Prescribed Question: How has the text borrowed from other texts and with what effects?

Text: ‘Little Red Cap’ (from The World’s Wife) by Carol Ann Duffy

Part of the Course: 4 Literature – Critical Study

Carol Ann Duffy’s poetry collection The World’s Wife considers female characters from Greek myths, Grimm’s fairy tales, or biblical stories. In traditional literature, the perspectives of women are frequently overlooked, and it is this that provides the focus for Duffy’s poetry. Duffy considers the world from the perspective of female characters, challenging assumed (male) perceptions through allusions to myth or popular story, representing the world of her poems from a female viewpoint.

‘Little Red Cap’ is the first poem from Duffy’s collection The World’s Wife. The poem, in its title, borrows from The Grimm Brother’s Little Red Riding Hood. In her poem, Duffy alludes to and borrows characters, imagery, and sequential action from the original text. Through textual borrowing, Duffy highlights the historical mistreatment and silencing of women, providing a powerful voice to a previously marginalized female perspective. Through the derivative of the original text, Duffy transports readers to a revised world where Red Cap represents the lost voices of all women as she conquers the wolf – a symbol of male authority – and has her voice heard.

Word Count: 211

Written Task 2

Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘Little Red Cap’is the first poem in her collection The World’s Wife. Throughout the poem, Duffy borrows from the Grimm Brother’s Little Red Riding Hood. The poem establishes a central trope for the poetry collection, highlighting female independence and establishing a strong female voice.

In the beginning of the poem, ‘Little Red Cap’, Duffy uses language to vividly establish a setting that seems to replicate in modern version the original story of Red Riding Hood. In the first stanza, Duffy writes ‘fields, the factory, allotments’ and ‘the edge of the woods’; these descriptions of ‘field’ and ‘factory’ may describe the landscape of Duffy’s own upbringing in Glasgow and Stafford in order to suggest the familiarity of childhood. In the same way as Red Cap leaves the comfort of her home to venture into the woods, Duffy’s character leaves the ‘fields’ and ‘factory’ to walk into adulthood. Since the setting in the poem is so similar to the setting of the original story, Duffy establishes an immediate allusion, therefore suggesting that the main character is young, naïve, and new to the adult world.

Having established a parallel, Duffy describes Red Cap’s first thoughts in the poem by using a line similar to the original text: ‘What big ears he had! What big eyes he had! What teeth!’ Since Duffy’s line is a familiar derivative of the original text,[1] the reader will be aware that whist Red Cap is fascinated by the wolf’s appearance, the wolf is fundamentally bad. Through this textual borrowing, Duffy suggests that men may have alluring physical appearances, but that they are essentially deceiving. The borrowing of ideas from fairy tale to poem quickly establishes the internal relationship between the vulnerability of Red Cap and the mendacious wolf. Readers will also recognize the way in which Red Cap and the wolf are metonyms for ‘generic woman’ and ‘generic man’. Duffy’s analogy intimates that women should discover the truth about men and become independent of their influence.

Duffy, furthermore, uses language that resembles Grimm’s traditional version of Little Red Riding Hood to highlight Red Cap’s realisation of the wolf as evil. Throughout the poem, readers notice that Red Cap is exploited by the wolf, but that it takes ten years for her to come to this recognition. Duffy writes ‘a greying wolf howls the same old song at the moon’. ‘Greying’ and ‘same old’ indicate the long period of time the wolf has been manipulating Red Cap. In this way, the metaphor of the ageing animal repeating its actions is analogous to the way in which men, in Duffy’s view, have silenced women throughout time. This is a concern that is central to Duffy’s collection.

In the poem, Duffy also borrows the idea of the eaten grandmother in Little Red Riding Hood, using symbolism to extend the meaning of the idea; the narrator writes that she ‘saw the glistening, virgin white of my grandmother’s bones.’ This describes how Little Red cap eliminates the wolf and, in turn, is emancipated from his (male) oppression. At a metaphorical level, the bones of Red Cap’s grandmother symbolize much more. As the first poem in the collection, the poem establishes significant themes and emphasizes Duffy’s focus on strong, liberated females. Thus, writing ‘virgin white of my grandmother’s bones’ suggests that for women to become powerful, they must first be aware of the historical continuity of women’s subordination to men. The notion of ‘virgin’ suggests the originality of strong female voices; this is the first time they have been heard, in the first poem of the collection. And, the idea of ‘glistening’ suggests newness and freshness, positively connoting the originality of female emancipation. As the poem closes, Red Cap emerges from the forest ‘singing’, having killed the wolf. As she leaves the forest, Red Cap’s view is unhindered by the dead wolf, and her voice is heard, reinforcing that things are better when the voice of all previously silenced women are heard.

Duffy, then, borrows many ideas and images from the original text of Little Red Riding Hood. The reader is at once familiar with a traditional story they have known from infancy. However, through manipulation of the original text, Duffy inverts commonplace assumptions the story makes. The patriarchal nature of society is undercut when Red Cap slays the wolf, symbolically conveying the end of male power. As Red Cap emerges from the wood, it is suggested that women can emerge from male domination to reclaim a voice of their own. Paralleling and deviating from Grimm’s familiar fairy tale, Duffy defamiliarizes traditional notions of gender relations, celebrating strong, confident women.

There may be a further text that Duffy borrows from - the narrative of her own life. Duffy, at the young age of sixteen, was involved in an almost ten-year relationship with the ‘Liverpool poet’ Adrian Henri. This is the period of time Red Cap spends with the wolf. In this way, the poem may borrow from Duffy’s own biography. Red Cap in the poem says, ‘I made quite sure he spotted me/sweet sixteen’, reflecting Duffy’s own first meeting with Henri, the established literary poet. Later in the poem, Red Cap’s remark, ‘but then I was young’, reinforces the naivety of Red Cap, but also hints at Duffy’s own relative youth on first meeting Henri. At the end of her relationship, Duffy, like Red Cap, has become older, increasingly aware as adult life replaces adolescence. It is difficult to assess the effect of autobiographical borrowing on the poem. Is Henri represented by the wolf in the poem, deceitful and predatory? Whatever conclusion readers reach, knowing something of the poet’s life and reading her poem with contextual understanding enhances the richness of the reading experience.

Word Count: 976

Works Cited

Duffy, Carol Ann. The World’s Wife. 1999. London: Picador.

Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. ‘Little Red Cap’ in Folk and Fairy Tales. Martin Hallet and Barbara Karasek (eds.). 2002. Toronto: Broadview Press.

[1]In the original text, the actual words are, ‘Oh, grandmother, what big ears you have! […] Oh, grandmother, what big eyes you have! […] Oh, grandmother, what big teeth you have!’ (2002, p.9).