THE LION AND THE MOUSE

"The Lion And The Mouse" is a traditional folk tale. In my opinion, this story presents a harmful stereotype for children. This story is talking about a lion and a mouse. Long time ago, a lion in the jungle was angry because of the mouse’s disturbing. The lion caught the mouse and wanted to eat him. The mouse pleased the lion and the lion let him go. One day, a hunter caught the lion when he was searching for food. The lion roared for help. When the mouse heard the lion’s roar, he ran to the lion, and helped the lion. Finally, the lion escaped because of the mouse so he thanked the mouse.

In this story, the lion is a bad model for young children. First, the lion is wild and fearsome. He awakes with a loud roar, and down came his paw to the mouse when the mouse ran over his head and down his nose. Second, the lion is over confident and looks down to the mouse by saying that “How could a tiny creature like you ever do anything to help me?” Third, even though the lion is strong, he is stupid because he roared and thrashed about trying to free himself but with every move he made, the ropes bound him tighter. Some people might think the lion is strong, and powerful, and doesn’t need help from the weak, but I don’t think so, because the lion in the story became weak and useless when he fell into the trap, and he needs help from the mouse to escape from the trap. I believe this story shows young children that even though they are strong and powerful, sometimes they need the help of the weak. In addition, although some people are weak, they will able to help the strong people.

The Ugly Duckling

The ugly duckling is a traditional tale. The history is about a mother duck who was sitting on a clutch of new eggs, getting six ducklings, but one of them was different, because it had grey feathers instead of being yellow. The ducklings grew quickly, but the mother duck could not understand how this ugly duckling could be one of hers. The ugly duckling always was discriminated against and teased by their brother and the farmyard folks, and it was feeling every unhappy day due to the fact he felt nobody wanted him, then decided to run away. He stopped in other ponds and found other birds, but nobody accepted him. Also found with many people who wanted to obtain benefit from him; equally found a farmer who took him home to his children where he received a lot of care. The ugly duckling grew so big the farmers decided to set him free by the pond. In the end, there in the pond was when the duckling saw himself mirrored in the water goodness. After he flew north and glided on the pond where he found many friends, due to the fact that he was very like them; he also felt that his good looks was admired and the ugly duckling felt very happy because were well accepted by the rest.

The ugly duckling is a good model for young girls and boys, because he teaches us, how the society can discriminate against somebody only for the physique, beauty or appearance, which is wrong. The most important is to know people not only for appearance but also into each and to accept to the persons for how they are.

Some people might think this story is not possible or can not be thru as part of the society, but for the contents which it has, if is a history that happens daily in life, without recognizing sometimes that our behavior is wrong when we discriminate people only for their appearance and not value them for their sentiment or aptitude.