17 Little Red Riding Hood: A Critical Theory Approach

Octaviano Gutierrez

Little Red Riding Hood
Little Red Riding Hood

Summary

The following document explores seven different interpretations of “Little Red Riding Hood” based on six different schools of literary critical theory and a baseline:

  • Pre-critical – this is the baseline, surface-level interpretation of a given text.
  • Formalist – focuses on literary devices and the structural purposes of word choice and phrasing.
  • Archetypal / Jungian – focuses on archetypes or tropes in characters and symbols and how these interact with Jung’s idea of the collective unconsciousness.
  • Psychological / Freudian – focuses on the relationship between Freud’s Id, Ego, and Superego, as well as the impact of dreams, phallic imagery, and representations of the Oedipus complex.
  • Feminist – analyzes gender dynamics and representations of patriarchy, and how genders are defined and obectified or “othered.”
  • Marxist – focuses on class conflict between a dominant class and a subjected class, particularly where ideologies of work as human value come into play.
  • Historical – focuses on the connection or relationship between the text and the author’s life and/or the events happening around the time it was written.

Jenna Gardner

You can read the full text here: “Little Red Riding Hood: A Critical Theory Approach by Jenna Gardner” [Full Text].

Text Attributions

  • “Little Red Riding Hood: A Critical Theory Approach” was written and created by Jenna Gardner.

License

English 102 Book with English 105 supplemental Copyright © 2023 by Octaviano Gutierrez. All Rights Reserved.

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