A Study of Fairy Tales Part 9

(1) Child wandering into a home; as in _Three Bears_ and _Snow White_.

(2) Transformation; simple, as in _Puss-in-Boots_; by love, as in _Beauty and the Beast_, by sprinkling with water, as in _Beauty and the Beast_ or by bathing, as in _Catskin_; by violence, as in _Frog Prince_ and _White Cat_.

(3) Tasks as marriage tests; as in _Cinderella_.

(4) Riddle test; as in _Peter, Paul, and Espen_; questions asked, as in _Red Riding Hood_.

(5) Magic sleep; as in _Sleeping Beauty_.

(6) Magic touch; as in _Golden Goose_.

(7) Stupid person causing royalty to laugh; as in _Lazy Jack_.

(8) Exchange; as in _Jack and the Beanstalk_.

(9) Curiosity punished; as in _Bluebeard_ and _Three Bears_.

(10) Kindness to persons rewarded; as in _Cinderella, Little Two-Eyes_, and _The House in the Wood_.

(11) Kindness to animals repaid; as in _Thumbelina, Cinderella_, and _White Cat_.

(12) Industry rewarded; as in _Elves and the Shoemaker_.

(13) Hospitality rewarded; as in _Tom Thumb_.

(14) Success of a venture; as in _d.i.c.k Whittington_.

After studying the tale as folk-lore, know it as literature. Master it as a cla.s.sic, test it as literature, to see wherein lies its appeal to the emotions, its power of imagination, its basis of truth, and its quality of form; study it as a short-story and view it as a piece of narration. It is rather interesting to note that you can get all there is in a tale from any one point of view. If you follow the sequence as setting, through a.s.sociation you get the whole, as may be seen by referring to _Chanticleer and Partlet_ under the heading, "Setting,"

in the chapter on the "Short-Story." Or, if you follow the successive doings of the characters you get the whole, as may be observed in the story of _Medio Pollito_, described later in the "Animal Tale" in the chapter, "Cla.s.ses of Tales." Or if you follow the successive happenings to the characters, the plot, you get the whole, as may appear in the outline of _Three Pigs_ given in the chapter which handles "Plot." Note the beauty of detail and the quality of atmosphere with which the setting surrounds the tale; note the individual traits of the characters and their contrasts; observe how what each one does causes what happens to him. Realize your story from the three points of view to enter into the author's fullness. Get a good general notion of the story first.

3. The next step is: _Master the complete structure of the tale_. This is the most important step in the particular study of the tale, for it is the unity about which any perfection in the art of telling must center. To discern that repose of centrality which the main theme of the tale gives, to follow it to its climax and to its conclusion, where poetic justice leaves the listener satisfied--this is the most fundamental work of the story-teller. The teacher must a.n.a.lyze the structure of her tale into its leading episodes, as has been ill.u.s.trated in the handling of structure, under the subject, "Plot,"

in the chapter on the "Short-Story."

4. The next step is: _Secure the message of the tale_. The message is what we wish to transmit, it is the explicit reason for telling the tale. And one evidently must possess a message before one can give it.

As the message is the chief worth of the tale, the message should dominate the telling and pervade its life. A complete realization of the message of the tale will affect the minutest details giving color and tone to the telling, and resulting so that what the child does with the story will deepen the impression of the message he receives.

5. The next step is: _Master the tale as form_. This means that if the tale is in cla.s.sic form, not only the message and the structure must be transmitted, but the actual words. Words are the artist's medium, Stevenson includes them in his pattern of style, and how can we exclude them if we wish to express what they have expressed? A tale like Kipling's _The Elephant's Child_ would be ruined without those clinging epithets, such as "the wait-a-bit thorn-bush," "mere-smear nose," "slushy squshy mud-cap," "Bi-Colored-Python-Rock-Snake," and "satiable curtiosity." No one could subst.i.tute other words in this tale; for contrasts of feeling and humor are so tied up with the words that other words would fail to tell the real story. If an interjection has seemed an insignificant part of speech, note the vision of tropical setting opened up by the exclamation, "O Bananas! Where did you learn that trick?" This is indeed a tale where the form is the matter, the form and the message are one complete whole that cannot be separated. But it is a proof that where any form is of sufficient perfection to be a cla.s.sic form, you may give a modified tale by changing it, but you do not give the real complete tale. You cannot tell Andersen's _Tin Soldier_ in your own words; for its sentences, its phrases, its sounds, its suggestive language, its humor, its imagination, its emotion, and its message, are so intricately woven together that you could not duplicate them.

When the fairy tale does not possess a settled cla.s.sic form, select, as was mentioned, that version in which the language best conveys the life of the story, improving it yourself, if you can, in harmony with the standards of literature, until the day in the future when the tale may be fortunate enough to receive a settled form at the hands of a literary artist. Sometimes a slight change may improve greatly an old tale. In Grimm's _Briar Rose_[1] the episode of the Prince and the old Man contains irrelevant material. The two paragraphs following, "after the lapse of many years there came a king's son into the country,"

easily may be re-written to preserve the same unity and simplicity which mark the rest of the tale. This individual retelling of an old tale demands a careful distinction between what is essential and internal and what may have been added, what is accidental and external. The clock-case in _The Wolf and Seven Kids_ evidently is not a part of the original story, which arose before clocks were in use, and is a feature added in some German telling of the tale. It may be retained but it is not essential to the tale that it should be. Exact conversations and bits of dialogue, repet.i.tive phrases, rhymes, concrete words which visualize, brief expressions, and Anglo-Saxon words--these are all bits of detail which need to be mastered in a complete acquirement of the story's form, because these are characteristics of the form which time has settled upon the old tales.

Any literary form bestowed upon the tales worthy of the name literature, will have to preserve these essentials.

II. THE PRESENTATION OF THE TALE

In the oral presentation of the tale new elements of the teacher's preparation enter, for here the voice is the medium and the teacher must use the voice as the organist his keys. The aim of the oral presentation is to give the spiritual effect. This requires certain conditions of effectiveness--to speak with distinctness, to give the sense, and to cause to understand; and certain intellectual requirements--to articulate with perfection, to present successive thoughts in clear outline, and to preserve relative values of importance.

The production of the proper effect necessitates placing in the foreground, with full expression, what needs emphasis, and throwing back with monotony or acceleration parts that do not need emphasis. It requires slighting subordinate, unimportant parts, so that one point is made and one total impression given. This results in that flexibility and lightsomeness of the voice, which is one of the most important features in the telling of the tale. The study of technique, when controlled by these principles of vocal expression, is not opposed to the art of story-telling any more than the painter's knowledge of color is opposed to his art of painting. To obtain complete control of the voice as an instrument of the mind, there is necessary: (1) training of the voice; (2) exercises in breathing; (3) a knowledge of gesture; and (4) a power of personality.

(1) Training of the voice. This training aims to secure freedom of tone, purity of tone, fullness of tone, variety of volume, and tone-color. It will include a study of phonetics to give correct p.r.o.nunciation of sounds and a knowledge of their formation; freeing exercises to produce a jaw which is not set, an open throat, a mobile lip, and nimble tongue; and exercises to get rid of nasality or throatiness. The art of articulation adds to the richness of meaning, it is the connection between sound and sense. Open sounds are in harmony with joy, and very distinct emotional effects are produced by arrangements of consonants. The effect created by the use of the vowels and consonants in _The Spider and the Flea_ has already been referred to under "Setting." The open vowels of "on, little Drumikin!

Tum-pa, tum-t[=oo]!" help to convey the impression of lightsome gaiety in _Lambikin_. The effect of power displayed by "Then I'll huff and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in," is made largely by the sound of the consonants _ff_ and the _n_ in the concluding _in_, the force of the rough _u_ of _huff_ and _puff_, and the prolonged _o_ in _blow_. The effect of walking is produced by the _p_ of "_Trip, trap_," and of varied walking by the change of vowel from _[ui]_ to _[ua]_. The action of "I have come to gobble you up," is emphasized and made realistic by the _bb_ of _gobble_ and the _p_ of _up_.

Attention to the power of phonics to contribute to the emotional force and to the strength of meaning in the tale, will reveal to the story-teller many new beauties.

(2) Exercises in breathing. Training in breathing includes exercises to secure the regulation of proper breathing during speech and to point out the relation between breathing and voice expression. The correct use of the voice includes also ability to place tone.--Find out your natural tone and tell the story in that tone.--Many of the effects of the voice need to be dealt with from the inside, not externally. The use of the pause in story-telling is one of the subtlest and most important elements that contribute to the final effect. The proper placing of the pause will follow unconsciously as a consequence when the structure of the story is realized in distinct episodes and the proper emphasis given mentally to the most important details of action, while less emphasis in thought is given to subordinate parts. Therefore, the study of the pause must be made, not artificially and externally, but internally through the elements of the story which produce the pause. Tone-color, which is to ordinary speech what melody is to music--those varied effects of intonation, inflection, and modulation--is to be sought, not as a result from an isolated study of technique, but from attention to those elements in a.s.sociation with the complete realization of the life of the story.

Genuine feeling is worth more than mere isolated exercises to secure modulation, and complete realization eliminates the necessity of "pretending to be." The study of the fairy tale as literature, as has been indicated in the chapter on "Principles of Selection," will therefore be fundamental to the presentation of the tale. Entering into the motives of the story gives action, entering into the thought gives form, and entering into the feeling gives tone-color to the voice. The sincere desire to share the thought will be the best aid to bring expression.

(3) A knowledge of gesture. The teacher must understand the laws of gesture. The body is one means of the mind's expression. There is the eloquence of gesture and of pose. The simplest laws of gesture may be stated:--

(a) All gesture precedes speech in proportion to the intense realization of emotion.

(b) All expression begins in the face and pa.s.ses to some other agent of the body in proportion to the quality Of the emotion. The eye leads in pointing.

(c) Hands and arms remain close to the body in gesture when intensity of emotion is controlled.

In regard to gesture, a Children's Library pamphlet, dealing with the purpose of story-telling, has said, "The object of the story-teller is to present the story, not in the way advocated usually in the schools, but to present it with as little dramatic excitement and foreign gesture as possible, keeping one's personality in the background and giving all prominence to the story itself, relying for interest in the story alone." The schools have perhaps been misinterpreted. It is clear that only that personality is allowable which interprets truly the story's life. The listening child must be interested in the life of the story, not in the story-teller; and therefore gesture, tone, or sentiment that is individual variation and addition to the story itself, detracts from the story, is foreign to its thought, and occupies a wrong place of prominence. It is possible to tell a story, however, just as the author tells it, and yet give it naturally by realizing it imaginatively and by using the voice and the body artistically, as means of expression.

(4) A power of personality. What rules shall be given for the making of that personality which is to bring with it force in the telling of the tale and which must override phonetics, inflection, and gesture?

The very best help towards acquiring that personality which is the power of story-telling, is to have a power of life gained through the experience of having lived; to have a power of emotion acquired through the exercise of daily affairs; a power of imagination won from having dwelt upon the things of life with intentness, a power of sympathy obtained from seeing the things of others as you meet them day by day; and a first-hand knowledge of the sights and sounds and beauties of Nature, a knowledge of bird and flower, tree and rock, their names and some of their secrets--knowledge acc.u.mulated from actual contact with the real physical world. This power of life will enable the story-teller to enter, at the same time, into the life of the story she tells, and the life of those listening, to see the gift of the one and the need of the other.

The ideal position for the story-teller is to be seated opposite the center of the semicircle of listeners, facing them. The extreme nearness of the group, when the teller seeks the fingers of the listeners to add force to the telling, seems an infringement upon the child's personal rights. A strong personality will make the story go home without too great nearness and will want to give the children a little room so that their thoughts may meet hers out in the story.

Suggestions for telling. Now that the teacher is ready to speak, her first step in the art of story-telling, which is the first step in the art of any teaching, which lies at the very foundation of teaching, which is the most important step, and which is the step that often is neglected, is the _establis.h.i.+ng of the personal relation between herself and the listener_. This is one of those subtleties which evades measuring, but its influence is most lasting. It is the setting to the whole story of teaching. It must play so important a part because, as teacher and listener are both human beings, there must be between them a common bond of humanity. How do you wish to appear to this group of listeners? As a friend to be trusted, a brother or sister to give help, or as a good comrade to be played with; as "master, expert, leader, or servant"? If you wish to be as real and forceful as the characters in your story, you must do something which will cause the personal relation you desire, to be established; and moreover, having established it, you must live up to it, and prove no friend without faith. You must do this before you presume to teach or to tell a story. You need not do it before each individual story you present to a group you meet often; you may do it so effectively, with a master-stroke, at the beginning when you first meet your cla.s.s, that all you need do at successive meetings will be but to add point to your first establishment.

A student-teacher, in telling a story to a group of kindergarten children who were complete strangers, and telling it to them as they sat in a semicircle in front of her comrades, adult students, established this personal relation by beginning to tell the little children her experience with the first telling of _Three Bears_ to a little girl of four:--Seated before a sand-box in the yard, after hearing the story of _Three Bears_, M---- had been asked, "Wouldn't this be a good time for you to tell me the story?" In reply, she paused, and while the story-teller was expecting her to begin, suddenly said, "Do you think M----'s big enough for all that?" and refused to tell a word. Then turning to the group before her, the student-teacher made the direct appeal. "But you are the biggest little people in the kindergarten, and you wouldn't treat a story like that, would you?" The children, through the personal picture of friendly story-telling with a little child, that paralleled their own situation somewhat, immediately felt at home with the teller; it was just as if they were the same intimate friends with her that the little girl portrayed to them was. The human bond of good comrades.h.i.+p and intimacy was established. In the direct appeal at the end, the children were held up to an ideal they dare not disappoint, they must live up to their size, be able to get the story, and be the biggest little people in the kindergarten by showing what they could do with it. Again there was an undefined problem thrown at them, as it were--an element of wonder. They did not know just what was coming and they were mentally alert, waiting, on the lookout. The way for the story was open.--This is what you want, for no matter how perfect a gem of folk-lore you tell, it will fall heedless if the children do not listen to it.

The second step in the art of story-telling is one which grows naturally out of this first step. This second step, _to put the story in a concrete situation for the child_, to make the connection between the child and the literature you present, is the one which displays your unique power as an artist. It is the step which often is omitted and is the one which exercises all your individual ability and cleverness. It is the step which should speak comfort to the eager teacher of to-day, who is compelled to stand by, Montessori fas.h.i.+on, while many changing conceptions say to her: "Hands off! It is not what you do that helps the child develop; it is what he himself does!" Here at least is one of the teacher's chances to act. This step is the opening of the gateway so that the story you are about to tell may enter into the thoughts of your listeners. It is your means to organize the tale in the child's life. If in the school program you permit nature study, representing the central interest, to occupy the place of main emphasis, and if the game, occupation, and song work is related to the child's life, this organization of the child's tale in his life will be accomplished naturally.

In the example cited above, both the establishment of the personal relation and the placing of the story in a concrete situation, were managed partly at the one stroke. Your best help to furnish a concrete situation will be to preserve at the one end a sympathy for the life of your story and at the other to perceive the experience of the children in the listening group. Seeing both at once will result in a knowledge of what the children need most to make the story go home. If your children are good enough, and you and they sufficiently good friends to bear the fun of pantomime and the gaiety of hilarity, asking several boys, as they walk across the room before the children, to imitate some animals they had seen at a circus, and getting the children to guess the animal represented until they hit upon the elephant, would put certain children in a spirit of fun that would be exactly the wide-awake brightness and good humor needed to receive the story of _The Elephant's Child_. You can get children best into the story-telling mood by calling up ideas in line with the story. In the case of the story cited above, under the establishment of the personal relation, the story, _The Bremen Town Musicians_, was related to the child's experience by a few questions concerning kinds of music he knew, and what musician and kind of music the kindergarten had. In telling Andersen's _Tin Soldier_ you must call up experience concerning a soldier, not only because of the relation of the toy to the real soldier, but because the underlying meaning of the tale is courage, and the emotional theme is steadfastness. And to preserve the proper unity between the tale and the telling of it, the telling must center itself in harmony with the message of the tale, its one dominant impression and its one dominant mood.

Every story told results in some return from the child. The teacher, in her presentation, must _conceive the child's aim in listening_.

This does not mean that she forces her aim upon him. But it does mean that she makes a mental list of the child's own possible problems that the tale is best suited to originate, one of which the child himself will suggest. For the return should originate, not in imitation of what the teller plans, but spontaneously, as the child's own plan, answering to some felt need of his. But that does not prevent the story-teller from using her own imagination, and through it, from realizing what opportunities for growth the story presents, and what possible activities ought to be stimulated. A good guide will keep ahead of the children, know the possibilities of the material, and by knowledge and suggestion lead them to realize and accomplish the plans they crudely conceive. A consideration of these plans will modify the telling of the tale, and should be definitely thought about before the telling of the tale. A story told definitely to stimulate in the children dramatization, will emphasize action and dialogue; while one told to stimulate the painting of a water-color sketch, will emphasize the setting of the tale.

The telling of the tale. With this preparation, directions seem futile. The tale should tell itself naturally. You must begin at the beginning, as your tale will if you have selected a good one. You must tell it simply, as your tale will have simplicity if it is a good one, and your telling must be in harmony with the tale you tell. You will tell it with joy; of course, if there is joy in it, or beauty, which is a "joy forever," or if you are giving joy to your listeners. Tell it, if possible, with a sense of bestowing a blessing, and a delicate perception of the reception it meets in the group before you, and the pleasure and interest it arouses in them, so that in the telling there is that human setting which is a quickening of the spirit and a union of ideas, which is something quite new and different from the story, yet born of the story.

The re-creative method of story-telling. This preparation for telling here described will result in a fundamental imitation of the author of the story. By partic.i.p.ating in the life of the story; by realizing it as folklore; by realizing it as literature--its emotion, its imagination, its basis of truth, its message, its form; by paying conscious attention to the large units of the structure, the exact sequence of the plot, the characters, and the setting, the particular details of description, and the unique word--the story-teller reproduces the author's mode of thinking. She does with her mind what she wishes the child to do with his. With the very little child in the kindergarten and early first grade, who a.n.a.lyzes but slightly, this results consciously in a clear notion of the story, which shows itself in the child's free re-telling of the story as a whole. He may want to tell the story or he may not. Usually he enjoys re-telling it after some lapse of time; perhaps he tells it to himself, meanwhile. With the older child, who a.n.a.lyzes more definitely, this results in a retelling which actually reproduces the teller's mode of thinking. If persisted in, it gives to one's mode of thinking, the _story-mode_, just as nature study gives to life the nature point of view. This mode of thinking is the _mode of re-creation_, of realization. It re-experiences the life, it reaches the processes of the mind, and develops free mind movement. It is a habit of thinking, and is at the basis of reading, which is thinking through symbols; at the basis of the memorization of poetry, which must first see the pictures the poet has portrayed; it is the best help toward the adult study of literature, and the narration of history and geography. It is the power to conceive a situation, which is most useful in science, mathematics, and the reasoning of logic. "For," says Professor John Dewey, "the mind which can make independent judgments, look at facts with fresh vision, and reach conclusions with simplicity, is the perennial power in the world."

This re-creative method of fundamental imitation was ill.u.s.trated in the telling of Andersen's _Princess and the Pea_, in a student-teacher's cla.s.s:

The story was told by the Professor. After the telling of the story it was decided to have the story told again, but this time in parts and by those who had listened, in such a way that it would seem as if one person were telling the whole story.

The Professor named the first part of the story. A student was asked to tell the story from _the beginning_ to the end of _the Prince's coming home again, sad at heart_. Another student told the second part, beginning with _the storm_ and ending with _what the old Queen thought_. A third student told the third part, beginning with _the next morning_ and ending with the close of the story, _Now this is a true story_.

The Professor next asked students to think over the entire story, to see if each student could find any weak places in the remembering of the story. Several students reported difficulty--one failed to remember the exact description of the storm. A number of details were thus filled in, in the exact words of the author. After this intimate handling of the separate parts of the story, a final re-telling by one student--omitted in this case because of lack of time--would bring together what had been contributed by individual students, and would represent the final re-creation of the entire story.

The simplicity of this selection, the simplicity of the plot, the few characters, the literary art of the story, the skillful use of the unique word, the art of presenting distinct pictures by means of vivid words, through suggestion rather than through ill.u.s.tration, together with the delicate humor that hovered about the tale, and the art of the Professor's telling--all combined in the final effect. The re-telling of the story in parts accomplished the a.n.a.lysis of the story into three big heads: