Attention
Grabber
1 sentence
summary of
each story.
Thesis
Topic
sentence
Similarity 1
Evidence
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stories.
Similarity 2
Evidence
from the
stories.
Citations
Similarity 3
Evidence
from the
stories.
Concluding
sentence
Topic
sentence
Difference 1
Evidence
from the
stories.
Difference 2
Evidence
from the
stories.
Difference 3
Evidence
from the
stories.
Concluding
sentence
Talking animals and little girls apparently don’t mix. “Little Red Riding
Hood” and “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” both feature little girls and
animals who talk. One story features the girl child doing what she should.
The other story has the little girl going where she doesn’t belong. These
two folktales share many similarities and differences. (Thesis)
The folktales, “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” and “Little Red Riding
Hood,” have many similarities. In both tales animals can speak. In
“Goldilocks and the Three Bears” the bear family talks about their food and
home, and inquires about who broke in. Similarly, in “Little Red Riding
Hood,” the wolf speaks to Little Red as well as her grandmother to trick
them. These stories also share the same type of main character. The little
girl who wore a bright red riding hood is described as being a happy and
obedient child (par 1). In a similar fashion, the character Goldilocks is
described as being a beautiful, young girl in the eighth paragraph of her
story. Finally, both stories end with the little girl running away from the
animals she has encountered. Little Red runs screaming from the wolf as he
jumps up to eat her, while Goldilocks runs once she’s awakened by the
bears. However despite these similarities, the tales are not the same story.
There are also elements of these stories that differ. While there are
talking animals, they have completely different roles in the stories. In
“Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” the bears are the victims of the story.
Goldilocks breaks in to their home, eats their food, breaks their furniture,
and sleeps in their beds. The big bad wolf, on the other hand, devours the
helpless grandmother, and attempts to do the same to Little Red Riding
Hood. This is most unfortunate for Little Red, because she was doing what
she was supposed to, unlike Goldilocks. Red Riding Hood went to her
grandmother’s house because her mother asked her to. Goldilocks went
into someone else’s home uninvited, which is not an example of good
manners. Perhaps if there were other people in “Goldilocks and the Three
Bears,” Goldilocks would have remembered her manners. But in that story,
Goldilocks is the only human there. “Little Red Riding Hood,” however, has
more people than animals. These differences serve to make these two
folktales unique.
Restated
Thesis
3 key ideas,
summarized
Concluding
thought
While there are differences, “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” and
“Little Red Riding Hood,” share many attributes as well. Both tales have
talking animals that speak as though they are human. They also have the
same basic ending as the little girl runs away. However, the little girls
behave differently, one doing as she is asked, the other going where she
shouldn’t. Overall, there do seem to be more similarities of these
traditional European folktales than differences.