In literature, authors employ various strategies to highlight the central message being conveyed to the audience. Analyzing literary works through the lens of gender criticism emphasizes what the author considers masculine or feminine and that society and culture determine an individual's gender responsibility. In the classic fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood, gender strategies appear through the typical fragile women of mother and grandmother, the heartless and intelligent male wolf, and the naive and vulnerable girl like Little Riding Hood Red. In the classic tale of Little Red Riding Hood Red Riding Hood, Little Red Riding Hood leaves her mother to visit her grandmother, and both women possess feminine roles in society. The story begins in the kitchen with the mother cooking. In many cultures, communities assume that women should cook, clean, and do household chores. While the grandmother appears in the plot, the author shows her sick and weak. By portraying this elderly woman as weak, the author unconsciously implies the discomfort and vulnerability of women caused by the ideas and practices of an earlier period. The grandmother becomes vulnerable and naive when she expresses her susceptibility to the wolf when she tells him that she is “too weak to get out of bed” (Hyman 12). By admitting her helplessness, she recognizes the weakness of her sex compared to the more superior male wolf. As the male wolf submits to the intelligent role of a powerful and threatening being, he emphasizes the author's message that the society of that time believed males to be the more powerful sex. Men were considered the most intelligent age...... middle of paper ...... develops. In Little Red Riding Hood, the grandmother, mother and child all embody the stereotype of women in an ancient society where men are superior to women. The wolf and the male character who saves the female validate the masculine stereotype of this period, as the males become intelligent, brave, and strong throughout the story. These gender tactics appear in almost every literary work to convey the message that popular belief about genders can be either maintained by individuals' submission to society or changed by the recognition that these labels need not exist . Works Cited Bettelheim, Bruno. The uses of enchantment: the meaning and importance of fairy tales. London: Thames and Hudson, 1976. Print. Hyman, Trina Schart., Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm. Little Red Riding Hood. New York: Vacation Home, 1983. Print.