Andrew Dowdell
Mrs. Malatack
World Lit Period 5
October 17, 2010

Analysis of The Three Little Pigs and The Story of the Three Little Pigs

In The Three Little Pigs, and The Story of the Three Little Pigs, the first two pigs set out and end up making their houses out of unstable materials that, in The Three Little Pigs, the fox, and in The Story of The Three Little Pigs, the wolf, destroyed. However, the third little pig builds his house out of bricks and is able to resist and eventually vanquish the wolf and fox. At the surface these stories appear to be trying to teach young children the value of hard work. But a more complex subliminal message exists as well. When The Three Little Pigs, and The Story of the Three Little Pigs are …show more content…

This scene symbolizes how the worker, Blacky, can, and has to, stand up to the capitalist and stop him from abusing all the workers. The fox’s death however, symbolizes that even though the capitalists are more powerful, the workers decide that they are not going to tolerate any more abuse. Essentially, what the subliminal story in The Three Little Pig is trying to say is, the abused workers have to stand up and not let the upper class capitalists push them around whenever they please. In The Story of Three Little Pigs the subliminal message is somewhat darker. The first little pig sets off and instead of building a house of mud he builds a house of straw. Again, like what happens in the first one, the wolf comes along and destroys the house. Here the wolf, like the fox, stands as a symbol of the oppression that workers have to undergo but also as something more, “The wild and destructive wolf stands for all asocial, unconscious, devouring powers against which one must learn to protect oneself” (Bettelheim). Here the wolf is not only a symbol for upper class capitalists but also anything that wishes to harm workers in any way. However, this