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Little Red Cap" Summary

This poem by Carol Ann Duffy reimagines the classic fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood through a feminist lens. It depicts the speaker's first sexual relationship as a journey from childhood into adulthood. Though her partner, represented as "the wolf," holds power over her, the speaker pursues the relationship out of her own sexual curiosity and desire to grow up. Her experience facilitates both a sexual awakening and an artistic coming-of-age. While initially drawn to the wolf's literary expertise, the speaker eventually gains independence and asserts her own poetic voice by ending their relationship and leaving the woods as a self-assured woman.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
558 views5 pages

Little Red Cap" Summary

This poem by Carol Ann Duffy reimagines the classic fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood through a feminist lens. It depicts the speaker's first sexual relationship as a journey from childhood into adulthood. Though her partner, represented as "the wolf," holds power over her, the speaker pursues the relationship out of her own sexual curiosity and desire to grow up. Her experience facilitates both a sexual awakening and an artistic coming-of-age. While initially drawn to the wolf's literary expertise, the speaker eventually gains independence and asserts her own poetic voice by ending their relationship and leaving the woods as a self-assured woman.

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gshzhvdvd
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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"Little Red Cap" was written by the Scottish poet Carol Ann Duffy, who served as the first

female
poet laureate of the United Kingdom between 2009 and 2019. It is the first poem in her 1999
collection The World's Wife, which depicts figures from history or mythology through a feminist lens.
In "Little Red Cap," this figure is Little Red Riding Hood, from the classic fairy tale. Though usually
portrayed as a naive girl hoodwinked and eaten by a wolf, Duffy's Little Red Cap is a young woman
brimming with sexual curiosity, artistic ambition, and personal agency. Her relationship with the
wolf, though marked by a predatory power imbalance, serves as the catalyst for her coming-of-age.

“Little Red Cap” Summary


As the speaker leaves behind the metaphorical neighborhood of her childhood, there are
fewer and fewer houses around, and the landscape eventually gives way to athletic fields, a
local factory, and garden plots, tended to by married men with the same submissive care they
might show a mistress. The speaker passes an abandoned railroad track and the temporary
home of a recluse, before finally reaching the border between her neighborhood and the
woods. This is where she first notices someone she calls "the wolf."
He is easy to spot, standing in a clearing in the woods and proudly reading his own poetry out
loud in a confident voice. The speaker notes the wolf's literary expertise, masculinity, and
maturity—suggested by the book he holds in his large hands and by his thick beard stained
with red wine. She marvels over the wolf's physical features—his big ears, big eyes, and big
teeth, which she seems to find both intimidating and sexy. The speaker seizes the moment,
making sure that the wolf notices her youthful, innocent demeanor and buys her her first
alcoholic drink.
The speaker addresses the reader, acknowledging that "you" might wonder why she pursues a
relationship with the wolf. Then the speaker tells readers why: because of poetry. The speaker
knows that the wolf will take her with him far into the forest, away from the familiarity of her
home and childhood, to a frightening but intriguingly dark place filled with thorns and
watched over by owls. The speaker undergoes a difficult journey in pursuit of the wolf,
describing herself as crawling behind him through the woods, ripping and shredding her
clothes in the process. Scraps of fabric from her red jacket get torn on branches and are left
behind, like clues in a murder case. The speaker loses both of her shoes in this pursuit as
well, but eventually makes it to the wolf's intimidating lair. There, the wolfgives the speaker
her first lesson, which he calls "the love poem"; the implication is that the two have sex. An
eager and active participant in this experience, the speaker also acknowledges that this
encounter with the wolf is brutal; she holds on tightly to his violently thrashing body
throughout the night. She seems to expect (even relish) this treatment, however; she wonders,
don't all young women love wolves? After this encounter, the speaker disentangles herself
from the wolf's large paws and seeks out a white dove.
When the speaker shows this bird to the wolf, however, he immediately devours it in a single
bite. The wolf licks his lips and casually refers to this as "breakfast in bed." Later, when he is
asleep, the speaker sneaks over to a wall in the wolf's lair that is filled with enticing
books. She is filled with intense pleasure and excitement upon seeing all these books, her
response to reading so many words described in terms resembling an orgasm. Time passes,
however, and the speaker reflects on what ten years together with the wolf has taught her. She
compares the oppressive nature of their relationship to a mushroom growing from, and thus
figuratively choking, the mouth of a dead body. She has learned that birds—implied to be
representative of poetry or art in general—and the thoughts spoken aloud by trees (meaning,
perhaps, that art comes only from experience). And she has also realized that she has become
disenchanted with the wolf, both sexually and artistically, since he and his art have grown
old, repetitious, and uninspiring. The speaker picks up an axe and attacks a willow tree and a
fish, just to see what will happen when she wields power in the woods. She then uses this axe
against the wolf while he's asleep, slicing him from his "scrotum" to his "throat,"
metaphorically destroying both his sexual power and silencing his poetic voice. Inside his
body, she finds her grandmother's bones, which are "virgin white." The speaker discards of
her dead lover in the same way Little Red Riding Hood discards of the wolf in the classic
fairy tale: by filling his stomach with rocks and then sewing him back up. Then she walks out
of the woods on her own, singing and with flowers in her hands.
Sexual Awakening and Coming of Age
“Little Red Cap” captures a formative experience in the speaker’s transition from childhood
to adulthood: her first sexual relationship. The poem alludes to the tale of Little Red Riding
Hood, in which a young girl is hoodwinked and eaten by a wolf. This story is often
understood as a metaphor for loss of sexual innocence, with the main character a naive girl
led astray by a lascivious man. Duffy’s poem flips this idea on its head, however,
granting her Little Red Cap a sense of both sexual curiosity and personal agency that allows
her to emerge from the experience with newfound independence. Sex, in Duffy’s poem, isn’t
linked to a lamentable loss of purity, but rather is a powerful awakening and a major step on
the path toward adulthood.
The poem begins “At childhood’s end”—figuratively portraying childhood as a physical
place that the speaker eagerly leaves behind before reaching “the edge of the woods,” a place
that represents the cusp between childhood and adulthood. It is here that the speaker “first
clap[s] eyes on the wolf.” After describing her attraction to the wolf, the poem emphasizes
the speaker’s curiosity and agency as a young woman exploring her sexuality: she makes the
first move in their relationship: “I made quite sure he spotted me." The poem then describes
their first sexual encounter as “lesson one … the love poem,” in which she “clung till dawn to
[the wolf’s] thrashing fur,” again emphasizing the speaker’s active participation in and
enjoyment of the experience.
The fact that the speaker plays an active role in her affair with the wolf complicates the
stereotype of an innocent young girl being taken advantage of by an experienced older
man. She seeks out a sexual relationship with the wolf, knowing that it will usher her into a
scary yet exciting new stage of life—adulthood. Her decision is an informed one: “The wolf,
I knew, would lead me deep into the woods / away from home, to a dark thorny tangled
place.” She is aware of the potentially dangerous consequences of adult sexuality, but eager
to explore them nonetheless.
To that end, the poem describes the speaker's first sexual encounter as a difficult journey: the
speaker must “crawl in [the wolf’s] wake,” ripping and losing her clothes as she loses her
innocence. The experience is far from gentle, but the speaker still triumphantly declares that
she "got there," eager to reach sexual maturity regardless of the violence of her experience.
Once the speaker has gotten what she wanted from the wolf, however, their relationship
begins to hold less appeal. Now that she too is a sexually mature adult, the speaker has
nothing left to learn from the wolf. After ten years together, she has become disenchanted.
The speaker takes an axe to the woods, the metaphor for her adolescence, “to see” how they
react—suggesting that the speaker is curious to learn what it feels like to wield power for
herself.
Finally, the speaker murders the wolf with an axe, "one chop, scrotum to throat," ending his
power over her. By taking control over their relationship, and brutally insisting on its
conclusion, the speaker asserts her agency as a sexual being. The poem concludes with the
speaker having completed her transition to adulthood on her own terms. No longer the child
she was before entering the woods, she emerges from the forest independent and empowered.

Where this theme appears in the poem:

Line 1Lines 5-6 Lines 7-11Lines 11-12Lines 14-22Lines 31-32Lines 32-34Lines 34-39Lines
39-41Line 42

Artistic Coming-of-Age

In “Little Red Cap,” the speaker’s relationship with the wolf also facilitates her artistic
coming-of-age. The two themes run in parallel: just as the poem’s depiction of sexual
awakening is defined by a journey from innocence to maturity, the poem depicts the
speaker’s artistic coming-of-age as a journey from inexperience to mastery, with the speaker
exerting the power of her own poetic voice over the wolf’s at the poem’s conclusion.
Ultimately, the poem depicts achieving artistic expression as a vital part of establishing
personal agency, and as a method of empowerment for women in a male-dominated
world.From the start, the speaker is drawn to the wolf as much by his literary knowledge as
by his sexual prowess, and hopes to learn from him. At the opening of the third stanza, she
explicitly explains her motivations for pursuing the wolf: “I made quite sure he spotted me …
You might ask why. Here’s why. Poetry.” Just as she hopes the wolf will initiate her into
adult sexuality, she also hopes he will teach her what he knows about creating art.
Unfortunately, the wolf is as selfish a literary instructor as he is a lover. After their first
sexual encounter, the speaker must disentangle herself from the wolf's firm grasp in order to
search for her own poetic voice, independent of the wolf's influence. However, when she tries
to share her poetry with him, the wolf callously gobbles up her offering (“one bite, dead”)
and goes back to sleep.
Nevertheless, as a result of their relationship, the speaker still gains access to the world of
poetry, which the poem depicts as the real reward of their liaison. At the back of the wolf's
lair, "where a whole wall was ... aglow with books," the speaker has a deep, pleasurable
response to the power of poetry. Indeed, the poem depicts her discovery of her own poetic
voice as much more exhilarating than her sexual experience with the wolf, and also a vital
step in her artistic evolution: “Words, words were truly alive on the tongue, in the head /
warm, beating, frantic, winged; music and blood.” This stanza also captures the necessity for
female artists to discover their own means of expression within male-dominated artistic
tradition.
From then on, poetry plays a vital role in the speaker’s growing maturity and is the means by
which she empowers herself to leave the wolf and the woods. The sixth stanza's use of natural
imagery suggests that the speaker's ability to better understand the woods indicates her
growing artistic mastery, developed over ten years. It may have taken a decade "to tell ... that
birds are the uttered thought of trees," but in that time the speaker has become fully confident
in this space. Wielding an axe, the speaker begins to attack the woods, the symbol of her
adolescence, and assert her own artistic voice and vision. Importantly, the poem attributes the
speaker’s disenchantment with the wolf to his repetitious art, "the same old song ... year in,
year out," as much as to his aging. It’s time for the speaker to look elsewhere for artistic
inspiration: to herself. When she murders the wolf, the speaker not only silences his voice,
but carves out space for her own. At the poem's conclusion, she emerges from the woods
alone but singing, suggesting that the speaker is fully confident in her poetic abilities. Having
found her own artistic voice, she wields it triumphantly and independently.

Where this theme appears in the poem:Lines 7-8Lines 13-16Lines 23-30Lines 31-32Lines
33-36Lines 38-39Line 42

Gender and PowerEven as “Little Red Cap” celebrates the empowerment of a young
woman in search of sexual and artistic agency, it also examines the power dynamics at play
when a girl’s coming-of-age takes place at the hands of an older man. Through the subversion of a
well-known fairy tale, the poem demands that the reader reconsider the roles of predator and prey
within broader societal systems of gender and power. By foregrounding the violence that accompanies
the wolf’s sexual appetite, “Little Red Cap” makes the case that even in a consensual relationship,
driven in part by female sexual agency, misogyny and oppression are still major forces. This is
particularly true of a relationship like the one in the poem, where the power imbalance between the
wolf and Little Red Cap reinforces patriarchal influences on relations between men and women.From
the start, when Little Red Cap pursues the wolf, the poem upends traditional understandings of
predator and prey. Though she calls him "the wolf," it is Little Red Cap who preys on him, making
"quite sure he spotted me, / sweet sixteen, never been, babe, waif." Each of these descriptors imply
innocence and inexperience, even frailty, which is not entirely inaccurate—the speaker is indeed a
teenager with limited sexual experience. Nevertheless, by drawing attention to these attributes, the
speaker shows an awareness of the role she must play to catch the wolf’s eye, even as she subverts
that role through her active efforts to embody it. In other words, the speaker knows she can play up
her naiveté to attract the wolf—a fact that in itself reflects some of the twisted dynamics at play, given
that the speaker’s power comes, paradoxically, from her lack of power. Though the wolf is initially
introduced as more prey than predator, once he becomes interested in the speaker, the poem shows
him dominating their relationship. He “leads [her]” into the woods, dominates her with his “thrashing
fur” and “heavy matted paws,” and “lick[s] his chops” as he crushes the speaker’s first forays into
artistic independence. Even if the speaker has sexual desire and agency, it’s still being
expressed within a broader world where men like the wolf hold more power. To that end, the poem
does not shy away from depicting the violence and brutality of the wolf’s sexual desire. The speaker
notes “better beware” as she enters the "wolf's lair" before their first sexual encounter, and describes
the clothes she leaves behind—both an act of undressing and a loss of innocence—as “murder clues.”

Ultimately, as the speaker gains experience and wisdom, she realizes that despite having sexual
agency, she still lacks true independence. The sixth stanza captures her disillusionment with the wolf
and shows her growing awareness of the oppressive nature of their relationship. She compares her
situation to a “mushroom / stopper[ing] the mouth of a buried corpse.” By murdering the wolf,
however, the speaker breaks free from the age-old power dynamic playing out between them and
upends the patriarchal norms that have shaped her. What's more, when the speaker discovers “my
grandmother’s [virgin white] bones” inside the wolf's body, the poem implies that their relationship
should be understood as part of a larger history of men exploiting women. It suggests that not only
has the speaker exerted her own independence, she has also struck a blow at generations of male
domination.The final image of the speaker as triumphant and independent supports a reading
of “Little Red Cap” as a feminist depiction of an empowered woman with agency.
Nevertheless, the poem has taken great pains to show us that she does not emerge unscathed.
In order to achieve true sexual and personal agency, she has had to withstand, recognize, and
ultimately put an end to the predator and patriarchal norms that have shaped her coming-of-
age.

Where this theme appears in the poem:


Line 6Lines 11-13Lines 16-22Lines 26-27Lines 31-33Lines 34-36Lines 38-40Line 42

Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Little Red Cap”


Lines 1-5
At childhood’s end, ...
... of the woods.
From the start, "Little Red Cap" subverts the classic fairy tale alluded to by its title. More commonly
known today as Little Red Riding Hood, this classic fairy tale of a girl hoodwinked and eaten by a
wolf is best known as a children's story. However, Duffy's poem opens "At childhood's end," making
clear from the get-go that her "Little Red Cap" is less interested in childish tales and more interested
in what comes next.
Additionally, this line introduces the poem's first extended metaphor by portraying childhood as a
physical place, which the speaker can leave behind just like she might walk out of a neighborhood.
Contributing to this metaphor are the use of "end" (a common suffix for street names in England, akin
to "Road" or "Avenue") and a list of familiar landmarks on the outskirts of town: "The houses petered
out / into playing fields, the factory, allotments." Each of these landmarks, especially the factory,
paint the picture of a worn-out industrial town, and the further away the speaker goes, the emptier the
landscape becomes, until all that's left are an abandoned railroad track and a "hermit's caravan" in line
4, emphasizing the area's isolation.
Along the way, in lines 2-3, the speaker describes the neighborhood allotments, or garden plots, as
"kept, like mistresses, by kneeling married men." This strange simile offers the poem's first hint at its
interest in sexuality as a theme. By comparing two very unlike things—gardening and illicit love
affairs—it gives readers a glimpse into the speaker's state of mind and her sexual curiosity as she exits
her childhood. Last but not least, the use of asyndeton in these lines helps convey the sensation of
moving further and further away, of more and more barriers appearing between the speaker's
childhood and the "woods."
Finally, at the end of this long walk, "you came at last to the edge of the woods." This clear-cut
boundary between childhood and the next stage of life symbolizes the cusp between childhood and
adulthood. This line of the poem also contains the first of only two uses of the second-person:
"you came at last to the edge of the woods." By using "you," the poem invites readers to
imagine themselves in the speaker's shoes, walking out of our own childhoods up to the edge of
the woods. The second-person also creates an effect of universality—"you" could be any one reader,
or it could be all of us—suggesting that the
journey out of childhood and into adulthood is a shared experience that everyone must face.

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