The Little Red Hen: From children’s literature to cartoons, politics and education : The significance of a tale in culture, politics and education
Authors: Bernáth András 
Published: February 2025

The Little Red Hen is a tale that was first published in an American children’s
magazine in 1874. It soon proved to be very popular, and over the past one and a
half centuries it has been published in various versions and adaptations, playing
a prominent role among tales in American culture. On the occasion of the
anniversary of its first publication, it is worth remembering and analyzing the
original tale, and to examine how it has been used and altered since then.
Therefore, some picture books of the tale will also be discussed in this paper, as
well as the cartoon adaptations, including the 1934 Disney film that featured
Donald Duck for the first time. Perhaps even more remarkable are the political
adaptations by Ronald Reagan and Malvina Reynolds, respectively, who managed
to turn the tale into a conservative fable and a socialist anthem alike.
The purpose of this paper is not only to examine the various manifestations
of a rightly popular tale, but also to argue that it can be used in education in
various ways and on various levels. In fact, this tale has already been used in
English language teaching in elementary or lower primary school, applying the
method of content and language integrated learning (CLIL). A recent Hungarian
textbook, edited by Júlia Szarvas and Mária Bakti, offers suggestions for teachers
and undergraduate students of English, kindergarten and elementary school
teaching on how to use tales in teaching English as a foreign language to children
under the age of ten. This book contains detailed lesson plans, devised by Szilvia
Pintér and Júlia Szarvas, and two versions of this tale: a shorter and a longer one,
which are based on the original tale and the subsequent picture books. The
shorter text is included in an appendix in this paper too, but the longer version
will also be discussed, along with the differences from each other and from the
original tale. Children can thus learn this tale in school or in kindergarten, they
can role-play it, and can also learn English with its help. At the same time, teacher
trainees can study the tale in methodology courses in college or university, so as
to improve their teaching skills.
However, the tale is originally a literary work; therefore, it can be used not
only as a teaching tool, but can also be appreciated in its own right, as a major
work of children’s literature, by children and adults alike. Therefore, it can be
studied in college courses of children’s literature too. The present paper focuses primarily on the literary aspects: in an analysis of the various versions, the various
genres of the tale are examined, along with the characteristic motifs, symbols and
moral. The tale can be compared to other major and classic literary works, some
of which will be briefly discussed in this paper too. As a fable, it can be compared
to Aesop’s The Ant and the Grasshopper, as well as to Orwell’s Animal Farm, a
political allegory that is also called a fairy story. As a folk tale or a fairy tale, it can
be compared and contrasted to the The Enormous Turnip, a Russian or Ukrainian
tale, which is also widely known in English and Hungarian. The Little Red Hen
was written for children, but college or university students, and adult readers in
general, may also benefit from studying the literary, cultural, historical or political
aspects of the tale and its various adaptations.