Rewriting the Grandmother’s Story

Abstract

Abstract Feminist perspectives have strongly influenced the fairy-tale rewritings of the past decades, but the intersection of gender with other identity markers deserves more attention. This article applies the conclusions of Sylvia Henneberg’s critical examination of age and gender in fairy tales to Gillian Cross’s Wolf (1990), an award-winning rewriting of “Red Riding Hood.” While Wolf presents Nan, the counterpart of Red Riding Hood’s grandmother, as a determined and cunning older woman at first, in the course of the novel, the narrative lapses into the ageist stereotypes of the ineffectual crone and the wise old mentor.