In the test case of “Little red Riding Hood”, the author, Zohar Shavit, makes the claim that the concept of childhood as we know it today did not exist until the seventeenth century. Part of this reason was because prior to the seventeenth century there was no educational system in place for children, and no children’s literature was available. Also, the Middle Ages was a tough period where children’s mortality rates were very high. If a child did survive, they were not able to stay a child for long. Back then, children married and went to work very young, making it almost impossible to have a childhood. To demonstrate this, Shavit recalls the classic story of “Little Red Riding Hood”. “Little Red Riding Hood” is a story written for adults and children. Though the original author, Perrault, meant for the story to be told to children, the underlying message of “Little Red Riding Hood” is rather gruesome, and a message that only adults could understand. “Little Red Riding Hood”, in essence, is about a village girl who is taken advantage by a man. The story is underlined with an erotic meaning, as the author goes into detail about the girls beauty and innocence.

Shavit then does to analyze the Brothers Grimm version of “Little Red Riding Hood” that was published 100 years after the original version by Perrault. Shavit claims that the differences are because in 100 years a new emphasis on educating the child was put into place. The Brothers Grimm changed the tone of the story, changing it from satire to amusement; their ending was happy rather than sad/tragic. The Grimm version also was meant to be appropriate for children to read, which was not the case earlier in Parrault’s version. The Grimm version of “Little Red Riding Hood”, to my understanding, is similar to the “Disney” version of Perrault’s original story. As times change, the way we view children change. This is evident in the two evolutions of the same story.