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.

Poem analysis

stanza 1:

“At childhood’s end, the houses petered out into playing fields, the factory, allotments kept, 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.”

The first line of the poem signifies the end of innocence. what comes next is the metaphorical journey of life – childhood, working life and then retirement. she was standing at the edge of safety and right behind the line of death, danger and the unknown.

stanza 2:

“He stood in a clearing, reading his verse out loud in his wolfy drawl, a paperback in his hairy paw,red wine staining his bearded jaw. What big ears he 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,”

“he” doesn’t just represent the wolf but it may represent all men. “The wolf” is characterized to be dominant, intellectual and educated. Duffy’s physical description of his ears eyes and teeth are a reference to who he is as a person. Eyes- for poetry, Ears- for poetry, teeth- his skills in debate and speech. She made sure he spotted her which signifies that she is in control and power but she assumes a innocent persona to make it seem like he is in control and so that the sexual experience could be carried out in the “traditional” way (buying a drink). All this said in a mocking tone.

stanza 3:

“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 place lit by the eyes of owls. I crawled in his wake my stockings ripped to shreds, scraps of red from my blazer snagged on twig and branch, murder clues. I lost both shoes”

The use of enjambment from the previous stanza to this stanza is to signify the importance of “the wolf” buying her a drink and the sexual experience. The importance was to re-iterate control and power and to show that the little red cap is far from innocent as she knew was she was doing. this is also visible in this stanza through the use of a hypophora in the first line. The use of this literary device was again, to show that she knows what shes doing and why she’s doing it- control and power. The little red cap is willing to leave her childhood and safety (home) to gain experience and she’s doing all of this willingly. “The owls” signify the eyes of experienced people (adults). There’s a visible loss of control and power by the use of the word “crawled” which signifies submission and there’s also a reference to her childhood and the fact that the little red cap is still a child when her clothing was brought up as blazers are usually what are worn as school uniforms. “Red” symbolizes loss of purity and death. There’s also a large use of internal rhyme such as “clues” and “shoes” which is usually used to mock something and in this case, she’s mocking “the wolf’s” false impression of her.

stanza 4:

but 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, for what little girl doesn’t dearly love a wolf? Then I slid from between his heavy matted paws and went in search of a living bird – white dove –

“there” and “beware” are used to create internal rhyme to bring out the theme of deception again. the pace has also increased due to lack of conjunctions. “dawn” may imply that she realized what she had done. she downplays the idea of the wolf being dangerous when she says “what little girl doesn’t dearly love a wolf?” doves are symbols of peace and purity. this is heavily contrasted to the previous events that had just taken place. in a metaphorical sense, it may be understood that she thought of things that still kept her innocent and experiences that she hadn’t experienced yet.

stanza 5:

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 back of 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.

as soon as she “found” innocence, he killed it again. the excitement and danger vanished with “one bite, dead.” the “wolf” is portrayed as a greedy and violent man. Her sense of urgency is seen when she crept out of the room “as soon as he slept.” one thing she truly found exciting were the books in his “lair”. the use of the term “lair” instead of home also suggests the unfamiliarity and the danger felt.

stanza 5:

But then I was young – and it took ten years in the woods to tell that a mushroom stoppers the mouth of a buried corpse, that birds are the uttered thought of trees, that a greying wolf howls the same old song at the moon, year in, year out,season after season, same rhyme, same reason. I took an axe

This stanza has a more reflective tone than anything else. It seems as if this event happened 10 years ago an she is reflecting on why what happened happened. she may be referring to her naive and child-like personality when she mentions the corpse. The mushroom stoppers may indicate that that personality is not going to resurface. something that was once passionate and exciting to her now bored her (the wolf). The stanza then ends with an abrupt statement to create excitement in the audience.

to a willow to see how it wept. I took an axe to a salmon to see how it leapt. I took an axe to the wolf as he slept, one chop, scrotum to throat, and saw the 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.

After the protagonist has discovered the power of (poetic) language, she starts to agressively demystify traditional, clihéd imagery: the ‘weeping’ willow only really weeps when it is cut down, salmon only really leaps when one chases it with an axe. In the following lines, Little Red Cap demystifies one final steryotype: that of male overpowerment of the female figure. the ” virgin white of my grandmother’s bones.” may represent the past generation of women who have been opressed and affected by the patriarchal society.