In this tale, Baba Yaga is portrayed as an evil, cannibalistic villain. It is important to note that while she does play a villain, she does not provide tasks for the young hero. Instead, she simply tells her daughter to “heat the stove and to roast Little Phillip” (Johns, 47). Baba Yaga shows no mercy for male heroes. Johns suggests that the act of showing no mercy and wanting to force the boy into the oven is symbolic of a mother wanting to her child back in her womb. “Perhaps the range in the hero’s age reflects a cultural anxiety about male children and their ability to form a masculine identity, not only as infants and small children, but even into puberty,” Johns states. In the traditional Slavic culture, mothers feared their sons would not achieve the level of masculinity that was expected of them. Baba Yaga’s failure of forcing Little Phillip back into the oven may mean that Little Phillip is maturing and developing into a young man who can save himself from these sorts of dangerous situations, and his mother does not need to watch him with such a close eye.