Theming Andrew Lang's Little Red Riding Hood
Let's run through a classic fairy tale, Little Red Riding Hood, to illustrate the Theme Ontology Project's system of annotation.
The first question confronting us is which version of this classic fairy tale about a young girl and a Big Bad Wolf should we choose? Recall, for a story to fall within the scope of this project it must not only be unambiguously identifiable by title and date, but also be in principle obtainable to others now and into the future. Motivated by these considerations, we settle on a version of the tale which was first published in 1889 in Andrew Lang's The Blue Fairy Book [3]. The full text is readily available at Wikisource.
Could we lump several different version together under one entry? Our answer to that is: Yes, but only if all the versions have exactly the same themes. This is unlikely to be the case for notably different versions of old folk stories, but could arguably apply in different translations of a story.
This table catalogs some themes of Andrew Lang's Little Red Riding-Hood. It is not intended to be taken as an exhaustive list of themes that apply to the story, but rather as a toy example that serves to illustrate the system of thematic annotation used in the project.
| Theme | Level | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| be wary of strangers | choice | Charles Perrault sums up the moral of the story as follows: "From this story one learns that children, especially young lasses, pretty, courteous and well-bred, do very wrong to listen to strangers, And it is not an unheard thing if the Wolf is thereby provided with his dinner". |
| appearances can be deceiving | choice | This common aphorism is illustrated by the Wolf lying to Little Red Riding-Hood and dressing up in her grandmother's clothing in order to lull the poor child into a false sense of security. |
| human childhood | major | Little Red Riding-Hood innocently trusted the Wolf, and engaged in childish diversions such as chasing butterflies. |
| wicked character vs. virtuous character | major | The conniving, deceitful Wolf was contrasted with the innocent little country girl Little Red Riding-Hood. |
| coping with a loved one being gravely ill | minor | The mother was concerned because the grandmother had recently been "very ill". |
| grandmother and granddaughter | minor | Little Red Riding-Hood set out to deliver a custard and some butter to her convalescing grandmother. |
| mother and daughter | minor | Little Red Riding-Hood happily went on an errand at her dotting mother's bidding. |
In the story, an innocent little girl, whom everybody called Little Red Riding-Hood, sets out to deliver a custard and some butter to her convalescing grandmother, only to be devoured by a Big Bad Wolf dressed up in the poor old grandmother's clothes. The theme be wary of strangers is assigned as a "choice" theme on account that it captures what is commonly understood to be the moral of the story. The following themes are "major" because they are topical through most of the story: appearances can be deceiving, human childhood, and wicked character vs. virtuous character. Meanwhile, coping with a loved on being gravely ill, grandmother and granddaughter, and mother and daughter are relegated to "minor" theme status since are topical only at the very start of the story.
While each individual theme is well-justified, there is wiggle room when it comes to theme level assignments. For example, one could argue that appearances can be deceiving is equally well a moral of the story and should therefore be regarded as a "choice" theme. Or one might contend that grandmother and granddaughter rises only to the level of a "minor" theme since the relationship between Little Red Riding-Hood and her convalescing grandmother was not seriously explored. Ambiguous and borderline cases such as these are common and inevitable. The best advice for themers is to use common sense, justify a theme's level in its comment, and to discuss it with the rest of the community when there the situation is ambiguous.
