Same Story, New Social Norms: Comparative "Little Red Riding Hood" by Roald Dahl and Perrault Vedanshi Mitesh Bhalodia 12th Grade

The fairytale is one of the various genres of folklore representing fantasy and mythical creatures. Beginning as an oral tradition passed on to posterity, fairytales now find themselves in printed volumes preserved for eternity. Stemming from local cultures, they reflect the society at the time when it was written. With the progressing time, even the societies have evolved. Roald Dahl, in his “Revolting Rhymes” published in the 1960s, an updated version of the known fairytales like Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood (LRRH), etc. He compels the audience to overcome the conventional ideas of fairytale like extremely good and abjectly evil. There are many versions of LRRH but this essay will contrast the one by Roald Dahl and the one by Perrault, two accounts that exhibit different instructive purposes and occupy clearly diverging historical contexts.

In Dahl’s version, the diction of “revolting” in the title itself holds a pun. It refers to both - the revolt towards the mainstream manner of writing fairytales and a revolt against the social evils like sexism to empower women’s status in the society. The poem commences with the wolf being hungry and to satiate his hunger, he knocks on Grandma's door. Dahl has deliberately shifted...