Throughout literature, authors use a variety of strategies to highlight the central message conveyed to the audience. Analyzing literary passages through the lens of gender criticism accentuates what the author believes is masculine or feminine and that society and culture determine an individual's gender responsibility. In the classic fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood, gender strategies appear through the typical fragile women of the mother and grandmother, the heartless and intelligent male wolf, and the naive and vulnerable girl like Little Red Riding Hood. Little 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 take care of the household. When the grandmother appears in the plot, the author illustrates her as sick and weak. By describing this older woman in terms of weakness, the author unconsciously implies the weakness and vulnerability of women caused by the ideas and practices of an earlier time period. The grandmother becomes vulnerable and naive as she expresses her susceptibility to the wolf when she tells him that he is "too weak to get out of bed" (Hyman 12). By admitting her helplessness, she acknowledges her gender's weakness towards the more superior male wolf. As the male wolf submits to the intelligent role of a powerful and threatening being, it highlights the author's message that society during this time period thought males to be the more powerful gender. Males were considered the most intelligent parents... center of the card... in which develops. In Little Red Riding Hood, the grandmother, mother, and child all demonstrate the stereotypical woman in an ancient society where men are superior to women. The wolf and the male character saving the female validate the stereotype of the male in that time period as the males become intelligent, brave, and strong throughout the entire story. These gender tactics appear in almost all literary works to convey the message that popular beliefs about genders can be continued with the submission of individuals to society or altered 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.