Chapter 4: Topics and Main Ideas
Lab Activity 17: Identifying Topics
 
Objective
To use your understanding of general and specific elements as they relate to topic.

arrow.gifStep 3: Read the following excerpts from the textbook The Art of Being Human. Each passage is followed by three ideas. Select the idea that correctly states the topic. Be sure the idea is not too broad or too narrow. Your instructor will tell you whether to write your answers in your book or to submit your answers online for electronic grading.

      5. Children would be disoriented and bewildered were it not for what their parents tell them about the world; much of this talk has its roots in fairy tale. Much of what parents say is moralistic—usually warnings about the dire consequences of disobedience. “The Three Little Pigs,” for example, advises children how to plan sensibly for the future, tells them that hard work and diligence, not fun and frivolity, are what pay off in the long run. Little Red Riding Hood is explicitly warned by her mother not to talk to strangers. Similarly, the mother goat in “The Wolf and the Seven Kids” goes off, leaving her children home alone with the admonition not to open the door to anyone. Like Red Riding Hood, most of the seven little goats pay for their disobedience by being eaten whole; of course, as often happens in fairy-tale land, they are rescued none the worse for their ordeal.

      —Janaro & Altshuler, p. 509

 

 
 
 
      6. The teaching function of the fairy tale is also illustrated in Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Perhaps a bit sophisticated for the youngest of children, the tale stays in the back of our minds until we are ready to apply its message that our fear of power and authority blinds us to the reality of the people we bow to.

      —Janaro & Altshuler, p. 510

 

 
 
 
      7. Modern interpreters of fairy tales, especially psychiatrists, point to early misconceptions and warped expectations that children derive from fairy tales. The hunter will come and take care of the wicked wolf. The Prince will kiss Sleeping Beauty and awaken her from her century-long slumber. Prince Charming will discover that the wretchedly dirty girl in the corner has the only foot capable of fitting the glass slipper. And so, they contend, we grow up believing that true love will find a way and that bad people always get what’s coming to them.

      —Janaro & Altshuler, p. 510

 

 
 
 
      8. Closely related to these tinsel expectations from life are the stereotyped thinking, the class distinctions, and the sexism that some critics see in fairy tales. Characters are seldom named, and, when they are, their names often represent broad characteristics (Prince Charming, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, the Beast) instead of unique individuals. Rumplestiltskin, as children expect from his eccentric name, is an ugly little fellow with a devilish sense of humor. No prince would ever have such a name.

      —Janaro & Altshuler, p. 510

 

 
 
 
      9. Physical good looks are stressed as important. Cinderella’s stepsisters are not only nasty, they are ugly as well, their outward appearance matching their selfish dispositions. Underneath all the grime Cinderella is breathtakingly beautiful; she must be, for would the prince look twice at someone who was only virtuous and a hard worker? Old people seldom fare well in fairy tales, and critics point to this fact to explain why children often shy away from close contact with the elderly and the wrinkled, who resemble the fairy-tale witches.

      —Janaro & Altshuler, p. 510

 

 
 
 
      10. Fairy tales take place in magic kingdoms dominated by rigid class systems, for, after all, they originated in a time when it was believed, as in the folk saying goes, “Class will tell.” The heroine of “The Princess and the Pea” is so innately sensitive—so clearly a member of the upper class—that she spends a sleepless night because there is one pea under the many mattresses on which she is lying. The pea has been deliberately placed there as a test of her true aristocracy! The biblical story of Joseph and his brothers can be seen as a fairy tale of true worth lying hidden beneath humble rags.

      —Janaro & Altshuler, p. 510

 

 
 
 





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