little red cap.
• The title of this poem refers to the fairy tale red riding hood. It is a poem about Carol Ann Duffy’s affair with an older male poet when she was 16 years old. The title may also refer to the entertainers known as red caps, which may imply that the women in these poems describe dissatisfaction with their lives because they don’t have roles within society or according to men.
• The fact that it is the first poem of the collection is important as it is like an introduction to the collection with the way it is a poem about adoration for poetry. It also creates a more personal approach to the rest of the poems in the way that Duffy has experienced these gender stereotypes herself.
• Little red cap differs from the original fairy tale because it uses imagery and language to create a sexual story to do with lust and love for poetry. Also the roles of the wolf and red riding hood swap in this version of it, where the little red cap is sly and knows how to get what she wants, whereas the wolf is “good” and educated, and this is what makes him appealing to her. “you might as why. Here’s why. Poetry.”
• When the wolf is described, he is described as a wolf but almost a gentle giant with a twist of sarcastic wit “a paperback in his hairy paw”.
• The poem begins “at childhoods end”, this is saying that childhood is so powerful that it has been portrayed as a physical metaphor. It also relates to a place she may have grown up in, or to puberty, and the beginning of adulthood.
• At the end of the second stanza the line “I made sure he spotted me, sweet sixteen, never been, babe, waif” is delivered almost ironically, and makes her seem younger, yet perhaps not entirely innocent. It is delivered like a flaw in the fairy tale of red riding hood.
• Although she may seem grown up in this sense, throughout the poem there is an almost naughty childish school-girl voice, with the line “I lost both shoes but got there, wolf’s lair, better beware”. It sounds almost like a nursery rhyme or skipping chant.
• And then she goes on to talk about lessons, highlighting her juvenile yes witty tone. She is referring to sex as lessons, which is an obscure and morally difficult theme.
• There is a lot of imagery used which expressions little red cap losing her innocence, which can be interpreted as losing her virginity to the wolf and to poetry. It is a constant theme that poetry and the wolf come as a pair.
• The quote “away from home to a dark, tangled thorny place” refers to the woods, the lair of the wolf, and it is graphic and visual in that we can imagine what the wolfs lair was like, nasty and gritty and without protection or shelter, and it seems that this is exactly what little red cap wants. Something far from innocence and ignorance.
• “My stockings ripped to shreds, scraps of red from my blazer snagged on twig and branch, murder clues”. To fit in with the irregular theme of the stanzas, this phrase flows without distinct rhythm but it is rushed and excited and portrays her feelings at the time and her eagerness. The reference to murder is also sinister and could also be the murder of innocence.
• When she talks of “lesson one that night”, it is meant as a sexual reference and she elaborates “breath of wolf in my ear, was the love poem”, and it almost sounds like she is talking through the procedure the wolf went through to win her affection, or cheat her into feeling affection for him.
• “what little girl doesn’t dearly love a wolf?” duffy deliberately places this line separately to give it importance, it may imply that little red cap was not completely willing, and it may also be another childlike chant.
• Little red cap portrays her virginity as a white dove, the colour white portray purity and the colour white portrays innocent and virginity. “one bite, dead”, this quotation expresses the power of the wolf and the unfelt compassion he felt for taking her virginity and also perhaps the lack of care she felt. However the white dove “fle from my hands to his open mouth”, which does suggest willingness.
• “as soon as he slept I crept to the back of the lair” this quotation has internal rhyming with slept and crept, both phonetic lexis which express sneaky sly nature, and may suggest that although the wolf may be using her, she could also be usuing him for his poetry and his books.
• “words, words were truly alive on the tongue, in the head, warm, beating, frantic, winged; music and blood”
this quotation expresses the frantic passion of their affair, and also encourages the idea that the wolf is poetry, the wolf brought her to poetry and therefore they come together . duffy describes poetry similarly to sex, and it could be interpreted that the wolf just symbolises poetry and lust, which would give the little red cap a higher status in the poem.
• The last two stanzas take a different tone, she is now looking back, “it took ten years in the woods”, this says that their relationship lasted ten years.
this imagery in this stanza is also very colourful with its references to forests and wildlife, highlighting this image of the gritty nature of the wild relationship.
• “a greying wolf howls the same old song at the moon year in, year out” this directly refers to the wolf, and little red caps recognition that he is not what she thought he was.