Give Your Reasons
Like most opinions, your ideas about common themes will make more sense if you share your reasons.
Goal:
Goal:
When writing a comparison of stories with similar themes, first identify the theme that they have in common, as you practiced in the stories of “The Fisherman and His Wife” and “ The Gift of the Little People”. Then you need to support your claim, or opinion statement, with reasons. Suppose you wrote a claim like this one:
The stories "The Fisherman and His Wife" and "The Gift of the Little People" share a common theme--greed will get you nowhere in the end.
What reasons could you give to back up your claim that both stories deal with this theme? Click through this slideshow to get some ideas.
Reason 1
Both stories involve characters who are greedy.
Ilsabill is greedy for power in "The Fisherman and His Wife." The goldsmith in "The Gift of the Little People" is greedy for gold.
Reason 2
In both stories, the greedy characters end up with nothing.
In the end, the fisherman and his wife, Ilsabill, end up right back in their pigpen house. Likewise, the goldsmith ends up with worthless coal instead of gold.
Reason 3
Both stories have characters who are not greedy.
The fisherman does not want to keep asking the enchanted fish for more wealth and power, and the tailor is satisfied with the first gift of gold from the little people.
Reason 4
In both stories, the characters who are not greedy are happy with their first gift.
The fisherman is happy to have a nice cottage and wants nothing more. The tailor is thrilled to have enough gold to get married and refuses to ask for more.
