Reflection on Little Red Cap

Originally, the story of Little Red Riding Hood was known to be "Little Red Cap", the titular name of the poem Duffy wrote. Not all fairy tales had happy ending as glossed over by Disney, and some may be even be originally morbid such as the story of Sleeping Beauty, originally coined by Charles Perraut, whereby the Princess was raped and impregnated while asleep. As the poem uses the title of the original story of Little Red Riding Hood, we see how Duffy is removing the sugar-coated gloss on the fairy tale that we are familiar with to link it back to a darker story.

Through the analysis, we are able to see sexual symbols and motifs in the poem. As sexual beings, we project our biological wants and needs through our interpretation of the world, and specifically in the realm of fairy tales, in the interpretation of its symbols and motifs. According to Freud as written in the BBC Article, "Maleficient:What Do Fairy Tales Really Mean?", fairy tales are stemmed from the same place as dreams, and motifs like forests and thorns indicated repressed desires and wish-fulfilment fantasies. Red Cap appears to be on the brink of puberty as highlighted by the opening line of "At childhood's end" and lead to a cat and mouse game involving the "Wolf" upon "first clapp[ing] eyes on the wolf" as she tries to make sure that he "spotted" her. The Wolf tries to "lead [her] deep into the woods" but little did he realise that he is falling into Red Cap's trap instead. This illustrates a complex plot as opposed to a generic one of a fairy tale, suggesting a ideas beyond a mere superficial value. 

With the advantage of a sultry disposition as exemplified by the term "babe", Red Cap being able to lure the Wolf easily also show a role reversal in which power and control now lays in Red Cap's hand as she has the power to manipulate the Wolf into her ulterior motive of exacting revenge over the death of her grandma, who was eaten by the Wolf.  There could also be an allusion that Red Cap could genuinely be attracted to the older "paperback" reading and wine-sippingWolf as she could see that the Wolf is able to "lead [her] deep into the woods" or being able to extend and widen her knowledge. However, Red Cap also reveal to be multifaceted with the ability to remorse and contemplate on the killing of the Wolf as she realise similar to cheetahs not being able to change their spots,  "year in, year out", the Wolf will still have the "same rhyme, same reason" illustrating how it will always be a killer in nature.

"Little Red Cap" ultimate challenges our perception of the role of women in society against traditional stereotypes. Such stereotypes that then become measures of qualities are warped and turned around in today's modern world and Duffy uses this poem to challenge the conventions of what it means to be a woman today.

Reflection (22/4/13-26/413)

Rereading Never Let Me Go this week has given me a better insight. This phase allowed me to zoom in on words and I could see things I've never noticed previously such as the characteristics of the main protagonist- Kathy and the importance of her narrating within the novel.

The test practice on Tuesday was also very helpful after we finished and looked at each other's work. For example, I compared my work with Wi Kiat and saw the weaknesses in my writing such as not being able to provide enough contextual evidence.

In preparation for next week's exams, I believe we'd still need to practice on more writing exercises. I am starting to get the hang of analyzing poetry better yet I believe we could benefit from a class session of discussion together with Ms. Abena to talk about tips and advices.

Reflection (25/3/13-29/3/13)

We further discussed Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence". Discussing about the lyrics this week in a circle on the carpet felt good as we simply exchanged more ideas and we gained a better insight. The key is that there is never a right answer but a logical analysis. Sometimes while analyzing, it seems that we truly forget to consider how we felt and instead get too caught up with what the author is trying to imply or how it affects the reader. I believe that we have to keep a balance of our personal response too.

We also analyzed "Anthem for Doomed Youth" which I personally found, very challenging. However, through this exercise, I realize the importance of a strong vocabulary bank. Certain words, even though archaic, carries great analytical value. Even when these difficult words have their definition given, I would not take the risk to depend on it and by practicing often on vocabulary.com, this will put me in good stead for those challenges.

I cannot mention enough that vocabulary.com has been incredibly helpful. I've been learning a lot of words and I feel great when I spot them in daily usage. I hope that we are pushed to continue the practices on the website as even when I hesitated at first, it has turned out to be incredibly useful.

Reflection (18/3/13-22/3/13)

This week in English, we learnt more figurative language terms. I was astounded by the number of techniques that are apparently common yet I've no knowledge of until recently such as pathetic fallacy, iambic pentameter and many more. To fully apply these terms in my writing, I still need to practice using it as through my unseen poetry practices.

While we listened to Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence", it was really fun to spot the techniques they use to convey subtle meanings such as anarchy. I've often searched up meanings of songs that I like and am appalled that this could also be a technique to improve my writing. Like poetry,  the top review of "The Sound of Silence" gave me a vivid and creative look towards the lyrics of the song which makes me see how important it is to master these techniques and to be able to use it creatively.

While analyzing the song, I could see that I'm starting to identify parts of the lyrics by seeing which parts fit into a certain technique. From there, I would carry on investigating it's meaning. I find that this is very helpful if we've learnt those techniques as it makes analysis much easier.

Reflection (11/3/13-15/3/13)

This week in English, it was all about vocabulary! It's been ages since I've updated my language record but Vocabulary.com has since become incredibly useful in replacing my record. I love using the website to practice my usage of words as you are able to "learn" a word until we are familiar with it. I find this incredibly useful! Outside, I use a word learning application called Anki to learn Chinese and this strategic way of 'remembering' words that we aren't familiar with and drilling us until so makes learning really effective.

The "Orpheus the Lyrical" game however was rather hard for me as the examples are sometimes hard to understand and I have to juggle playing while recording the examples and their figurative language style. I would get too distracted with the game or with recording resulting in a chaos.

I would definitely keep using Vocabulary to enhance and widen my vocabulary skills and hopefully apply my new knowledge of words to my writing.

reflection (26/2/13-1/3/13)

This week, we reflected on the mock papers that we had sat for last week. Being asked to predict what band our work would be in is a great move in really making us students to really look back on the marking schemes. By recognizing what we need to aim for ( such as criteria in a higher band) and how we are able to add what's missing in our work, this will lead to the gradual process of simply getting better at writing for the exams.

Moreover, breaking down the Assessment Objectives helped a lot as well. Most of the time, what I find excruciating is to differentiate the tiny actions that separates bands apart and breaking down the main ideas of the AOs. Simply put, I had no idea what I'm expected of as the AOs can sometimes be too general. By breaking down the AOs into understandable levels, we see what it is that examiners want to see.

Reflection (28/1/13-1/2/13)

This week, we decided to analyze Never Let Me Go and make poster boards out of the analysis. In my group, we focused on analyzing the characters in the book and decided to produce a Venn diagram of the three main characters, Kathy, Ruth and Tommy.

The Venn diagram helped us in differentiating their characteristics but also to unite similar characteristics as well such as how they were all related through their upbringing in Hailsham. I also see others starting on the timeline for the storyline which I believe is the most challenging task as one has to be familiar of all the flashbacks and place them in an orderly manner. I think as the weeks progress, the timeline would be extremely helpful for us in grasping important events and how the build up to other events, like a wave.