Fairytale Fiction “The Red Path” by Lauren Matthews

Lauren’s presentation was about a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood that she is working on turning into a novella. She talked a lot about the historical and symbolic meaning behind the story. She talking about the link the story had to powerful woman and womanhood. She mentioned one retelling where Little Red was saved by a group of woman who helped her to escape the wolf by laying a path for her across a river that the wolf could not cross. Little Reds safety came by women's influence, and the story tells us how powerful that can be.

She also told us that in some of the stories, Red had to choose between a path of pins or a path of needles to make it to her destination. In some stories, she chose neither, but the choice did not seem to make a difference. The paths were a metaphor for the girls growing up and experiencing maturation. The red hood is also seen as a metaphor for this, as well as the girl going through the wolf, and back out again. It was interesting to think of the story in this way, and relate a deeper meaning to all the events beyond the normal “curiosity killed the cat” message, or something like that.

Lauren also focused a lot on the relationship between the girl and the wolf within her story. Just as the girl had to go through the wolf to reach a new understanding, the girl could not take her place in the world without her connection and struggle with the wolf. In Lauren’s tale itself, the initial encounter between the girl, Lilla, and the wolf was more of a prologue into the rest of the story. After the wolf kills her grandmother, and supposedly kills her, he lives for many years killing and stealing the skins of the people he encounters. Until one day, when he is disguised as a man, he crosses paths with the king and his queen - Lilla. The story then unfolds about the struggle between Lilla and wolf both being the last of their kind (him having killed her family, and her having all the wolves killed after that) but still being unable to kill each other, until one day they are both being hunted and must ban together to survive. It was a reeeeally interesting retelling, and I hope that one day I will be able to read the whole story.