I noticed a well-written, religiously-oriented essay in last week’s Pagosa Springs SUN newspaper, contributed by writer Jan Davis and titled “The many disguises of Satan”.
Of special note, perhaps, was this particular comparison:
Everyone has heard the story of the three bears and how Goldilocks came in and wreaked havoc on their little home. She ate their food, sat in their furniture and snuggled in for a nice, long nap.
Satan shows up the same way, unannounced and uninvited, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He joins us around our dinner table, cozies up to us on the couch and before we know it he is sleeping in our bed. How did it happen? We left our front door wide open and he freely walked in, making himself at home.
I found myself a bit shocked by Ms. Davis’ carefully formulated parallel between Satan and Goldilocks. (I assume it was carefully formulated, because it did appear, in print, in the Pagosa Springs SUN.)
I don’t question the obvious correlation, now that Ms. Davis has brought it to our attention, between the King of Darkness and a little girl wandering in the forest. Although the name “Goldilocks” does not actually appear in the Bible, as such… (at least, I haven’t come across it…) I’ve experienced the trials and tribulations of this earthly plane, and know all too well how much havoc an innocent-looking girl with curly hair can wreak on a person’s home.
As a young child, sitting on my mother’s knee as she read the story aloud — ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ — I totally missed the similarity between Goldilocks and Satan. We could lay the blame on the careless illustrators of children’s books, who — all too often — render Goldilocks without including her horns, cloven hooves, pitchfork and reptilian tail.
Of course, even as a toddler, I was able to understand the moral of the Goldilocks story. You don’t simply walk into people’s houses, uninvited, and sit on their furniture. You don’t eat someone else’s porridge, even if the temperature and consistency is just right. Especially — and I remember my mother properly emphasized this point, whenever she read the story to me — you don’t climb into someone’s bed without that person’s full knowledge and consent.
Especially if they are a bear.
Years later, however, as a somewhat more mature person, I’ve begun to perceive the hidden complexity of the Goldilocks story.
For one thing, the Bears were clearly intended to represent the Working Class. They dwelt in a modest cabin that probably lacked running water and was provisioned with simple, handmade furniture. They subsisted on a meager diet of porridge. Their only recreation was taking walks in the woods. This was not a family that could afford ATVs or even mountain bikes.
When Mother Bear set the porridge on the table to cool, and the family took a stroll through the woods… who should come along but Goldilocks, an entitled blonde in a frilly cotton dress, wearing a bow in her hair. Without so much as a knock on the door, she waltzes into the cabin and proceeds to gobble up Baby Bear’s porridge. She then sits down on the smallest of the handmade chairs and breaks it to pieces — indicating implicit obesity issues which were ignored by the book’s illustrator — and a perfect metaphor for the environmental destruction that results from a ‘free market’ capitalist system.
Not satisfied with the havoc she has already wreaked, she makes her way to the bedroom and climbs into Baby Bear’s bed, with her shoes on.
It seems totally obvious to me that Goldilocks represents the Arrogant Capitalist, living like a parasite off the sweat of the Working Class.
Ms. Davis, meanwhile, wants us to relate Goldilocks to Satan.
Same thing?
The positive aspect to the story is, of course, the final outcome, which was predicted nearly 200 years ago by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and others. The Arrogant Capitalist awakens to find herself outnumbered by the brave, hardworking, long-suffering Proletariat, who have finally become fully cognizant of the Capitalist’s crimes.
Goldilocks jumps out the window and runs off into the forest… leaving behind an economy in shambles.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.