Gender Roles within Sherlock Holmes and Little Red Riding Hood

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and "Little Red Cap." The gender roles amongst this patriarchal society, both old and new, are more specifically defined as females being positioned in which they are victimized by male violence even as they must also situate themselves as recipients to protection also provided by male.

In "The Speckled Band," character Helen Stoner is the main featured female of the story who exudes a kind of innocence somewhat similar to that of the young girl in "Little Red Cap." Helen seeks help from detective Sherlock Holmes -- male -- who plays the role of the protector. Grimesby Roylott is the father of Helen Stoner who provides the "male violence" through the reveal that he murdered Julia, Helen's sister. Thus, it is evident right away that these same gender roles seen in "The Speckled Band" are applied the same way that they are applied in the "Little Red Cap." In "The Little Red Cap," the wolf is the male perpetrator, and the huntsman is the male protector. This assignment of the ...

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they believed to be Roylott's "Eastern" characteristics. Again, in "Little Red Cap," the wolf, who is comparable with Roylott, is not only given the gender male, but indirectly, he is also putting the blame of his own violence onto the fact that he is a wolf. Strangely, that brings the audience's attention to the ignorance of the little girl rather than the wrongdoing of the wolf. It brings people to question how stupid the red riding hood must be to blindly give information to the wolf while they were in the woods or how she did not recognize her grandma was actually the wolf. In Charles Perrault's version of "The Red Riding Hood," he writes, "The poor child, who did not know that it ...

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