-
Essay / Analysis of Little Red Riding Hood through Marxist theory
Basic introduction to the storyline that everyone knows, identify the two versions you will focus on. As a child, we believe that the folk tales we read to them are just folk tales, but in reality, they mean so much more. We can compare the Perrault and Grimm versions of “Little Red Riding Hood” from a Marxist point of view by analyzing the implementations of class struggle, hegemony and ideology linked to their different periods. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Perrault's "Little Red Riding Hood" was published in the late 17th century, aimed at the target audience of the upper-class French aristocracy (bourgeoisie). . Since Perrault himself was part of French aristocratic society, he would have been less likely to challenge the dominance of and promote the then-prominent French aristocracy. By the end of the 17th century, with the rise of French salon culture, Enlightenment ideologies were in full swing with the looming threat of new political, economic, and social ideas. These new ideas concerned the class struggle between the bourgeois and peasant classes and the end of bourgeois ideology and hegemony. The class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the peasants began to gain momentum, with the peasants wanting to be able to advance in society, while the bourgeoisie wanted to maintain its hegemonic control by convincing the peasants that this structure was best for everyone. Perrault's version of "Little Red Riding Hood" emphasizes his advocacy of the importance of hegemony in influencing bourgeois ideology through the suppression of class conflict. Little Red Riding Hood depicts the protagonist in the form of a bourgeois, while the wolf is an antagonistic peasant who wants a lifestyle he cannot have. Little Red Riding Hood's name is derived from her red riding hood. The color red is known in many Western cultures to represent a person's wealth and status. Therefore, the bold color of a red garment would only have belonged to a member of the bourgeoisie due to the low probability that a peasant could afford such adornment. Peasants dressed uniformly in dull-colored clothing designed to last for many years. After the peasant Wolf meets Little Red Riding Hood in the woods and persuades her to take the long way to her grandmother's house, where she is distracted, the wolf arrives at the grandmother's house. The Wolf in particular “devoured it in an instant, because it had been more than three days since he had eaten”. The bourgeoisie lived a life of excess, while the peasants lived in uncertainty, leading to permanent tensions between the two classes. The fact that the wolf eats the grandmother and puts on her clothes represents his craving for the materialistic aspects associated with bourgeois life. When he later asks Little Red Riding Hood to "undress and lie down" with him, she obeys and is subsequently eaten, representing the loss of bourgeois domination. Perrault suggests that if a peasant succeeds in obtaining what the bourgeoisie has, then their economic, political and social control would be interrupted. In the 19th century, German brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published their collections of traditional folklore, including “Le Petit Bonnet rouge,” which was their interpretation of Perrault’s “Little Red Riding Hood.” They transcribed and published the popular tales whose tradition was still alive in the States of the Germanic Confederation at their time", wanting "topreserved from oblivion before their decline becomes irremediable.” The story of “Little Red Hat” would undergo several modifications and publications before the final version was published in 1857. This final publication came after the arrival of the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel in 1848.published at the time where revolutions were beginning to appear in various regions of Europe where the working class wanted to replace the dominant bourgeois societies. The Brothers Grimm's fairy tales appealed to the new and growing market of middle-class families emerging from the industrialization and urbanization of the states of the German Confederation. These bourgeois families who wanted to teach their children traditional stories which often contained a lesson. The Brothers Grimm themselves, coming from a middle-class or middle-class family, advocate in “Le Petit Bonnet Rouge” the need for people to remain confined within their social status. Similarly, in Perrault's version there is the protagonist and antagonist relationship represented by the class struggle, but there is a deeper relationship between ideology and hegemony between the bourgeoisie and the peasant. The protagonist Little Red Hat and his family are the middle class landowners, while the wolf is the peasant. The red of their cap represents her desire to not conform to her middle class status and instead be ambitious in moving up the social ladder of the middle class lifestyle. This desire will later be exploited by the peasant wolf who has similar ideas. Her mother tells Little Red Hat not to “leave the path” when she ventures to her sick grandmothers with “a piece of cake and a bottle of wine.” On the way to the grandmother, Little Red Hat meets the wolf and is forced to move out of the way. While Little Red Hat is distracted by picking flowers for his grandmother, she wanders “further and further into the woods” and encounters “even more beautiful” flowers (Grimm). Therefore, without realizing it, she gave the wolf more time to eat the grandmother. While picking flowers, Little Red Hat attempts to look outside his petty middle class to find new opportunities to advance his social status to that of the upper bourgeoisie. The wolf could be a representation of the peasant's belief in the empty promises that capitalism offers, the empty promise of being able to progress in society which, in reality, does not come true. The path symbolizes her mistake of not conforming to her place, that she has been led astray. If one tries to move up in social class, one risks contributing to social disorder, which can lead to disaster or, in this case, the killing of one's grandmother by the wolf. Once again, after the wolf ate the grandmother, "she took her clothes and put them on and put her cap on her head" and "got into her bed" and waited for the Little Red Hat appears to eat it too. The hunter was “just passing by” and noticed the wolf he was hunting and cut open its stomach with a pair of scissors. He frees the grandmother and Little Red Hat. They then filled the wolf's body with "large, heavy stones" so that "when he woke up and tried to run away...he fell down dead." The peasant Wolf ends up being murdered for trying to obtain the advantages available to the middle class. When he kills the wolf, he feeds the cycle of complacency. The hunter has internalized the feeling of hegemony because he does not question his inferior social status like the Wolf, which fuels the continuation of the class struggle. Little Red Cap and the hunter know at the end of the tale that the place where they are is where.. 2019.