08/11/2025
The Crimson Thread
Beneath the arboured arch, a thread of crimson spun,
A girl, a cloak, a offered sun.
The path diverged in sylvan deep,
Where shadows wake and reason sleeps.
A question posed in tooth and grin,
What world without, what world within?
The basket holds both bread and wine,
A simple task, a fractured line.
To Grandmother’s house, through psyche’s wood,
The understood, the misunderstood.
A Multi-Perspectival Exegesis of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’
Psychoanalytical Depths: The Labyrinth of the Psyche
The tale of Little Red Riding Hood serves as a profound allegory for the internal architecture of the two-legged (human) psyche, a narrative battleground where primal forces clash.
Freudian Perspective (The Tripartite Drama):
From an orthodox Freudian standpoint, the narrative is a stark dramatisation of the Id, Ego, and Superego.
The Wolf is the unadulterated Id—the primal, instinctual, and rapacious force of the subconscious and unconscious, driven by the pleasure principle and devoid of morality.
Its deception and consumption represent the raw, often destructive, nature of untamed desire.
Little Red Riding Hood herself embodies the nascent Ego, the conscious self navigating the world.
Her journey represents the Ego’s perilous negotiation between the demands of the Id (the wolf’s temptations off the path) and the prohibitions of the Superego (the mother’s instruction to "stay on the path").
Her famous dialogue—"What big eyes you have!"—signifies the Ego’s dawning, terrified recognition of the Id’s true nature.
The Huntsman is the heroic manifestation of the Ego, or perhaps the integrated Superego—the rational, societal, and moral principle that intervenes to restore order.
He slays the beast of unbridled instinct and liberates the swallowed contents (the grandmother and Red), symbolising the Ego’s capacity to master and integrate subconscious and unconscious drives into a functional whole.
Oedipal Undertones:
A more contentious reading posits an Oedipal framework. The Wolf who displaces and impersonates the Grandmother can be interpreted as a paternal figure, representing the girl’s subconscious and unconscious sexual attraction to the father (or a father substitute) and the subsequent maternal rivalry.
The consumption symbolises a regression to a pre-Oedipal, oral stage of development, a desire to be wholly incorporated by the parent. The Huntsman’s intervention then becomes the necessary imposition of the in**st taboo, freeing the girl from this psychical entrapment.
Bibliography:
Freud, S. (1923). The Ego and the Id. W.W. Norton & Company.
Bettelheim, B. (1976). The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. Thames & Hudson.
Dundes, A. (Ed.). (1989). Little Red Riding Hood: A Casebook. University of Wisconsin Press.
The Jungian Archetypal Journey: Individuation in the Dark Wood
A Jungian analysis transcends the personal psyche, viewing the tale as a universal map of the individuation process—the journey toward psychological wholeness.
Archetypal Actors:
Little Red Riding Hood is the Ego-consciousness, the innocent heroine embarking on her quest.
The Forest is the subconscious and unconscious itself- dark, unknown, and filled with both danger and potential.
The Wolf is the Shadow archetype.
It represents the repressed, instinctual, and potentially destructive aspects of the personality. It is not purely evil but rather a negative, unrecognised part of the self that must be confronted and integrated for wholeness to be achieved.
The Grandmother can be seen as a facet of the Self (the archetype of totality and the goal of individuation) in its weakened, sickly state—indicating a disconnection from one's essential nature.
The Huntsman is a symbol of the Hero archetype or the Anthropos (the primal man), representing the active, conscious will of the Ego that must venture into the subconscious and unconscious (the forest) to rescue and integrate the captured aspects of the Self.
The Process:
The story depicts a failed initial encounter with the Shadow. The Ego (Red) is naive and is utterly overwhelmed and "devoured" by the Shadow (the Wolf), leading to a state of psychic dissolution.
Salvation comes only from the intervention of the heroic principle (the Huntsman), which performs the necessary act of nekyia—descending into the belly of the beast (the subconscious and unconscious) to liberate and redeem the captured elements.
The stones placed in the Wolf’s belly signify the consolidation of a new, stronger psychological foundation, one that is conscious and enduring, unlike the fleeting satisfaction of instinct.
Bibliography:
Jung, C.G. (1959). The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
von Franz, M-L. (1970). The Interpretation of Fairy Tales. Shambhala Publications.
Henderson, J.L. (1964). The Wisdom of the Serpent: The Myths of Death, Rebirth, and Resurrection. George Braziller.
Gestalt Therapy: The Internal Dialogue of Parts
From a Gestalt perspective, the entire tale is an internal drama within a single individual. Each character represents a different aspect or "part" of the self that is in conflict.
The Mother is the part that gives cautious, pragmatic rules.
Little Red is the curious, experiential, and somewhat naive part of the self that seeks new engagement with the world.
The Wolf is the aggressive, hungry, possessive, and manipulative part—the drive that seeks immediate gratification without regard for consequences.
The Grandmother is the inner wisdom, the older, wiser self that has become weak and neglected.
The Huntsman is the assertive, boundary-setting, and integrating part of the self that can take decisive action to restore internal balance.
The therapeutic question becomes: How does the individual (the whole person) allow the Red part to be seduced and consumed by the Wolf part? The "path" is the healthy, contactful way of being in the world.
Straying from it represents a break in awareness, leading to a catastrophic confluence where the Wolf part impersonates and silences the Grandmother (wisdom) part. The climax is the moment of integration, where the Huntsman (assertive awareness) must destroy the destructive pattern (kill the Wolf) to free the trapped aspects of the self and restore health.
Bibliography:
Perls, F., Hefferline, R., & Goodman, P. (1951). Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality. The Gestalt Journal Press.
Clarkson, P. (1989). Gestalt Counselling in Action. SAGE Publications.
Zinker, J. (1977). Creative Process in Gestalt Therapy. Vintage Books.
Esoteric, Spiritual & Ancestral Viewpoints
Druidic/Native Western View:
In a pre-Christian, animistic Britain, Ireland, and Europe, the forest was not a place of danger but a sacred temple.
The Wolf is not a mere predator but a powerful spirit animal, an embodiment of wild nature, instinct, and ferocity.
Red’s journey could be seen as a failed initiation. The red cloak marks her as a candidate for a rite of passage.
Her failure to respect the power of the Wolf spirit, to approach it with proper caution and wisdom, leads to her symbolic death.
The Huntsman, a master of the natural world (able to track and hunt), performs the correct ritual act: he honours the animal’s power by killing it, but also understands the need to restore balance by replacing its consumed life force with the heavy, enduring element of stone—a permanent offering to the spirits of the wood.
Vedic A***n View:
The Rigvedic worldview centres on cosmic order (Ṛta) versus chaos.
The Path is Ṛta—the righteous, ordered way of living (dharma).
Straying from it is an invitation to disorder. The Wolf is a force of druh (deceit) or vṛtra (the obstructive dark force that holds back waters/consciousness). The red cloak could symbolise tejas—spiritual fire and energy, which is dangerously alluring to chaotic forces if not protected by wisdom.
The Huntsman is the Indra figure, the divine hero who wields the vajra (thunderbolt) to slay the serpent Vṛtra, release the waters of life (liberate the grandmother and girl), and restore cosmic order.
Shamanic View:
This is a classic narrative of a shamanic crisis. The protagonist enters a non-ordinary state of consciousness (the forest), where she is attacked and dismembered (devoured) by a spirit power (the wolf).
This symbolic death is a prerequisite for shamanic initiation.
The Hunstman is the guiding spirit or the shaman’s own power that performs the retrieval—cutting open the beast to perform a resurrection.
The stones sewn into the wolf’s belly signify the insertion of impassu—power objects or crystals—a practice common in shamanic traditions to heal or neutralise a negative or dark spirit.
Entheogenic View:
The story can be read as an allegory for an entheogenic journey.
The Forest is the entheogenic landscape of the mind-brain. The Wolf is the terrifying, ego-dissolving aspect of the experience—the "bad trip" where one’s identity is consumed by primal fear and archetypal forces.
The dialogue with the Wolf represents the profound and often paradoxical revelations encountered in this state.
The Huntsman’s intervention is the reintegration into consensus reality, the "return" where the traveller is retrieved from the depths.
The experience, though terrifying, leaves one permanently changed, with a heavier, more substantial foundation (the stones).
Holistic and Integral View:
An Integral (Ken Wilber) analysis would place the story on a developmental spectrum.
Red Riding Hood begins at a naive, egocentric stage (amber/amber).
Her encounter with the Wolf (a representation of a higher, more complex and terrifying worldview, perhaps orange or even green postmodern relativism) devours her simple paradigm.
The Huntsman does not represent a regression but a transcendence and integration (integral yellow/turquoise)—he acknowledges the power and reality of the Wolf but acts with force and wisdom to establish a new, more complex order that includes but surpasses the previous stages.
The Stones They Sewed
And from the dark, a hand precise,
To still the beast with blade and ice.
What was consumed is now set free,
Beneath the ancient, watching tree.
But in the cavern, dark and deep,
A weight of stone where gut did weep.
A truth replaced the fleeting feast,
To anchor man and mind and beast.
The cloak still red, the path still true,
But seen with eyes both old and new.
For in the wood, where shadows fall,
We find the Self, beyond the wall.
©DrAndrewMacLeanPagonMDPhD2025
( द्रुविद् रिषि द्रुवेद सरस्वती Druid Rishi Druveda Saraswati)
All rights reserved.
Bibliographies:
Druidic: Matthews, J. & Matthews, C. (1994). The Encyclopaedia of Celtic Wisdom. Element Books.
Vedic A***n: Doniger O’Flaherty, W. (1981). The Rig Veda: An Anthology. Penguin Classics.
Shamanic: Harner, M. (1980). The Way of the Shaman. HarperOne.
Entheogenic: McKenna, T. (1992). Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge. Bantam.
Holistic: Wilber, K. (2000). A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science and Spirituality. Shambhala.
