Intertextuality / Little Red Riding Hood

Little Red Riding Hood, as in the traditional version of the fairy-tale familiar to present day English language audiences, has just been eaten by the Big Bad Wolf, then rescued from his stomach. This is what she has to say, in lyrics written by Stephen Sondheim for Into The Woods:

And I know things now, many valuable things

That I hadn't known before:

Do not put your faith in a cape and a hood,

They will not protect you the way that they should.

And though scary is exciting,

Nice is different than good.

Now I know, don't be scared:

Granny was right,

Just be prepared.

Isn't it nice to know a lot?

And a little bit not… (Sondheim 69)

Sondheim is quite consciously allegorizing the story of Little Red Riding Hood as a story about a girl's experience of puberty. But how did...
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