Anglosaxonscience.files.wordpress.com



The little red capAt childhood’s end, the houses petered outinto playing fields, the factory, allotmentskept, like mistresses, by kneeling married men,the silent railway line, the hermit’s caravan,till you came at last to the edge of the woods.It was there that I first clapped eyes on the wolf.He stood in a clearing, reading his verse out loudin his wolfy drawl, a paperback in his hairy paw,red wine staining his bearded jaw. What big earshe had! What big eyes he had! What teeth!In the interval, I made quite sure he spotted me,sweet sixteen, never been, babe, waif, and bought me a drink,my first. You might ask why. Here’s why. Poetry.The wolf, I knew, would lead me deep into the woods,away from home, to a dark tangled thorny placelit by the eyes of owls. I crawled in his wake,my stockings ripped to shreds, scraps of red from my blazersnagged on twig and branch, murder clues. I lost both shoesbut got there, wolf’s lair, better beware. Lesson one that night,breath of the wolf in my ear, was the love poem.I clung till dawn to his thrashing fur, forwhat little girl doesn’t dearly love a wolf?1Then I slid from between his heavy matted pawsand went in search of a living bird – white dove –which flew, straight, from my hands to his hope mouth.One bite, dead. How nice, breakfast in bed, he said,licking his chops. As soon as he slept, I crept to the backof the lair, where a whole wall was crimson, gold, aglow with books.Words, words were truly alive on the tongue, in the head,warm, beating, frantic, winged; music and blood.But then I was young – and it took ten yearsin the woods to tell that a mushroomstoppers the mouth of a buried corpse, that birdsare the uttered thought of trees, that a greying wolfhowls the same old song at the moon, year in, year out,season after season, same rhyme, same reason. I took an axeto a willow to see how it wept. I took an axe to a salmonto see how it leapt. I took an axe to the wolfas he slept, one chop, scrotum to throat, and sawthe glistening, virgin white of my grandmother’s bones.I filled his old belly with stones. I stitched him up.Out of the forest I come with my flowers, singing, all alone.The poem “The Little Red Cap”, written by Carol Ann Duffy, used the characters from the story, “The Little Red Riding Hood” and created a whole new story with a feminist twist to it. Each of Duffy’s poems (from the collection “The World’s Wife”) takes its theme and character from history, mythology or popular culture and gives it a feminist treatment, usually by telling the untold story of the woman in the life of a male character.The poem consists of 7 stanzas, each with six lines in iambic pentameter. There is a considerable use of run-on lines (except for the first stanza which is the only standalone) which gives the poem a constant forward movement as the story is told. There is no regular rhyme in the entire poem even though it looks and sounds like there is. There’s multiple eye-rhymes and a considerable use of internal rhyme. The purpose of this may be to create a childish tone and to display how the Little Red Cap is striving to mature and gain experience but is still somewhat childish or maybe to create a sense of deception and to show that she is the one who’s really in control not the wolf. Control is one of the themes that is very indirectly seen throughout the poem when she initiates most of the occurrences except for the in last stanza where Control is very evident by the use of repetition of “I took and axe” and a strong rhyme dominates the entire stanza which shows her power and control of the situation. If taken in a literal way, she has the courage to physically harm him by chopping him from “scrotum to throat” consequently taking away his manhood. Although, one of the main themes of the poem is the loss of innocence and temptation. This theme is apparent throughout the poem. It starts with her standing at the edge of town in front of the woods which can also be seen as safety and danger respectively. The level of danger and temptation to experience new things spirals as the poem progresses. The Little Red Cap being led “deep into the woods, away from home, to a dark tangled thorny place lit by the eyes of owls” indicates that there was a short period where she lost control, so caught up in the experience. “my stockings ripped to shreds, scraps of red from my blazer” is another one of her experiences, her stockings being ripped to shreds and the color red may indicate the loss of her virginity (therefore the loss of innocence) and her blazer is a reminder that she’s not an adult and that she’s a minor as the blazer suggests that she was a schoolgirl. The de-clothing and the colour red also represent power, lust and seduction. The white dove being killed is another instance where there’s loss of innocence. Poetry and books symbolise a desire for knowledge and represent the temptation young, modern girls hold to gain experience and wisdom.There’s a lot of autobiographical references mentioned throughout the poem. She met Adrian Henri at a poetry reading when she was sixteen. He was 23 years older than her and they were lovers for 11 years. Her putting stones in him suggests that she weighed him down and managed to escape from Henri’s influence. There are a lot of overtones of violence and undertones of submission. Tone is mockery.The entire poem gives a feminist twist on the little red riding hood by the Grimm brothers. The line, “virgin white of my grandmother’s bones.” Suggests the previous suppressed and oppressed generations that were subdued by male counterparts and the killing of the wolf may indicate the end of it, further bringing out the theme of feminism. ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download