AI ToolsNew
Tools to make learning and teaching easier
Question about this poem?
Have a question about this poem?
Have a specific question about this poem?
Have a specific question about this poem?
Have a specific question about this poem?
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
Ask us
Ask us
Ask a question
Ask a question
Ask a question
-
“Little Red Cap” Introduction
-
"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 wolf gives 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.
-
-
“Little Red Cap” Themes
-
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 1
- Lines 5-6
- Lines 7-11
- Lines 11-12
- Lines 14-22
- Lines 31-32
- Lines 32-34
- Lines 34-39
- Lines 39-41
- Line 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 7-8
- Lines 13-16
- Lines 23-30
- Lines 31-32
- Lines 33-36
- Lines 38-39
- Line 42
-
Gender and Power
Even 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 6
- Lines 11-13
- Lines 16-22
- Lines 26-27
- Lines 31-33
- Lines 34-36
- Lines 38-40
- Line 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.
-
Lines 6-10
It was there ...
... had! What teeth!
Unlock all 532 words of this analysis of Lines 6-10 of “Little Red Cap,” and get the Line-by-Line Analysis for every poem we cover.
Plus so much more...
Get LitCharts A+ -
Lines 11-13
In the interval, ...
... my first. -
Lines 13-16
You might ask ...
... eyes of owls. -
Lines 16-18
I crawled in ...
... lost both shoes -
Lines 19-22
but got there, ...
... love a wolf? -
Lines 23-27
Then I slid ...
... licking his chops. -
Lines 27-30
As soon as ...
... music and blood. -
Lines 31-36
But then I ...
... rhyme, same reason. -
Lines 36-40
I took an ...
... my grandmother’s bones. -
Lines 41-42
I filled his ...
... singing, all alone.
-
-
“Little Red Cap” Symbols
-
Birds
Throughout the poem, birds serve as a symbol for poetry and knowledge. When the speaker first follows the wolf into the woods in stanza 3, she imagines him leading her "to [the] dark tangled thorny place" of adult sexuality and poetry. That place is also described as "lit by the eyes of owls." This is the first, subtle instance of birds making a symbolic appearance, representing the poetic wisdom and knowledge the speaker hopes to find within the woods.
More overtly symbolic is the moment in the final line of stanza 4, when the speaker untangles herself from the wolf and goes "in search of a living bird – white dove –". This "living" bird represents the speaker's artistic ambitions as she enters a new stage of life. Her first poems are symbolized by a "white dove," since the speaker is still in the process of coming-of-age artistically. Though she has lost her virginity by this point in the poem, her poetry is still innocent and unformed.
After that "white dove" gets eaten by the wolf, the speaker uses his library to grow her artistic experience. Here, in a moment of literary ecstasy, she describes her discovery of her poetic voice as a "warm, beating, frantic, winged" experience, again conjuring bird-like imagery.
By stanza 6, after spending a decade with the wolf, the speaker informs readers that she has learned "to tell ... that birds are the uttered thought of trees." Once again, the birds represent poetry, and this time the speaker can confidently trace their origins to the "trees" within the woods where she has been evolving as an artist.
Interestingly, when the speaker exits the woods, there is no symbolic bird accompanying her; instead, she carries flowers. However, the poem does describe her as "singing," which is of course something that birds also do. Having come-of-age artistically, the speaker no longer needs the birds to serve as metaphors; now she, the poet, sings her own song.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 16: “lit by the eyes of owls.”
- Lines 24-25: “went in search of a living bird – white dove – / which flew, straight, from my hands to his open mouth.”
- Line 30: “warm, beating, frantic, winged”
- Lines 33-34: “that birds / are the uttered thought of trees”
- Line 42: “singing”
-
The Woods
The woods take on a symbolic meaning throughout the poem. They first appear in line 5, still at a distance: the speaker leaves "childhood's end" and approaches "the edge of the woods." The poem's emphasis on "the edge" makes clear that this is a crucial boundary, and that what lies beyond that boundary is significant. Since childhood is behind the speaker, then naturally the woods symbolize the stage of life that lies ahead: adulthood.
Woods are often dense, dark, and hard to navigate, which makes them a particularly ripe symbol for the complexities of adulthood. The speaker herself describes them as "a dark tangled thorny place" (and, importantly, identifies that place as distinctly "away from home," her childhood). In her eyes, the woods represent both the intriguing world of adult sexuality and the mysterious world of poetry. Both of those interpretations carry through the rest of the poem, as the speaker develops into a sexually mature and artistically powerful adult within the woods. This is particularly evident in stanza 6, when the speaker says "it took ten years in the woods" for her to realize her own poetic power and grow disenchanted with the wolf.
In lines 37 and 38, the speaker even attacks elements of the woods—a willow tree and a salmon—as she begins to interrogate the role that violence played in bringing her into the woods, and wield it for herself. This moment can be interpreted as the speaker attacking her own adolescence, dismantling the final trappings of youth that have kept her from fully achieving adult maturity.
Finally, in the poem's final line, the speaker leaves the woods an empowered, independent woman. For the first time, the woods are referred to as "the forest," perhaps indicating that the speaker has already begun to search for new symbolic language now that she is out of the woods and full-fledged adult at last.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 5: “the edge of the woods.”
- Line 14: “deep into the woods,”
- Line 15: “dark tangled thorny place”
- Line 19: “got there, wolf’s lair, better beware.”
- Lines 31-32: “ten years / in the woods”
- Lines 36-38: “ I took an axe / to a willow to see how it wept. I took an axe to a salmon / to see how it leapt.”
- Line 42: “Out of the forest”
-
White and Red
Throughout the poem, the colors white and red are used symbolically to represent innocence and maturity, respectively. (Color frequently serves a symbolic purpose in fairy tales, adding to this poem's fairy tale qualities as it tackles Little Red Riding Hood from a new perspective.)
White is the color of purity, innocence, and youth. The speaker's first attempts at poetry are symbolized by not just any bird but a pure "white dove." Likewise, her grandmother's bones, which represent the generations of women before her who have been repressed sexually and artistically, are also described as "virgin white." Their color implies that they never had a chance to mature.
In contrast, the wolf is first introduced with "red wine" staining his jaw, immediately marking him as older and more sexually mature than the speaker. The "scraps of red" from the speaker's blazer also hint at her maturing sexuality, symbolizing drops of blood as she loses her virginity and innocence at the wolf's hands. Later, she describes the wolf's library as "crimson," which tells us that the world of poetry is also a mature, adult space.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 9: “red wine”
- Line 17: “scraps of red”
- Line 24: “white dove ”
- Line 28: “crimson”
- Line 40: “virgin white”
-
Grandmother's Bones
In the final stanza of the poem, the speaker finds "the glistening, virgin white of my grandmother's bones" inside the wolf's body. This is firstly an allusion to the original fairy tale, in which the heroine's grandmother is eaten by the wolf. However, since Duffy's poem lacks a grandmother character, it becomes clear that these bones are serving a more symbolic purpose. Here, rather than representing a literal grandmother, they become a stand-in for the generations of women who have preceded the speaker. They, too, have been oppressed by men, whether by having their voices silenced by the male literary canon, or by finding themselves on the other end of an exploitative sexual relationship. By murdering the wolf, and freeing her grandmother's bones, the speaker symbolically empowers not just herself but the women who have come before her.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 40: “the glistening, virgin white of my grandmother’s bones.”
-
Books and Poetry
There are several references to books and poetry throughout the poem. The wolf is first spotted with "reading his verse out loud ... a paperback in his hairy paw," and later the speaker creeps into his library, "aglow with books," in order to discover poetry for herself. Of course, line 13 explicitly uses the word "Poetry," as the speaker justifies her motivations for seeking out a sexual relationship with the wolf.
These can all be understood as literal references to books and the art of poetry, since the poem's characters are both poets. Nevertheless, they should also be interpreted as symbolic, carrying more weight than just a physical object or mundane subject matter. Throughout the poem, it is clear that the speaker views books and poetry as gateways to knowledge, and as the path to adulthood. It is the wolf's poetic expertise that first catches her eye; poetry that motivates her to pursue a relationship with him; and poetry that gives her the most gratification as she comes-of-age. By the poem's conclusion, it is only because the speaker has mastered the art of poetry and (violently) made space for her uniquely female voice that she is able to officially transition into adult life. Clearly, books and poetry are more than just ordinary objects; they symbolize, in many ways, free expression and the possession power.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 7: “reading ”
- Line 8: “paperback ”
- Line 13: “Poetry.”
- Line 28: “aglow with books.”
-
-
“Little Red Cap” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
-
Allusion
The entirety of "Little Red Cap" is an allusion to the fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood." (First published in 1812 by the Brothers Grimm, the story was originally called "Little Red Cap," just like Duffy's poem.) Though her poem offers a feminist reinterpretation of the story, with an empowered Little Red Cap driving much of the action, there are a number of instances where the poem directly alludes to its fairy tale origins.
The first, of course, is the title itself. The second are its characters: a young girl on the brink of maturity, an allusion to Little Red Cap herself; and the older man she has an affair with, who is always referred to by the title "the wolf." This is of course an explicit allusion to the "Big Bad Wolf" of the fairy tale, who pursues the heroine and (in some versions) gobbles up both her and her grandmother before they are rescued by a passing woodsman. The wolf is even described using lines from the fairy tale—"What big ears / he had! What big eyes he had! What teeth!"—and is consistently given animalistic traits, such as hairy paws and fur.
The speaker's journey "deep into the woods" is also an allusion to the plot of the fairy tale. Both the poem and the fairy tale show their heroine having some harrowing experiences in the woods, including being caught by the menacing wolf. In the poem, the speaker is a consensual participant in their relationship (unlike the fairy tale, where Little Red Riding Hood is first tricked and then eaten) but the centrality of the allusion tells readers that there's a predatory side to the wolf in the poem, as well.
Other allusive references to the fairy tale include:
- the "scraps of red" torn from the speaker's school blazer, which of course are allusions to the famous red hood of the fairy tale character;
- the image of the wolf and the speaker in bed together, which conjures up the fairy tale image of the wolf in bed, dressed in grandmother's clothing;
- the phrase "licking his chops," which echoes the fairy tale wolf's consumption of Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother
- the axe that the speaker uses to kill the wolf, which is the same weapon used in the fairy tale;
- the grandmother inside the wolf's body;
- the act of filling the wolf's belly with stones and sewing him up, which also takes place in the original fairy tale, in order to weigh the wolf down and prevent him from chasing after Little Red Riding Hood again;
- the flowers carried by the speaker as she leaves the woods might allude to the opening of the original fairy tale, when Red Riding Hood wanders off the path to her grandmother's house because she is picking flowers, which is how the wolf finds her.
Where allusion appears in the poem:- Lines 5-6: “till you came at last to the edge of the woods. / It was there that I first clapped eyes on the wolf.”
- Lines 9-10: “What big ears / he had! What big eyes he had! What teeth!”
- Lines 14-19: “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.”
- Lines 26-27: “How nice, breakfast in bed, he said, / licking his chops.”
- Lines 38-41: “I took an axe to the wolf / as he slept, one chop, scrotum to throat, and saw / the glistening, virgin white of my grandmother’s bones. / I filled his old belly with stones. I stitched him up.”
- Line 42: “Out of the forest I come with my flowers, singing, all alone.”
-
Assonance
Unlock all 458 words of this analysis of Assonance in “Little Red Cap,” and get the poetic device analyses for every poem we cover.
Plus so much more...
Get LitCharts A+ -
Enjambment
-
Extended Metaphor
-
Metaphor
-
Repetition
-
Alliteration
-
Asyndeton
-
Rhetorical Question
-
Caesura
-
-
“Little Red Cap” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Petered out
- Allotments
- Hermit
- Caravan
- Sweet sixteen, never been
- Babe
- Waif
- Stockings
- Lair
- Aglow
- Frantic
Petered out-
(Location in poem: Line 1: “petered out”)
Decreased or faded gradually before coming to an end. To say "the houses petered out" means that at the outskirts of this neighborhood there are fewer and fewer houses, until finally there are none.
-
Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Little Red Cap”
-
Form
"Little Red Cap" is not written in a traditional form, such as a sonnet or a villanelle, and does not have a regular meter or rhyme scheme. Instead, it is written in free verse, which was the poetic norm by the late 20th century, when Carol Ann Duffy was writing this poem. It could be considered a dramatic monologue, in that it does consist of a first-person speaker's uninterrupted reflections, although the speaker does address the reader, which some believe violates the dramatic monologue's tradition.
Each of the poem's seven stanzas is exactly six lines long, a uniformity that stands out mostly because such uniformity is not present in other aspects of the poem. The other most consistent formal aspect of the "Little Red Cap" is its regular use of enjambment, between both lines and stanzas. This creates a free-flowing sense of narrative movement, which carries readers through the speaker's story and the poem. Between stanzas, it also adds weight and significance, drawing extra attention to key moments in the speaker's coming-of-age experience. (We discuss this more in the Poetic Devices section of this guide.)
-
Meter
"Little Red Cap," is written in free verse, which does not have meter, and is typical of late 20th century poetry, when Duffy was writing. Interestingly, the first line, "At childhood's end, the houses petered out," is written in iambic pentameter, a traditional form of poetic meter that dates back to the era of John Donne and William Shakespeare. Iambic pentameter means there are five iambs—poetic feet with an unstressed-stressed, or da DUM, rhythm—per line:
At child- | hood's end, | the hou- | ses pet- | ered out
From there on out, however, the poem resists any regular meter, as if to prove even within the meter of the poem itself that adulthood is more complex, and less predictable, than childhood.
-
Rhyme Scheme
The poem does not have a regular rhyme scheme. Throughout "Little Red Cap," however, Duffy does often use a great deal of assonance and internal rhyme to create an overall childish effect that emphasizes the poem's focus on the end of childhood, and echoes its fairy tale source material.
The early stanzas in particular are full of examples: for instance, note the sing-song rhyme created by "drawl," "paw," and "jaw" in lines 8-9:
in his wolfy drawl, a paperback in his hairy paw,
red wine staining his bearded jaw.There's also "sweet sixteen, never been" in line 12 and "got there, wolf's lair, better beware" in stanza 4.This irregular but persistent rhyme shows how the speaker is still evolving out of childish language and patterns even as she takes determined steps toward adulthood and maturity.
Tellingly, in stanza 5, as the speaker matures, the poem begins to use less internal rhyme. When the wolf gobbles up the speaker's poem, however, belittling her artistic ambitions, she resorts again to her old internal rhyme habit: "One bite, dead. How nice, breakfast in bed, he said." The rhyme here also creates a sense of flippancy, reflecting the casual disregard with which the wolf devours the speaker's bird (which can be understood as a symbol for her poetry; more on that in the Symbols section of this guide).
In the final stanza of the poem, however, Duffy uses a regular internal rhyme scheme for several lines:
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. ...Just as the poem is newly in control of its rhyme scheme, the speaker is newly in control of her situation. The effect is empowering, capturing the speaker's assertion of her independence and agency, and her desire to wield violence rather than receive it.
-
-
“Little Red Cap” Speaker
-
The speaker of the poem is Little Red Cap, as suggested by the title. Throughout the poem, she uses the first-person perspective, recounting her journey from childhood to adulthood. Her relationship with the wolf, and the fact that her journey echoes that of the fairy tale heroine, all suggest that readers are meant to understand this speaker as a version of Little Red Cap herself.
More specifically, within the context of this poem, Little Red Cap is a teenage girl. The speaker describes herself as "sweet sixteen, never been, babe, waif" and tells readers that the drink the wolf buys her is her first. She is still wearing a school blazer when she follows the wolf into the woods, and later refers to herself as a "little girl" when she is with the wolf. Many moments in the poem, including the metaphor "lesson one ... the love poem" implicitly refer to sex, affirming that the speaker is still young enough that this is her first sexual experience.
Throughout the poem, the speaker's main goals are to explore her sexual curiosity and artistic ambition. She plays an active role in her relationship with the wolf, and is the first to spot him and approach him. She is clearly curious about sex, and drawn to the wolf's maturity. But more than just a teenage girl interested in sex and love, the speaker is also a poet. She cites her interest in poetry as her main motivation for pursuing the wolf, who is himself a poet, though he turns out to be a failure as a literary mentor.
Nevertheless, as the poem progresses, the speaker grows more and more infatuated with the written word. Stanza 5 captures her determination to master poetry despite the wolf's indifference, and contains the poem's most ecstatic moment ("Words, words were truly alive on the tongue ... music and blood"), as the speaker discovers her poetic voice for the first time. Poetry proves the means by which the speaker frees herself from both the woods and the wolf, further emphasizing its key role in the speaker's development.
In stanza 6 ("But then I was young ..."), the speaker explicitly describes the many ways she's grown up over a decade spent with the wolf. One of those ways includes her development into a mature artist. The natural imagery and metaphorical language in the sixth stanza is rich and nuanced, implicitly evoking the speaker's maturation even as she describes it for us. This stanza also contains the line, "But then I was young." Coupled with the poem's use of the past tense in its early stanzas, this line makes clear that the speaker is looking back on the events of the poem as she recounts them for us in the present-day. This self-reflective lens allows for the speaker to simultaneously capture her genuine sexual curiosity and excitement as a young girl, even as she now sees (and conveys) the wolf's predatory role in their relationship in a new, more damning light than she did back then.
By the end of the poem, the speaker has achieved what she set out to do. At first the victim of violence, subject to the wolf's desires, the speaker takes charge at the poem's conclusion, performing acts of violence against the woods and ultimately murdering the wolf. No longer a little girl wowed by the wolf's life experience and literary expertise, the speaker has obtained life experience and poetic expertise of her own, and is ready to assert full agency over her future. As she exits the woods, empowered by her poetic talent, the speaker notes that she is now "all alone," a full-fledged, independent adult.
-
-
“Little Red Cap” Setting
-
"Little Red Cap" begins at "childhood's end," a space that the speaker metaphorically likens to the edge of a neighborhood. Certain details in this stanza hint that this neighborhood is based on industrial Midlands England, where Duffy herself grew up. There are playing fields, a factory, and a "silent railway line," suggesting that this area has seen better days. That is indeed true of the Midlands during the era when Duffy was growing up and industrialization was slowing down. Once the teeming site of the Industrial Revolution, heavy industry began to decline in the 1970s and 1980s.
Beyond this depiction of "childhood's end" as a typical Midlands neighborhood, however, the poem largely takes place in the metaphorical space of "the woods," which comes to represent adulthood in all its teeming complexities. The poem does take care to note a clear boundary between "childhood's end" and what lies ahead, by first describing the long journey away from the neighborhood of childhood, and then firmly establishing there is an "edge" of the woods the speaker must cross in order to enter.
Other settings in the poem include the wolf's lair, which the speaker reaches after a difficult journey that symbolizes her loss of innocence; and the library at the back of the wolf's lair, where the speaker gains access to the magical world of books and poetry.
-
-
Literary and Historical Context of “Little Red Cap”
Literary Context
The Scottish-born Carol Ann Duffy (1955-present) is the first (and so far, the only) woman to serve as Poet Laureate of the UK. A working-class writer and an out lesbian, she brought fresh air and new perspectives to a laureateship historically dominated by (mostly) straight, white, middle-class men.
"Little Red Cap" appears in Duffy's fifth collection of poems, The World's Wife (1999). In this collection, Duffy writes from the viewpoints of the wives, sisters, and female contemporaries of famous and infamous men. Some of her characters include Mrs. Aesop, Circe, Mrs. Sisyphus, and Mrs. Darwin. In witty, conversational language, The World’s Wife subverts traditional male perspectives, examining instead the ways that women's stories have been ignored, overlooked, or misrepresented.
In her fondness for dramatic monologues, Duffy follows in the footsteps of writers like Robert Browning, but she also fits into the contemporary poetry scene around her. Margaret Atwood, for example, has used the form for similar feminist purposes. Duffy is also one of many 20th-century poets to embrace free verse. She sees herself as a descendent both of more recent free verse poets like Sylvia Plath and of Romantics like John Keats. In turn, she has influenced (and championed) writers like Alice Oswald, Kate Clanchy, and Jeanette Winterson.
Historical Context
Duffy was born in Scotland in 1955 and came of age during second-wave feminism. While early feminism had been focused primarily on securing women's right to vote, second-wave feminism addressed a wider range of issues including reproductive rights, domestic violence, workplace equality, and more. Second-wave feminism was responding to many of the restrictive gender norms of the mid-20th century, including the idea that women's purpose in life was to become demure mothers and wives.
"Little Red Cap" is, of course, based on a fairy tale. Fairy tales were originally oral stories, before being written down by famous collectors such as Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm in the 18th and 19th centuries. This was the era of Romanticism, a cultural movement that emphasized nature, free expression, and spontaneous emotion. The Grimms in particular situated their collection of fairy tales within the Romantic movement, claiming that each story was an unedited cultural artifact, a preservation of Germany's oral folkloric tradition, transcribed word-for-word from rural storytellers.
Up until the 1970s, the idea that fairy tales were received oral tradition was the norm. However, scholars now believe that the Grimms heavily edited their stories in order to fit the romantic style and mood of their time. (Indeed, you can track the changes in language and content from the first 1812 edition to the 17th edition in 1864.) This discovery that fairy tales and folklore were "standardized" by men like the Grimms coincided with the arrival of the feminist movement, both culturally and literarily. For years, women had taken issue with the moralistic tone of many fairy tales, including Little Red Riding Hood, which often prescribe sexist rules and roles for girls and women to follow.
Learning now that those morals were not "authentic" to these stories, and that a richer female history of storytelling had been papered over, fairy tales became a popular source for feminist writers, including Anne Carson, Sylvia Plath, Angela Carter, Margaret Atwood, Jeannette Winterson, and, of course, Carol Ann Duffy. Their work is often twofold: excavating the female voices of authentic folkloric traditions, and upending the misogynistic morals and stereotypes enforced by the "classic" fairy tales collected and written down by men by re-writing those same stories from a contemporary feminist perspective.
-
More “Little Red Cap” Resources
-
External Resources
-
The Poem Out Loud — A video of "Little Red Cap" being read out loud.
-
The Original Fairy Tale — The 1812 fairy tale "Little Red Cap," as set down by the Brothers Grimm.
-
Duffy's Biography and More Poems — A valuable resource from the Poetry Foundation on Duffy's life and work.
-
Review of "The World's Wife" — A review of "The World's Wife," the collection to which "Little Red Cap" belongs, by Jeannette Winterson.
-
Interview with Carol Ann Duffy — An interview with the poet, towards the end of her term as UK Poet Laureate.
-
-
LitCharts on Other Poems by Carol Ann Duffy
-
