thursday post

After another interesting class discussion on the many versions of "little red riding hood," it has become clear to me just how different this tale can be interpreted. At one point we personified the bad wolf in the tale by the Grimm Brothers as a female character, symbolizing the many miscarriages of the time through the rocks little red riding hood left in his stomach, this wasn't relevant for the Charles Perrault version however, as LRRH does not escape in this version. At this point i really did see the power an educated discussion can have, leaving me with interpreting the story in ways i truly would not have been able to on my own.

It seems that even though these tales were written hundreds of years ago, the lessons one learns from the drastic outcome of little red riding hoods seemingly small mistakes are just as valid today as they were back then.

In today's world a predator such as the one seen in the wolf is very real, much more so today as back then one would assume, and often found in very calm and strategic people, just like our wolf in the tale. So teaching today's children how to behave around strangers and safely make it on their own is ever so important. In this sense these tales really can be timeless, often following a cycle of gaining and loosing relevance throughout the generations.

So with that we conclude our Little red riding hood discussions, and I'll leave you with two images of some of the many products we have in Germany named after the famous fairy tale by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. The first one is a popular cheap Champagne, or as we call it "Sekt," and the second one is a delicious Camembert Cheese! Yumm