Little Red Cap (Duffy) Flashcards
Context
A modern retelling of ‘Little red riding hood’ by the brothers Grimm, this poem follows a young girls encounter with an older male figure (the wolf), symbolising her journey into adulthood. This encounter is charged with tension; while it promises knowledge and artistic liberation, it also signals lost innocence. Over time, she outgrows him, intellectually and emotionally, ultimately killing him, reclaiming her voice, autonomy and poetic power
Comparison and contrast with Porphyrias lover
In both poems, a younger, more vulnerable woman enters a stifling dynamic with a more dominant male figure (objectification and ownership)
In porphyrias lover, the man kills the woman to preserve her innocence, while in a little red cap, she kills the wold to escape from and save herself from patriarchal influence
Comparison and contrast with my last duchess
Control over narrative and autonomy; In mld, the duchess’ agency is removed, little red cap takes control of her own destiny, defying the man who sought to control her
Comparison and contrast with a tocatta of gallupis
A male reflection on youth, beauty and loss, in a tocatta of gallupis, he imagines life of intellectually distant young women, but they are voiceless and reduced to ornamental images in memory. Little red cap subverts this dynamic, allowing the intellectually distant women to evoke agency
Key quotes
“At childhoods end”…“The wolf I knew, would lead me into the woods”
“what little girl doesnt dearly love a wolf”
“I took an axe to a salmon/ to see how it leapt. I took an axe to the wolf”
“The glistening white of my grandmothers bones”
“At childhoods end…The wolf I knew, would lead me into the woods”
extended metaphor for the lost of innocence and straying away from childhood, she is willingly succumbing to the male influence, only to later escape, she is trapping him, and using him, subverting the gender roles seen in MLD and Porphyrias lover
Contrasts growth and self discovery with yearning and lament in AToG
“What little girl doesn’t dearly love a wolf”
Rhetoric used to display sense of childlike naevity, the wolf is the allure of the unknown. Sarcastic tone subverts this, flipping the stereotypical passivity of women
Comparison with MLD and PL, where the women arent able to escape this allure
“I took an axe to a salmon/ to see how it leapt. I took an axe to the wolf”
use of repetition enhanced by enjambed lines is really evocative of her newly reclaimed agency, she is taking charge of her situation, using the axe to empower her and destroy, she is killing the wolf to preserve herself from the constraints of the patriarchy
“The glistening virgin white of my grandmothers bones”
Vivid striking imagery connoting purity undercut by the finality of death, there is a tension between youth and decay (inexorable march of time)
Natural and purity in death (comparison with PL)
AToG - this is a more reflectiev and natural representation of the wheel of life, than the nostalgia used in Brownings poem.
