The Main Character Never Truly Mentioned: Red
The color red appears in fairy tales more often than not. Regardless of whether it is as prevalent as in the tale of Little Red Riding Hood or less obvious as when mentioned in Snow White, this vibrant, emotion filled color has made its way into just about every fairy tale and has claimed the title of what I would consider the most referenced color in fairy tales.
That being said, fairy tales generally don’t include too many colors to begin with. Red, white, and chromatic colors are most frequently featured in description, but I believe that the contrast of the red against the less lively colors really sets it apart.
To start, a discussion of the meaning behind the color red is essential to understanding why this color makes such frequent appearances in this tale. Red is the color of extreme emotions or situations. It symbolizes anger, passion, seduction, violence, or adventure — all emotions filled with intensity. It can also reference times of danger or severity. The meanings of this color, I believe, go hand in hand with the meanings of the tales it is featured in.
https://www.colormatters.com/the-meanings-of-colors/red
The most apparent inclusion of the color red is in the original fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood, written by Charles Perrault. In this tale, a young girl, dressed in a red hooded cape travels through the woods in hopes of bringing cake and butter to her grandmother. On the way, she encounters a wolf who learns of where she is traveling, beats her to her grandmother’s house, eats the grandmother, and waits for the little girl to also arrive so that he can eat her as well. When the little girl makes it to her grandmother’s house, the wolf, disguised as her grandmother, asks the little girl to remove all her clothes and climb into bed with him before devouring her. This specific scene from the story, I believe, is where the color red holds its purpose. Red can represent themes of seduction; thus, the little girl removing her red cloak before “climbing into bed” with the wolf is a fitting, sexual color of clothing to be removing.
Another, less obvious, but still prominent time the color red makes an appearance in a fairy tale retelling is in the Disney production of Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs. While this tale specifically has the color white in its name, red still does play just as prevalent of a role in this movie as the color white does.
In this film, a beautiful young girl, Snow White, takes refuge in a forest cabin with seven dwarfs attempting to hide from and escape the dangers of her step-mother, the wicked Queen. When the Queen had learned where Snow White had been hiding, her desire to be the “fairest in the land” leads her to disguise herself as an old woman in order to kill Snow White without suspicion. The disguised Queen is able to convince Snow White to bite into a poisonous red apple, which sends Snow White into a deep sleep that can only be ended by loves first kiss. Eventually, a prince comes along and kisses Snow White, which awakens her, but the critical part of this film is the fact that it was the red apple that placed Snow White into this deep, death-like sleep. In this case, the red apple is a symbol of the danger that Snow White is in, as red can imply danger. Notice that the apple is not a green or yellow , but a bright red apple filled with deadly poison.
Finally, another time in which the color red plays the role of a main character, but not just in a fairy tale, can be seen in the book The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This story, like Little Red Riding Hood, places the color red in the center of attention before the book even begins.
This novel follows the life of a young woman, Hester Prynne, who is labeled an adulteress for giving birth to the child of the man she had an affair with while her husband was thought to be lost at sea. Her punishment for her crime is being publicly shamed, shunned, and forced to wear a scarlet letter “A” on her chest. While there is much more to the novel than just the shame Hester faces, such as the relationship she has with the child’s father or her husband attempting to seek revenge, the red “A” Hester wears is another example of a time red stole the show. In this novel, the “A” symbolizes sin as a result of sex or passion; thus, it only makes sense that the “A” would be the color red. The color red not only draws attention to Hester in this novel but also reiterates her crime.
