Discussion about this post

User's avatar
C.A.'s avatar

Having to hit the "Like" button is very peculiar. No, your pointing out that there is something deeply unhealthy about finding this story a form of amusement is exactly right. I always find your articles interesting, but I put off reading this one. Yes, your story is well told--the freezing hill, the two young children all alone. The careful predator using the children's own kindness and curiosity to commit evil. It's terrifying even though we know the little girl will survive to become an articulate and insightful woman--as Little Red Riding Hood did not. But juxtaposing the fairy tale with a real, deeply traumatic, for so long incommunicable, actual childhood experience punches sentimentality right out of any reading. You've made us look at this story stripped of cuteness. Not only to ask why she is insistently called "Little," but why she is defined by the red garment, a "riding hood." What is a "riding hood" anyway. And why is it--definitively--red?

Expand full comment
Patrick P's avatar

Rotkäppchen kommt gleich zurück.

Expand full comment
7 more comments...

No posts