In his essay, Shavit investigates the concept of childhood through an analysis of different versions of "Little Red Riding Hood," namely those of the Brothers Grimm and Perrault. The differences in the two tales is striking, and Shavit offers a detailed explanation as to why. In Perrault's time, the idea of "childhood" did not exist, nor did the notion of an educational system. Therefore it makes sense why Perrault's tale is geared towards an adult, elite audience while the Grimms' version leans toward a youthful audience. The time (century) in which each tale was written (or adapted) played a profound role on the tone, intended audience, moral and ending of each piece.
I found James Thurber's interpretation of "Little Red Riding Hood" the most intriguing, and entertaining. The tale is very short and assumes that the audience is familiar with the story of LRRH. The tale offers no explanation of why the wolf knows that a little girl is going to come skipping through the woods with food for her sick grandmother. Therefore, it is clearly not an educative piece meant for the maleable minds of youth. The tale then proceeds without offering much detail until the Little Girl "had approached no nearer than twenty-five feet from the bed." Clearly, no child would have the slightest concept of spatial orientation in terms of feet and numerical distance. This quotation only furthers the notion that like Perrault, adults are Thurber's target audience. He then makes a contemporary allusion to the Metro-Goldwyn lion and Calvin Coolidge. So not only is his target audience of the adult age, but they must also be learned and intelligent.
Now that the piece's intended audience has been addressed, let's move onto the general tone of the fairy tale. The final sentence before the moral goes as follows: "So the little girl took an automatic out of her basket and shot the wolf dead." Like Perrault, Thurber does not employ a happy ending intended for the education of young minds. Of course, he puts a modern spin on things... yet again targeting his adult audience.
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Your comments about the audience being adults is very convincing. I particularly how you point out that despite having a stated moral, the ending itself provides no education for a younger mind. However, I think that you might want to broaden your audience to include some children. I may just be crazy but I thought I read that this story was printed with a cartoon, so that may imply some younger people were in mind when this was written. Also, I urge you not to dismiss the association with the MGM lion. Children of early times (at least in the 1950s) would go to the movies on most Saturdays and basically get a whole days worth of entertainment (I base this solely on the show Leave it to Beaver...and what my parents have told me of their childhood) for a very minimal cost (even with inflation factored in
ReplyDeleteThis tale was written in the 1930's when movies were for the elite class, so child of wealth would be the ones watching the movies. Another note fairy tales original audience was never meant to be children it was always adults. It was not until the Grimm's game along the stories audience turned to children.
ReplyDeleteMy parents grew up working class in the Depression, and they went to the movies at least occasionally. For a nickle--which even then wasn't that much--one could spend the whole afternoon and watch the A movie, the B movie, some cartoons/shorts, and a newsreel. "Poor" does not mean "destitute", and while the children of the well-to-do may have gone more often, even those from families of modest means could go sometimes.
DeleteThurber's version also subverts the idea that a young female would be weak and helpless, and could either be easily devoured or would have to depend on the big, strong woodman with his ax to rescue her
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