LITTLER LOX AND THE THREE BEARS

The Story Breakdown The Discovery: Goldilocks, a young girl, discovers a cottage in the woods belonging to Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear. The Porridge: Finding the house unlocked, she tastes their porridge. She finds Papa Bear's too hot, Mama Bear's too cold, and Baby Bear's "just right," eating all of it. The Chairs: She tries their chairs, finding the first two uncomfortable, but breaks Baby Bear's chair after finding it "just right". The Beds: Tired, she tests the beds, falling asleep in Baby Bear's bed, which is the only one that fits her perfectly. The Return: The bears return, discovering the interrupted porridge, the broken chair, and finally finding Goldilocks asleep. The Ending: In Robert Southey's story, three male bears—a small bear, a medium bear, and a large bear—live together in a house in the woods. Southey describes them as good-natured, trusting, harmless, clean, and hospitable. Each bear has his own bowl of porridge, his own chair, and his own bed. One day, while their hot porridge is cooling, they wander through the woods. An old woman—described throughout the story as insolent, mean, swearing, ugly, dirty, and a vagabond who belongs in a reformatory—discovers the bears' home. She looks through the window and keyhole, opens the latch, and, after ensuring that no one is home, enters. The old woman tries the porridge of the big bear, which is too hot for her; then she tries the porridge of the middle bear, which is too cold; finally, she eats the porridge of the smallest bear. Next, she sits down in the chair of the big bear, which is too hard for her, and then in the chair of the middle bear, which is too soft. When she sits in the chair of the small bear, it breaks as a result. Continuing her exploration of the house, she finds the bears' beds. After trying the big bear's bed and the middle bear's bed and finding them unsuitable, she goes to sleep in the smallest bear's bed. When the bears return home, the story reaches its climax. One after another, they discover that someone has eaten their porridge, has sat in their chairs, and has lain in their beds. The smallest bear finds the old woman in his bed and exclaims, "Someone has lain down in my little bed—and there she is still!" Startled, the old woman jumps out of the window, runs away, and is never seen again. The story makes extensive use of the literary rule of three, featuring three chairs, three bowls of porridge, three beds, and the three title characters who live in the house. There are also three sequences of the bears discovering in turn that someone has been eating from their porridge, sitting in their chairs, and finally, lying in their beds, at which point the climax of Goldilocks being discovered occurs. This follows three earlier sequences of Goldilocks trying the bowls of porridge, chairs, and beds successively, each time finding the third "just right". Author Christopher Booker characterises this as the "dialectical three" where "the first is wrong in one way, the second in another or opposite way, and only the third, in the middle, is just right". Booker continues: "This idea that the way forward lies in finding an exact middle path between opposites is of extraordinary importance in storytelling".[2] This concept has spread across many other disciplines, particularly developmental psychology, biology, economics, Buddhism, and engineering, where it is called the "Goldilocks principle".[3][4] In planetary astronomy, a planet orbiting its sun at just the right distance for liquid water to exist on its surface, neither too hot nor too cold, is referred to as being in the "Goldilocks zone". As Stephen Hawking put it, "Like Goldilocks, the development of intelligent life requires that planetary temperatures be 'just right'".

THE ASTRAL TRAVELERS