LITTLE RED CAP: The World’s Wife, Carol Ann Duffy
1. In the original fairy tale, how would you describe the relationship between Little Red Riding
Hood (female) and the wolf (male)? What do you associate with the colour red? What is a
‘red cap’?
2. Explore how Duffy uses language both literally and metaphorically in lines 1-5 to show:

the options available to Little Red Cap in her home town as she grows up

the idea that the world of adulthood is unknown and scary
3. How, in lines 6-10, does Duffy use language to make the wolf sound predatory but also
appealing to Little Red Cap?
4. How, in lines 11-13, does Duffy emphasise Little Red Cap’s innocence? How does she also
show that she is keen to enter the adult world? What is the appeal of the wolf? How does
this link with Duffy’s relationship with Adrian Henri?
5. What impression of the wolf and his actions is conveyed through the language of lines 14-22?
What does the language suggest about this male/ female relationship?
6. Explore the symbolism of the white dove in lines 23-27. What does this suggest about the
relationship between Little Red Cap and the wolf?
7. How does Duffy convey through her language in lines 27-30 the excitement Little Red Cap
feels on seeing the wolf’s books? How is she starting to assert herself here?
8. What does Little Red Cap learn from the wolf in the next ten years?
How does her language in lines 31-36 convey her developing boredom with the wolf?
How is Little Red Cap’s growing power reflected in the language of lines 36-42?
9. How has Duffy changed the original fairy tale?
What do you think the poem is saying about Little Red Cap, relationships, and Duffy herself?
10. How far is the view of relationships presented in Little Red Cap reflected in other poems in
the collection? Compare Little Red Cap with other poems about relationships.
11. Little Red Cap is the first poem in The World’s Wife and Demeter, which refers to the myth of
Demeter and her daughter Persephone, is the last. What connections do you see between
the two poems and what significance is there in their placing at the start and end of the
collection? In what ways might these two poems be very personal to Carol Ann Duffy?
12. What can you say about the verse forms of Little Red Cap and Demeter and how these might
link to the content?
LITTLE RED CAP: TEACHER’S NOTES
1. In the original fairy tale, how would you describe the relationship between Little Red Riding
Hood (female) and the wolf (male)? What do you associate with the colour red? What is a
‘red cap’?
In the fairy tale, Little Red Riding Hood is an innocent child, walking through the woods alone
and vulnerable. The Wolf is older, predatory and dangerous. The original title of the fairy tale
was Little Red Cap.
The colour red is associated with blood, growing up, menstruation, loss of innocence and
danger.
A redcap is a malevolent, murderous goblin described in the folklore of the Anglo-Scottish
Borders. He is said to inhabit ruined castles and to soak his cap in the blood of his victims.
2. Explore how Duffy uses language both literally and metaphorically in lines 1-5 to show:

The options available to Little Red Cap in her home town as she grows up
The town described is based on Stafford, where Duffy grew up. It is a small place where life
is predictable. The triple, ‘playing fields, the factory, allotments’ is a list of what a resident
can expect in childhood, working life and old age. The allotments of retired men are ‘kept/
like mistresses’ because allotments need a lot of attention and perhaps there is a hint that
they provide an escape for men from the boredom of home. At the edges of the town are
‘the silent railway line’ and ‘the hermit’s caravan’. The former would have provided an
escape but the trains no longer run, suggesting you could be trapped in the town. The latter
is the alternative to escape, shutting yourself away. Neither option would be appealing for a
young person.

The idea that the world of adulthood is unknown and scary
The metaphorical meaning of the description is clear from the first words of the poem, ‘At
childhood’s end’. As Little Red Cap, a teenage girl, moves through the town, past all the safe,
predictable and rather boring things which characterise it, she comes to the ‘edge of the
woods’. The woods would be dark and from the outside you could not know what was inside
them without going in. The woods symbolise the adult world. As a teenager, Little Red Cap
is at the end of childhood and about to enter the adult world which is unknown and scary.
3. How, in lines 6-10, does Duffy use language to make the wolf sound predatory but also
appealing to Little Red Cap?
The wolf is reading his poetry aloud. The words ‘hairy’ and ‘bearded’ show that he is adult
and he is presented as confident, speaking in a casual ‘drawl’. The reference to red wine links
to the title of the poem and in one sense shows the sophistication of the adult world which
the wolf inhabits. However, the fact that the wine is ‘staining’ his chin suggests excess, or
even blood, and could be a foreshadowing of what is to come. The description of the wolf
holding a book of poetry in his ‘hairy paw’ shows the appeal of the wolf to Little Red Cap: he
is a writer and a creative being, but also he is male and an animal. The comparison with the
fairy tale is obvious in ‘What big eyes he had! What teeth!’ and stresses the wolf’s predatory
nature. The wolf is dangerous but exciting to Little Red Cap.
4. How, in lines 11-13, does Duffy emphasise Little Red Cap’s innocence? How does she also
show that she is keen to enter the adult world? What is the appeal of the wolf? How does
this link with Duffy’s relationship with Adrian Henri?
The reference to the wolf reading his poems aloud ‘in a clearing’ and the term ‘the interval’
suggest a poetry reading, and it was at one of these occasions that Duffy met the poet Adrian
Henri. She was sixteen, like Little Red Cap in the poem, and Henri was thirty-nine. They
began a relationship which lasted ten years. Here, Duffy emphasises Little Red Cap’s youth
and innocence through ‘sweet sixteen, never been’ a reference to a song and popular saying
‘sweet sixteen and never been kissed’. The words ‘babe, waif’ suggest young girls and these
are terms used by older men to describe girls in a predatory way, reinforcing the age
difference and Little Red Cap’s vulnerability.
However, Little Red Cap is attracted to the wolf, making sure he sees her: she wants to enter
his world. She realises this may be surprising and anticipates the reader’s response in ‘You
might ask why’. The answer is simple with the short statements reflecting her certainty:
‘Here’s why. Poetry.’ The wolf is part of the male-dominated literary world which she wants
to enter. The splitting of the line ‘bought me a drink/ My first’ between two stanzas
emphasises ‘my first’ to show the significance of this moment.
5. What impression of the wolf and his actions is conveyed through the language of lines 1422? What does the language suggest about this male/ female relationship?
The wolf is presented here as dangerous and predatory. Little Red Cap knows that he will
take her ‘deep into the woods/ away from home’ but that is what she wants. She is ready to
enter the adult world which is symbolised in the woods. The complications of life are
represented in the ‘dark tangled thorny place’ and the wisdom that comes from surviving
difficulties shown by the ‘eyes of owls’. The description of Little Red Cap following the wolf is
disturbingly reminiscent of newspaper stories of the abduction of young girls with the
reference to ‘blazer’ highlighting her youth and ‘scraps of red’ suggesting loss of innocence.
The mood lightens when she reaches the wolf’s lair, with the internal rhymes of ‘got there,
wolf’s lair, better beware’ giving an almost triumphant tone. Little Red Cap’s loss of
innocence/ virginity is suggested by a mix of words from the semantic fields of childhood
(‘lesson one’, ‘little girl’), sex (‘clung till dawn’, ‘thrashing fur’) and literature (‘the love
poem’). The line ‘what little girl doesn’t dearly love a wolf?’ reminds us both of the fairy tale
and of the fact that Little Red Cap is willingly entering this relationship.
6. Explore the symbolism of the white dove in lines 23-27. What does this suggest about the
relationship between Little Red Cap and the wolf?
The white dove could be seen as a symbol of Little Red Cap’s innocence. It flies straight into
the mouth of the wolf who here is described as a mixture of the domestic (‘How nice,
breakfast in bed’) and the predatory (‘One bite, dead…. licking his chops’). The wolf at this
point in the relationship holds the power: Little Red Cap ‘slid from between his heavy matted
paws’ as if trapped, he views her as serving him breakfast and he devours her innocence.
7. How does Duffy convey through her language in lines 27-30 the excitement Little Red Cap
feels on seeing the wolf’s books? How is she starting to assert herself here?
When Little Red Cap finds the wolf’s books at the back of the lair the description is full of
colour and movement. The colours are bright and shining ‘crimson, gold, aglow’ showing her
excitement. The repetition of ‘words’ signifies their importance to her and they seem ‘alive
on the tongue, in the head’ with the piling up of adjectives, ‘warm, beating, frantic, winged’
suggesting the power that words and books have for her. The phrase ‘music and blood’
perhaps refers to how putting words together as poetry is like making music and that poetry
seems to run through her veins, like blood (which, of course, is red).
Little Red Cap does not ask the wolf if she can see his books - she waits until he is asleep and
‘crept’ to the back of the lair. This is the start of her independence.
8. What does Little Red Cap learn from the wolf in the next ten years?
How does her language in lines 31-36 convey her developing boredom with the wolf?
How is Little Red Cap’s growing power reflected in the language of lines 36-42?
Significantly Little Red Cap spends ten years with the wolf, the same length of time that Duffy
spent with Adrian Henri. During this time Little Red Cap learns about the (adult) world of the
woods, for example that ‘birds are the uttered thoughts of trees.’ But there is a suggestion,
as she grows up and he grows older, that the age difference between them is starting to
show. Whereas ten years previously he had seemed grown up and sophisticated, now she
realises that ‘a greying wolf/ howls the same old song at the moon, year in year out.’ It all
seems a little boring, as reflected in the repetition and internal rhymes of ‘season after
season, same rhyme, same reason.’
Little Red Cap has now grown up and so begins to assert herself. She is curious about the
world but now can teach herself rather than learning from the wolf. In the fairytale the
woodcutter who helps Little Red Riding Hood has an axe, so it is significant that here Little
Red Cap wields an axe herself to learn about the willow tree and the salmon. When she turns
the axe on the wolf, it is with ‘one chop,’ echoing the way he previously ate the dove with
‘one bite’ and licked his ‘chops’. The destruction of the wolf is violent - she cuts him ‘scrotum
to throat’ - but so is the fairytale. Inside the wolf is ‘the glistening, virgin white of my
grandmother’s bones.’ Duffy said, ‘In a sense in the poem the grandmother’s bones are the
silent women who aren’t present in English Literature’ (www.sheerpoetry.co.uk: Carol Ann
Duffy: The World’s Wife, conversation recorded in Manchester 2005 by Barry Wood).
Little Red Cap is now in control. The line ‘I stitched him up’ can be interpreted literally as she
stitches the cut she made but also metaphorically to show that she has got the better of him.
9. How has Duffy changed the original fairy tale? What do you think the poem is saying about
Little Red Cap, relationships, and Duffy herself?
Duffy said that the poem, ‘becomes the opposite of the original fairy tale, where she [Little
Red Riding Hood] fears that she will be consumed by the wolf, whereas in my poem she more
or less consumes him.’ www.sheerpoetry.co.uk: Carol Ann Duffy: The World’s Wife,
conversation recorded in Manchester 2005 by Barry Wood).
In the fairy tale, Little Red Riding Hood is an innocent victim of the wolf; in the poem, Little
Red Cap learns from the wolf about the adult world and specifically about poetry. When she
grows up and becomes a poet herself, she outgrows him. The last line of the poem
describes her coming out of the forest ‘all alone’ – she has learned from the wolf and survived
in the adult world, but now she is a poet herself, and independent. There are obvious
parallels between Little Red Cap and Duffy, and between the wolf and Adrian Henri. The
poem is about growing up and becoming a poet.
10. How far is the view of relationships presented in Little Red Cap reflected in other poems in
the collection? Compare Little Red Cap with other poems about relationships.
Little Red Cap tracks a metaphorical journey from childhood to adulthood in terms of both
relationships and creative life. It is different from many of the other poems as it shows the
progression of a relationship from beginning to end. Like Little Red Cap, the poem Penelope
concerns the way in which the speaker comes to find her own independent life without
needing her husband – she comes to see this through embroidery, whereas Little Red Cap
finds this through poetry.
Several poems chart women’s dissatisfaction with men, for example Mrs Midas, Mrs Sisyphus
and Mrs Aesop all complain about or ridicule their husbands’ shortcomings, but in Little Red
Cap it seems the relationship has run its course: the wolf led Little Red Cap into the world of
adults and the world of poetry and when her place there was secure, she had no need of him.
11. Little Red Cap is the first poem in The World’s Wife and Demeter, which refers to the myth
of Demeter and her daughter Persephone, is the last. What connections do you see
between the two poems and what significance is there in their placing at the start and end
of the collection? In what ways might these two poems be very personal to Carol Ann
Duffy?
The Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone seeks to explain the different seasons of the
year. When Demeter’s daughter, Persephone, was abducted by the King of the Underworld,
Hades, the earth became barren and dead. When Hades was eventually persuaded to allow
Persephone to return to her mother, he did so on condition that Persephone had eaten
nothing in the underworld. But Persephone had eaten four pomegranate seeds. She was
therefore allowed to spend eight months of the year with her mother and the remaining four
months with Hades. So in spring, summer and autumn while Persephone is with Demeter,
the earth is fruitful, but in winter when she is with Hades the plants and crops wither and die.
At the start of Duffy’s poem, Demeter is alone, grieving for the loss of her daughter after
Persephone has been abducted by Hades. It is winter and words such as ‘stone’, ‘granite’,
‘flint’, ‘ice’, ‘frozen’ reflect Demeter’s feelings of bitterness and her ‘broken heart’. But then,
in the distance, Demeter sees Persephone approaching across the fields ‘bringing all spring
flowers/ to her mother’s house’. The mood changes to ‘blue sky smiling’ as spring arrives
with the return of Persephone to her mother.
There are clear links between Little Red Cap at the start of the collection, and Demeter at the
end. Little Red Cap is semi-autobiographical, as Duffy reflects on the process of growing up,
entering the adult world and becoming a poet. When she achieves that creative goal
the image is of Little Red Cap leaving the forest, ‘with my flowers, singing, all alone’. Duffy
has described these flowers as ‘the flowers of poetry’. She is singing because she has found
her poetic voice.
At the start of the poem as she sits in a ‘cold stone room’ grieving for her daughter, Demeter
is ‘choosing tough words’ which suggests that Duffy the writer is seeing herself as Demeter.
When Persephone arrives at her mother’s house, ‘bringing all spring’s flowers’ she brings joy
as well. Duffy has said that these flowers are ‘flowers of motherhood’. We can perhaps take
this as a reference to the birth of Duffy’s own daughter. The collection is thus framed by two
poems which are very personal to Duffy.
12. What can you say about the verse forms of Little Red Cap and Demeter and how these
might link to the content?
Little Red Cap is in the form of a dramatic monologue as Little Red Cap tells her own story,
interacting with the audience in lines such as ‘You might ask why. Here’s why’ which create a
conversational tone. There is no particular rhyme scheme though Duffy often makes use of
internal rhymes for effect, for example the rhyme of ‘wept… leapt… slept’ at the end of the
poem quickens the pace and makes Little Red Cap’s actions sound even more decisive.
Demeter is written in the form of a sonnet. Sonnets are a very traditional form of poetry,
generally using iambic pentameters and a particular rhyme scheme and it is fitting that having
begun the collection with a poem about becoming a poet, she ends the collection with a
sonnet. But she uses the sonnet in her own way, retaining the 14 line form but using three
tercets and a rhyming couplet, showing her confidence in adapting the form. Sonnets are
traditionally about love and the fact that she ends the collection with a poem about love for a
daughter suggests that to her, love for a child is the most powerful and lasting form of love.