Little Red-Cap Carol Ann Duffy 1999

Using the concepts of intertextuality, reader-response theory, and an appreciation of biographical and historical context, how can one be confident in their interpretation of Carol Ann Duffy poem?”

Original Poem:

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

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

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

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? 1
Then I slid from between his heavy matted paws
And went in search of a living bird – white dove –
Which flew, straight, from my hands to his open 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

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

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 the 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.

Interpretation:

Areas to be discussed: Intertextuality, contextuality, the text itself

Intertextuality: This poem has connections to the story Little Red Riding Hood. Aspects such as the wolf, the mentioning of the “grandmother”, the title, and lines such as “What big ears he had! What big eyes he had! What teeth!..” are very similar to what is written in Little Red Riding Hood. There is intertextuality between Little Red-Cap and Little Red Riding Hood. It’s because the stories both have the girl, the wolf, and the interaction between both. At least, when I read this poem the first time, I thought of Little Red Riding Hood. This intertextuality adds a nice touch to the poem. As readers will automatically think of the story of Little Red Riding Hood and compare between the two. I believe this is the intention of the poet. The comparison between the poem and the story will allude to points and arguments the poet tries to convey which I write below in “Contextuality”.

Contextuality: Zooming out to the global scale, this poem corresponds to the feminist movements during the period the poet has lived. This whole poem could be a symbolisation of the second-wave feminism of the 1960s-1980s focused on issues of equality and discrimination/the third-wave feminism movement began the early 1990s. The first few stanzas could be the acknowledgement of the fact that in history, women are the people who are being taken advantages of. And the following stanzas could be telling the readers that women are rising up/need to rise up just like the protagonist in the poem. I find this quite interesting because, in the original story of Little Red Riding Hood, the girl is “saved” by a woodsman. However, in Little Red-Cap, the narrator saved herself. Here, the poet might be alluding to the argument that women do not have to be saved, as well as declaring the independence of women.

The text itself: There is a lot of rhyme between the lines. For example, in lines 8-9, “…in his wolfy drawl, a paperback in his hairy paw, red wine staining his breaded jaw.” create a rhyme. Here, the girl is describing the appearances of the wolf. By using these rhyme structures and descriptions, the poet creates an imagery of the wolf in the readers’ minds. The constant creations of imageries convey the author’s ideas within the poem very well. The poet has also used symbolism such as the white dove – symbolising peace & hope – which “flew, straight, from my hands to his open mouth.” This could mean that fairness between male and female is not achieved, often the idea is just being abused by a male. Which leads to the central claim of the poem, which is to convey the idea of justice and feminism to the readers and society.

Poems are written not to be understood but to be interpreted. One can be confident in their interpretation of any poems as long as they have evidence for why they made those interpretations.