The story makes extensive use of the literary rule of three, featuring three chairs, three bowls of porridge, three beds, and the three title characters who live in the house. There are also three sequences of the bears discovering in turn that someone has been eating from their porridge, sitting in their chairs, and finally, lying in their beds, at which point is the climax of Goldilocks being discovered. This follows three earlier sequences of Goldilocks trying the bowls of porridge, chairs, and beds successively, each time finding the third "just right". Author Christopher Booker characterises this as the "dialectical three" where "the first is wrong in one way, the second in another or opposite way, and only the third, in the middle, is just right". Booker continues: "This idea that the way forward lies in finding an exact middle path between opposites is of extraordinary importance in storytelling".^[2]

This concept has spread across many other disciplines, particularly developmental psychology, biology, economics, and engineering where it is called the "Goldilocks principle".^[3][4] In planetary astronomy, a planet orbiting its sun at just the right distance for liquid water to exist on its surface, neither too hot nor too cold, is referred to as being in the "Goldilocks Zone". As Stephen Hawking put it, "Like Goldilocks, the development of intelligent life requires that planetary temperatures be "just right'".^[5]

1. Introduction: The Three Bears live in a house in the forest. They have three dishes of porridge, three seats, and three beds.
2. The Bears' Outing: One morning, after Mother Bear makes porridge for breakfast, they find it too warm to even consider eating. The family chooses to take a stroll in the forest while the porridge chills off.
3. Goldilocks Arrives: Goldilocks happens upon the house while the bears are away. She is interested and chooses to go in.
4. Testing the Porridge: Inside the house, Goldilocks tracks down the three dishes of porridge. She tastes from every bowl, finding Father Bear's excessively hot, Mother Bear's excessively cold, but Baby Bear's perfect. She eats all of Baby Bear's porridge.
5. Sitting in the Chairs: Goldilocks then tracks down the seats. She attempts every one, finding Father Bear's excessively hard, Mother Bear's excessively delicate, yet Baby Bear's perfect. Be that as it may, she breaks Baby Bear's seat when she sits in it.
6. Rest Time: At last, Goldilocks finds the rooms and evaluates the beds. Yet again Father Bear's is excessively hard, Mother Bear's is excessively soft, yet Baby Bear's is perfect. She nods off in Baby Bear's bed.
7. The Bears Return: The Three Bears return from their walk and promptly notice the progressions in their home.
8. Discovery: They find the eaten porridge, the broken chair, and lastly Goldilocks sleeping in Baby Bear's bed.
9. Goldilocks Wakes Up: Frightened to think of herself as found, Goldilocks awakens, leaps out of bed, and takes off through an open window.
10. Conclusion: The bears are perplexed yet return to their life, maybe a little savvier about security. Goldilocks probably learns an example regarding others' property.

• Little Red Riding Hood
• Goldilocks principle

Citations edit

General sources edit

• "The Story of the Three Bears", manuscript by Eleanor Mure, 1831 - first recorded version
• "The Story of the Three Bears" by Robert Southey, 1837 – first published version
• "The Story of the Three Bears", versified by George Nicol, 2nd edition, 1839 (text)
• "The Three Bears" by Robert Southey – later version with "Silver-hair", a "little girl"
• "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", by Katharine Pyle, 1918 – later version with father, mother and baby bear