Text: A Wolf's Transcript - Little Red Riding Hood
Binary: Morality vs Immorality. This binary explores the idea of the wolf's actions. Is what the wolf doing moral or immoral? Although many assume the wolf in this story to be immoral, he tells another tale.
Complications:
This binary is insufficient because the readers are swayed to the fact that the wolf is inherently bad, being called the "big bad wolf" while little red writing hood has words seemingly to describe her innocence such as "little". However, the wolf tells a different perspective, suggesting that his actions were fueled by a desire to teach moral lessons.
"First, grant me my sense of history: I did it for posterity, for kindergarten teachers and a clear moral:"
Implications: The first few lines starts off with him explaining his reasons for his actions. By using the words "teachers" and "morals", the wolf indicates that his plan is about teaching a lesson. "posterity" and "history" give the sense that these actions are not who the wolf is now, but a different time period.
"I ran with that weight and fell down, simply so children could laugh at the noise of the stones cutting through my belly,"
Implications: This quote suggests that the wolf was full aware of his dying process, and was content with sacrificing his own life for the laughter and teachings for the children. He uses vivid verbs like "cutting through my belly" to indicate that he was suffered to teach get his lesson across.
Claim: These implications suggest that although the wolf is seemingly portrayed as the "bad guy", his selection of words throughout the transcript shows how he used his own character as a lesson for children. By repeatedly going back to the theme of children and teachings, he reinforces the fact that his actions had a purpose.
Analyses: The wolf in the tale, seemingly told to be the "big bad wolf", claims to be of a different nature. The wolf constantly reflects back to the theme of teaching a lesson to children by using the word "child" several times and suggests his transcript is a lesson for "kindergarten teachers". Even willingly sacrificing himself for the story, while little red riding hood and the grandma both survive, he still does so willingly and without complaint. This selfless act encompasses the wolf's true motives of teaching and morality.