A theme is a lesson that a literary text conveys about humanity. Think about a story you have read, and identify a theme from th
is text. Write an essay that describes this theme. Include details from the story that support the theme, and explain how these details develop the theme.
I just read part of the biography of a little-known Canadian amateur geologist from New Brunswick who had only a grammar school education but became one of the first to find a major type locality for a very important Precambrian fossils-the stromatolites. His name was George Frederic Matthew and he lived from 1837-1923. The theme of the biography could be that, at the time he lived, during the latter part of the Industrial Revolution, it was common for men to have wide interests and in fact his work was as a customs agent but he became a very good amateur paleontologist by applying himself to that subject especially in the field. In the account I read it says, "Employed as a customs agent, and not as a paleontologist, he was never able to pursue any single field of paleontology with the resources available to his colleagues" As well as describing the Archaezooan acadiense stromatolites he also found many Cambrian fossils, showing how it is not necessarily formal training and being from a prosperous family that determines how good a natural scientist is, but his passion for the subject.
The Three Little Pigs is a story about three little pigs who build three houses. In the story the Big Bad Wolf blows down two of the houses that were made of straw and sticks. However, when he comes to the third house he finds he cannot blow it down because it is made of bricks. The first printed versions are from the 1840s, but the story is probably much older. A few of the phrases and morals in the story definitely come from the Western culture.
A lot of the versions of the Three Little Pigs have been redone sometimes the wolf is kind, but in every version the fable there are good and bad characters. It is a "<em>type B124[1] folktale in the Aarne–Thompson classification system</em>" but it is also a story we can all relate to. In a retelling of the three little pigs, the author changes the point of view of the story. Usually readers sympathize with the pigs, but this time the readers hear the wolf's side of the story.
