Little Red Riding Hood Summary

In The Courtship of Mr. Lyon, the bloody chamber happens to be the Beast’s room. His room is a metaphor of transformation for the heroine and himself. The heroine transforms from a humble girl to a pampered woman. In the beginning of the tale, Beauty is described as “[asking] for so little” when her Father wanted to bring her something home whilst he was outside. The intensifier “so” emphasizes the unspoilt nature of Beauty in the beginning. Later on in the story, “you could not have said that her freshness was fading but” she has changed. The use of second person addresses the reader as a bystander and as a witness of Beauty’s transformation. Her “freshness” was also metaphoric for the person Beauty was in the beginning. Carter wants to show

The reader of this story will most likely connect it with innocence when first encountered with the title or traditional tale it was based upon. Little Red Riding Hood is a common fairytale with the use of a protagonist who isn’t a woman but a girl. The pre-modifier in the original fairytale’s name also emphasizes the expected innocence within the character. However, Carter uses this to her advantage in her rewrite of the tale. In The Company of Wolves, the heroine undresses herself for the wolf and takes control of her own body. The repetitive use of question fragments is an allusion to the traditional tale of Little Red Riding Hood when Red asks the wolf an amount of innocent questions such as ‘what big eyes you have’. In The Company of Wolves, the heroine asks “What shall I do with my shawl?” in which the wolf replies “Throw it on the fire, dear one. You won’t need it again.” The imperative and demand from the wolf makes him appear as though he has all the power. Differently to the traditional tale, the heroine’s questions start mainly around her. Her questions also revolve around appearance and the clothing items she is wearing, which may cause Carter’s feminist views to be debatable at the time. This is because the heroine doesn’t seem to be in control of her own self. However Carter’s feminist views are conveyed later on when the heroine “ripped his shirt off for him and flung it into the fire”. The verb phrase holds desperation and desire from the heroine suggesting this act was for her own satisfaction too. Equality is also present as she undresses the wolf whilst she is undressed too. The danger is gone once neither of them is in control of the other. This reverse pornographic image represents Carter’s feminist ideology of equality for all genders. When both the wolf and the heroine are stripped of their clothes they have