Comparing and Contrasting Theme
Read the following stories and answer the questions.
Remember to ask yourself these questions when comparing and contrasting theme:
Molly Whuppie
Many years ago, three girls were lost in a dark, gloomy forest. They
found a giant’s home. The girls pleaded with the giant to give them food
and shelter for the night. The giant planned a trick to get rid of the girls. He
placed straw necklaces around their necks. Then he placed gold necklaces
around his own three daughters’ necks. Molly Whuppie was suspicious, so
she switched the necklaces. In the night, the giant grabbed the girls wearing
the straw necklaces. Fooled into thinking they were his guests rather than
his own daughters, he took them deep into the woods and left them there.
Meanwhile, Molly Whuppie and her sisters safely escaped from the giant’s
house, taking extra food and a map with them.
The Catch of the Day
A greedy, competitive fisher once decided to trick people on their way to sell
goods at the market. As each person arrived at the log bridge, the fisher shook it to convince the person that it was unsafe to cross with so much merchandise. Finally, the people who were tricked discovered what the fisher was up to and decided to trick him. As the fisher crossed the bridge, they shook the log so hard that he fell into the water. On the riverbank, the people who had been fooled laughed and laughed. Then they went to the market, sold their goods, and ate a fine fish dinner that night!
- What do the Giant and the competitive fisher have in common? What did they both try to do to the characters in the story?
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- What does Molly Whuppie and the other people in Catch of the Day learn in the story?
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- How are the themes in the stories similar and/or different?
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Comparing and Contrasting Theme
Read the following stories and answer the questions.
Remember to ask yourself these questions when comparing and contrasting theme:
Hercules and the King
Hercules was stronger than any man in Greece. One day, the king
challenged him to clean the royal stable in one day. The rich king kept
thousands of cattle, so he knew the task was impossible. Hercules agreed to try and thought of a plan. First he tore a hole in the wall at each end of the stable. Then he grabbed a nearby river and pushed it into the hole. The water rushed through the stable and out the hole on the far wall, washing the stable clean. Using both his strength and his brain, Hercules had done what the king asked.
Isis and Osiris
A wise king and queen named Osiris and Isis once ruled the land of
Egypt. All was well until Set, Osiris’s jealous brother, plotted to take over the throne. First he had his craftsmen build a beautiful golden trunk that would exactly match his brother’s measurements. Then he brought the trunk to Osiris’s court and offered it as a gift to anyone who could fit inside. After convincing Osiris to try it out, Set and his followers nailed down the lid and threw the trunk into the Nile River before Osiris’s guards could stop them. Isis, Osiris’s brave and loyal wife, set out to find the trunk and release
him. She wandered a long time over a vast distance until at last she heard
that the golden trunk had been discovered in a faraway land called Byblos.
Reaching Byblos after a difficult journey, Isis learned that the trunk had
washed ashore and became stuck in a bush. The bush eventually sprouted
into a large tree, which the king of Byblos cut down and used as a pillar in his palace. Isis pretended to be an old woman in order to get inside the king’s palace. The queen liked her so much that she asked Isis to care for her young son, the prince. In time, Isis grew to love the prince and decided to make him immortal. She brought the boy to the pillar in which the trunk
containing Osiris was hidden. She lit a fire and began to recite the magic
words. Happening upon the scene, the queen rushed to free her son. Isis then
revealed her true self and scolded the queen for interrupting the ceremony
that would have made her son immortal. Seeing that the boy was unharmed,
the queen regretted her hasty behavior. She offered to repay Isis, who asked
for the pillar that contained Osiris. Isis spilt open the pillar and took Osiris’s body home to be buried so that he could pass into the Land of Dead. There he became king once more.
- What are the characters in both stories doing?
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- What do the characters in both stories learn?
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- How are the themes in the stories similar and/or different?
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