I Am Not a Crook
“The Wolf’s Postscript to “Little Red Riding Hood”” written be Agha Shahid Ali was written to defend the Big Bad Wolf. The story before is of “Red Riding Hood” where the wolf is made to look like the child molesting granny eating cross dresser; we all grew up to know as “the wolf”. In the wolf postscript by Ali the wolf is telling you that he is not really a bad guy. The wolf wants you to stop judging him for everything in the old tale of little red.
He says that he only killed the girl and the grandmother because it was to teach a lesson. The wolf tells the reader that he could have killed the grandmother at any time and it would have been much easier to just kill the girl when he first meets her in the woods. The wolf just wants you to know that he is not a bad person it was just done to teach children not to talk to strangers.
This was a poem in reply another. Though it comes after Sextons poem in the text book this can go as far back as the first “Little Red Riding Hood” ever told. It is neat to see literature in response to other pieces of literature. It would be cool if someone were to write a poem defending antagonists from all types of literature and showing why they did the things that they did. Thought this may not be the best selling as far as the antagonist. We do this frequently in movies we are shown why a serial killer went crazy and killed the neighbors and their dog, however they are not defended like the wolf is here.