I never saw or heard
about a real prince or a princess appears in the fairy tales in our society. That is the beginning
that fairy tales really taught me lessons. There are many most popular fairy tales in the world, the
reason why these tales become so famous is readers are able to learn from them. The Little Red
Riding Hood is one of them, which is a typical fairy tale, and many editions of it appeared due to
the different cultural background and time period to express the rhetorical situations.
As the development of the fairy tales over decades, many stories restored some traditional
conventions in their new versions, but reshaped in the base of cultural and historical background,
also in the Little Red Riding Hood. Genre conventions in them, in a way, become the symbol of

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fairy tales. Even though fairy tales appeared around the whole world by different writers with
different purposes, their authors restored the genre conventions more or less; maybe made some
changes to express the rhetorical situations at specific timing. For example, when readers see the
once upon a time in the beginning of Little Red Riding Hood , they would come with an idea
that the story should be a lovely fairy tale and most likely to end with they live happily after
ever.
The rescuing by heroes is a common convention in the fairy tale, and the connection
between gender roles is always an important part of literary artwork, attracting readers
attentions. In the fairy tale Little Red Cap, it basically talks about a beautiful little girl who wear
a read hood strays from the path to visit her grandmother alone, and was tricked by a wicked
wolf, and then the wolf eats up little red hood and her grandmother but they are finally saved by
a huntsman, which plays an important role in this fairy tale, and came up a idea to kill the wolf.
In the original version of The Little Red Cap written by Charles Perrault, he says: And,
saying these words, this wicked wolf fell upon Little Red Riding Hood, and ate her all up in the
end. There is no hero in the original version; wolf eats up both the little girl and her grandmother,
which is totally different with the common fairy tales with happy ending. But when we look at
the more common version of this classic fairy tale by Brothers Grimm, in the end of the story,
there is a huntsman hears the wolfs loud snoring and then finds out the truth. He cuts off the
wolfs belly, saves them out and they put heavy stone in the wolfs body. The huntsman is
considered as a hero, who is brave and clever enough to save the two female characters in the
distress, and help them kill the wolf. The ending is not only about story set up, but also reflects
the historical situation.
Without the appearance of the hero, Perraults version was once considered as a fable of sex.

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Susan Brownmiller declared, Red Riding Hood is a parable of rape in Against Our Will: Men,
Women, and Rape (1975). That was totally different with the purpose and motif of fairy tales
nowadays to transmit the beauty, truth and love to readers; instead it showed the dark side of the
society. Besides the difference endings, the important character huntsmans appearance enhances
the feature of rhetorical situation, which connected to the gender contrast during the history.
Perrault gives a moral in the end of the story, Children, especially attractive, well bred young
ladies, should never talk to strangers, for if they should do so, they may well provide dinner for a
wolf. I say wolf, but there are various kinds of wolves. There are also those who are charming,
quiet, polite, unassuming, complacent, and sweet, who pursue young women at home and in the
streets. And unfortunately, it is these gentle wolves who are the most dangerous ones of all
(Perrault). Perrault wanted to represent the archetypal character of the wolf, which were some
charming high-rank people and good at seducing young ladies. There are also several hints in the
context to reveal the sexual concept, for example, when the Little Red Riding Hood enters the
room, the wolf says: Put the cake and the little pot of butter upon the stool, and come get into
bed with me. And then she took off her clothes and got into bed. This version is a warning for
young ladies how important is the virginity. Bruno Bettelheim argued in his classic work The
Uses of Enchantment, the imagery of fairy tale helps children better than anything else in
achieving mature consciousness (Bettelheim 23).The girl was finally eaten brutally by the wolf
and no any turning point. Once a lady lost her virginity, she will lose it forever and no chance to
have it again. At the beginning, Perrault describes the little red riding hood is a good-looking
young girl under the family protection. She is inexperienced with many things around her and
becomes lack of awareness and resistance of temptation. In the Grimms version, they shape the
little red riding hood as a lovely and innocent little girl for educating the children. The wolf and

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the huntsman are both male images, but the former is evil, negative to threat heroines, while the
latter is good, justice to save their lives. In the context, several hints show the persona of the two
sides of moralities. Firstly, the huntsman passes by and thinks, That was the old womans
snoring, youd better see if somethings wrong (Grimms). This scene highlights the huntsmans
kindness that he is willing to care about a strange old woman. Secondly, when he realizes the
wolf eats up the grandmother, Perhaps she can still be saved, I wont shoot (Grimms). His
mental activity shows his sagacity. He tries to save the old lady and avoid shooting the wolf
directly. In another side, the huntsman had been searching for the wolf for a long time
(Grimms). It highlights the evilness of the wolf; maybe the wolf already did a lot of shady things.
Grimms tended to compare these two positive and negative characters and give a sharp contrast
of them.
Comparing the Perraults and Bother Grimms versions, we can see the cultural background
influences the living situation of authors and makes them create different purposes of literature.
Charles Perrault lived during the 16th and 17th centuries. He created new fairy tales based on the
pre-existing folk tales and also reflected the awareness of earlier fairy tales written in the salons
by Madam dAulnoy. He knew how these stories spread and how to express his ideas in the story.
Nowadays, the audience of most fairy tales is the children and young adults, but at that time,
Perrault did not intend to create stories for entertaining and educating children. But Brother
Grimms version is definitely for children to read, it contains more details about how the hero
huntsman saves little girl and her grandmother, and how they come up with wonderful idea to
kill the wolf after they are saved. Grimms is more likely to show his expertise of educating and
entertaining his readers by adding more traditional popular conventions. Emphasizing the
cleverness and braveness of the hero and good characters would cheer up the readers and satisfy

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their expectations. So we can see their living situations is able to reflect the society and the
culture change their purposes of writing fairy tales.
In the 16th and 17th century of France, the virginity of women was highly valuable, and
women need to know more about protecting themselves. So Perrault chose the audience for the
story, and clearly pointed out the importance of virginity of women. Because the audiences were
young women with adult consciousness, so he made a severe and tragic end to give them an
alert. So this version was based on the cultural situation. In another cultural situation, Brothers
Grimm intended to create fairy tales and dedicate themselves for children. They have to be
careful to educate children and let them believe the hope in their lives. We can see they convey
that opinion to children that once the children made mistakes, as long as they correct their ways,
there is the remedial occasion for them. So Grimms created a saver, the huntsman in their version
of Little Red Riding Hood, to give the Little Red Riding Hood a chance to correct herself after
she encountered the danger and experienced the fear, finally realize the dangerous situation she
was in. The purpose of Grimms version is not only to teach children to listen to their mothers,
but also to help them have a good faith in life. Due to this positive cultural background, this
version became more positive and cheerful than Perraults version.
Some fairy tales are created to educate people, such as teaching children lessons; some of
them mainly entertain the readers with dramatic and interesting plots; some of them are able to
cheer people up to show their beauty, truth and love in the world. Most of them also are able to
reflect the historical and cultural situation of the authors with genre conventions, the Little Red
Riding Hood is just one of them. For any literary work, the audiences is the soul of the literature,
their reading processes brings the words to live. It is an interesting process when readers read the
classic fairy tales and also learn about different cultures and living styles at that time period

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shows in the story because they can see a part of the society, which produces both the creators
and the readers. So the author of fairy tales created their masterpieces for specific readers by
reshaping the conventions, motifs. The purpose and the cultural background become essential
implicit knowledge behind the fairy tales, and also reveal the outstanding rhetoric.

Works Cited:
Little Red Riding Hood, Charles Perrault, 1697
Little Red Cap, Brothers Grimm, 1812
Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, Susan Brownmiller, 1975
The Uses of Enchantment, Bruno Bettelheim, 1976
http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2010/11/revised-little-red-riding-hood-parable.html