Kristina Arkhipova

English 414
Richard Burke
October 19, 2016

Low-Stakes Writing: Folk and Fairy Tales

What readers expect to find from fictional stories, in this case folk and fairy tales, are a
specific organizational pattern, characters, setting and struggles between good and evil. These
stories originated from oral storytelling and have been passed down in various versions.
Traditionally in these stories, the introduction is a Once upon a time and the setting is
typically in the woods. Often, a reader will encounter talking animals in fictional stories.
Symbols of good and evil are present and there is some type of resolution to the problem.
Usually the reader is anticipating a happy or positive ending.
In both stories, Grimms Little Red Cap and Perraults Little Red Riding Hood, the main
character, Little Red Riding Hood, is traveling through the woods to visit her grandmother. In
each story she meets the wolf and the wolf, in his cunning way, tricks Little Red Riding Hood
into taking the wrong path to her grandmothers. Following his carefully devised plan, the wolf
arrives before Little Red Riding Hood to her grandmothers house. In both versions, the wolf
makes a meal of the grandmother and lies in wait for Little Red Riding Hood. Both stories
continue with Little Red Riding Hood knocking on the door and being invited in by the wolf. As
Little Red Riding Hood is questioning the authenticity of her grandmother, the wolf ends the

questioning when he devours Little Red Riding Hood. Up to this point Perrault follows the basic
conventions of fictional story telling.
At the end of the story, Charles Perrault breaks the traditional conventions of folk tales.
Normally in the end, the evil character usually loses. In Perraults version, however, the evil
wolf triumphs. His plan of trickery and deceit comes full circle. In contrast to Grimms version
where the wood-cutters come to the rescue and cut up the wolfs stomach, freeing Little Red
Riding Hood and her grandmother. In the story, Little Red Riding Hood, Perrault chooses a more
victorious ending for the wolf in comparison to a darker ending for Little Red Riding Hood and
her grandmother. Readers of fictional text have an expectation of endings where evil is
overcome and good prevails. So therefore, they would be very unsatisfied with such an
unhappy ending. Perrault destroys that fairy tale ending when he heroizes the wolf. This could
be his attempt in sending the conflicting message to the reader, that evil triumphs over good.
One convention that Perrault does maintain is the lesson or moral: must never talk to strangers.
From the perspective of someone who has listened to or read fairy tales/folktales, I do
have certain expectation of how the story should progress. Clearly, there should be two types
of characters: protagonist (good) and antagonist (evil). They should be presented with some
type of problem; common themes are greed and selfishness. In the end, however, I do expect a
traditional happy ending where the protagonist wins out over the antagonist. I was
disappointed in the ending of the Perraults version. I felt his version sent a message of
aggression and relayed an untraditional theme of eminent danger to readers.