Introduction
Jacob Grimm’s fairy tale, The Wolf and Seven Kids , has been developed using mother goat as the protagonist and the wolf as the antagonist character. Grimm depicts the wolf as evil and egocentric. The mother goat is portrayed as caring, industrious, and daring. Grimm uses vivid illustration to develop the traits assigned to each of the characters. Despite the absence of the father figure, mother goat works hard to feed her children, protect them, and become autonomous. She is courageous and daring. She does not fear going deep into the forest to look food. Grimm paints a picture of a loving mother, a character that is attractive to the audience. On the contrary, the wolf is opportunistic and evil. He waits for the best opportunity to eat the goat’s children. He only thinks about himself as he is egocentric. His character is repulsive, but ensures there is suspense in the story. The purpose of the essay is to compare and contrast two characters, while demonstrating how the author has developed those characters.
Compare and Contrast Characters and Development
The characters in question are the mother goat and the wolf. The two are the main characters in the short fairy tale story. Mother goal has distinctive character traits that differentiates her from the wolf. She is caring and loving. At the beginning of the story, the mother tells her children what they ought to do to avoid being eaten by the wolf (Ashliman, 2002). She asks them not to open the cottage for anyone, apart from her. She tells them the truth about the wolf, not to scare them, but to make sure that they know how dangerous the enemy is. This demonstrates that she cares about her children. She does not wish the worst to happen to her children, explaining why she had to take her time explaining the predicament that would befall them if they opened the door to strangers.
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To develop the character of loving, the author deliberately makes use of certain words and phrases. For instance, the mother goat refers to the children as ‘My dear children…” (Ashliman, 2002). This shows the strong family bond that existed between the mother and her children. The mother is also hardworking and daring. She has to be owing to the fact that she is an independent and a single woman. With the father figure missing, she has the sole responsibility of feeding her big family. The author depicts her as industrious and daring, in the sense that she has to look for food even in the most dangerous places. Despite this, the author illustrates that she is not afraid. She has to feed her family at all cost. She is afraid of the wolfs or other dangerous characters in the forest. The daring trait is a unique one and can is the reason why she is appealing to the audience. The rationale is that there it is perceived that courage and daring experiences are associated with men (Basow, 2003). Therefore, one cannot help, but to marvel at what mother goat is able to accomplish.
The author dispels the myth that men are the breadwinners. Despite being a single parent, she stands firm. She has to feed her children rather than resorting to begging. Finally, mother goat is creative and a risk taker. The creativity is illustrated where she has to rescue her children from the wolf stomach before they are digested. She knew that the right tools were missing, but she improvised. Using a pair of scissors, she was able to save her children. She also stitched wolf’s stomach after putting rocks inside. All these shows how ingenuous and dedicated she was. These rare moments present her as more appealing.
The wolf is portrayed as cunning, evil, opportunistic, and an egocentric character. This makes him the most repulsive characters in the story. The author develops the trait using vivid moments. His cunning trait is demonstrated when he changes his appearance to mimic the mother. He succeeded in having the children open the cottage thinking it was their mother. He appeared heartless and opportunistic. He had to wait for the perfect moment (when mother goat was away) to fulfill his evil plans. He is also going for the easy targets, the defenseless, and the weak. The author depicts him as a coward and evil. The wolf was also very selfish. He was only thinking about himself. He was thinking about his stomach oblivious of the emotional pain he was causing mother goat. His egocentric motives prompted him to shallow six of the goats. He was even remorseless as he celebrated claiming that he had achieved his goal. With a full stomach, all he had to do, was take a nap and strike again (Timmermans, 2015). He is an evil character who does not care about how his behavior affects others. The author also portrays the wolf as unwise. One would have expected him to run and hide immediately after executing his plan. He however chose to sleep in a place where he could be found easily. When he woke up from sleep, he could not tell that it was rocks and not children that were in his stomach. The author uses such illustrations to show how repulsive the wolf was in the story.
In conclusion, Grimm uses vivid illustrations to develop his characters. He depicts mother goat as being loving, caring, and industrious. She was also courageous and wise. On the contrary, the wolf is unwise, opportunistic, and evil. The traits demonstrate why mother goat is appealing, while the wolf is repulsive.
References
Ashliman, L. (2002). The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids . retrieved from http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm005.html
Basow, S. (2003). Gender Stereotypes and Roles. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Timmermans, F. (2015). The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats . retrieved from http://fairytalesoftheworld.com/quick-reads/the-wolf-and-the-seven-little-goats/
