Karen Duve’s Short Story “Grrrimm”: Werewomen, Werewolves, and Witches in a Feminist Adaptation of the Grimms’ “Little Red Cap”

Abstract

Karen Duve’s short story “Grrrimm” is an adaptation of the fairy tale “Little Red Cap” by the Brothers Grimm, which critiques and rewrites the story’s plot and messages about gender, sexual agency, subjectivity, and anti-female violence. The author twists the old fairy tale into a contemporary story with new characters and a different setting. This article analyzes the feminist trope of werewolves and werewomen with the help of ecofeminist criticism, material feminism, and feminist intersectional theory, and explores how supernatural creatures like werewomen serve as a model for feminist agency in this short story from the early twenty-first century. The feminist reading also shows how Duve rehabilitates the figure of the evil witch, often portrayed as an older, childless woman, through feminist intervention and changes her into an independent woman, a middle-aged character, and a good witch who is a healer and preserver of ecological knowledge. The author adapts the Grimms’ fairy tale with supernatural characters and feminist resistance into a story about feminist love, resistance against gendered violence, lycanthropes, and a non-hierarchical, heterosexual relationship. (BK)