The Selfish Giant

Every afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used to go and play in the Giant’s garden.

It was a large, lovely garden, with soft green grass. Here and there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there were twelve peach trees that in the springtime broke out into delicate blossoms of pink and pearl, and in the autumn bore rich fruit. The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the children used to stop their games in order to listen to them. “How happy we are here!” they cried to each other.

One day the Giant came back. He had been to visit his friend, the Cornish ogre, and had stayed with him for seven years. After the seven years were over he had said all that he had to say, for his conversation was limited, and he determined to return to his own castle. When he arrived he saw the children playing in the garden.

“What are you doing there?” he cried in a very gruff voice, and the children ran away.

“My own garden is my own garden,” said the Giant; “any one can understand that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself.” So he built a high wall all round it, and put up a notice-board.

TRESPASSERS
WILL BE
PROSECUTED.

He was a very selfish giant.

The poor children had now nowhere to play. They tried to play on the road, but the road was very dusty and full of hard stones, and they did not like it. They used to wander round the high wall when their lessons were over, and talk about the beautiful garden inside. “How happy we were there,” they said to each other.

Then the spring came, and all over the country there were little blossoms and little birds. Only in the garden of the Selfish Giant it was still winter. The birds did not care to sing in it as there were no children, and the trees forgot to blossom. Once a beautiful flower put its head out from the grass, but when it saw the notice-board it was so sorry for the children that it slipped back into the ground again, and went off to sleep. The only people who were pleased were the Snow and the Frost. “Spring has forgotten this garden,” they cried, “so we will live here all the year round.” The Snow covered up the grass with her great white cloak, and the Frost painted all the trees silver. Then they invited the North Wind to stay with them, and he came. He was wrapped in furs, and he roared all day about the garden, and blew the chimney-pots down. “This is a delightful spot,” he said, “we must ask the Hail on a visit.” So the Hail came. Every day for three hours he rattled on the roof of the castle till he broke most of the slates, and then he ran round and round the garden as fast as he could go. He was dressed in gray, and his breath was like ice.

“I cannot understand why the spring is so late in coming,” said the Selfish Giant, as he sat at the window and looked out at his cold white garden; “I hope there will be a change in the weather.”

But the spring never came, nor the summer. The autumn gave golden fruit to every garden, but to the Giant’s garden none. “He is too selfish,” she said. So it was always winter there, and the North Wind, and the Hail, and the Frost, and the Snow danced about through the trees.

One morning the Giant was lying awake in bed when he heard some lovely music. It sounded so sweet to his ears that he thought it must be the King’s musicians passing by. It was really only a little linnet singing outside his window but it was so long since he had heard a bird sing in his garden that it seemed to him to be the most beautiful music in the world. Then the Hail stopped dancing over his head, and the North Wind ceased roaring, and a delicious perfume came to him through the open casement. “I believe the spring has come at last,” said the Giant; and he jumped out of bed and looked out.

What did he see?

He saw a most wonderful sight. Through a little hole in the wall the children had crept in, and they were sitting in the branches of the trees. In every tree that he could see there was a little child. And the trees were so glad to have the children back again that they had covered themselves with blossoms, and were waving their arms gently above the children’s heads. The birds were flying about and twittering with delight, and the flowers were looking up through the green grass and laughing. It was a lovely scene, only in one corner it was still winter. It was the farthest corner of the garden, and in it was standing a little boy. He was so small that he could not reach up to the branches of the tree, and he was wandering all round it, crying bitterly. The poor tree was still quite covered with frost and snow, and the North Wind was blowing and roaring above it. “Climb up! little boy,” said the Tree, and it bent its branches down as low as it could; but the boy was too tiny.

And the Giant’s heart melted as he looked out. “How selfish I have been!” he said; “now I know why the spring would not come here. I will put that poor little boy on the top of the tree, and then I will knock down the wall, and my garden shall be the children’s playground for ever and ever.” He was really very sorry for what he had done.

So he crept downstairs and opened the front door quite softly, and went out into the garden. But when the children saw him they were so frightened that they all ran away, and the garden became winter again. Only the little boy did not run, for his eyes were so full of tears that he did not see the Giant coming. And the Giant strode up behind him and took him gently in his hand, and put him up into the tree. And the tree broke at once into blossom, and the birds came and sang on it, and the little boy stretched out his two arms and flung them around the Giant’s neck, and kissed him. And the other children, when they saw that the Giant was not wicked any longer, came running back, and with them came the spring. “It is your garden now, little children,” said the Giant, and he took a great axe and knocked down the wall. And when the people were going to market at twelve o’clock they found the Giant playing with the children in the most beautiful garden they had ever seen.

All day long they played, and in the evening they came to the Giant to bid him good-by.

“But where is your little companion?” he said: “the boy I put into the tree.” The Giant loved him the best because he had kissed him.

“We don’t know,” answered the children; “he has gone away.”

“You must tell him to be sure and come here to-morrow,” said the Giant. But the children said that they did not know where he lived, and had never seen him before; and the Giant felt very sad.

Every afternoon, when school was over, the children came and played with the Giant. But the little boy whom the Giant loved was never seen again. The giant was very kind to all the children, yet he longed for his first little friend, and often spoke of him. “How I would like to see him!” he used to say.

Years went over, and the Giant grew very old and feeble. He could not play about any more, so he sat in a huge armchair, and watched the children at their games, and admired his garden. “I have many beautiful flowers,” he said, “but the children are the most beautiful flowers of all.”

One winter morning he looked out of his window as he was dressing. He did not hate the winter now, for he knew that it was merely the spring asleep, and that the flowers were resting.

Suddenly he rubbed his eyes in wonder, and looked and looked. It certainly was a marvellous sight. In the farthest corner of the garden was a tree quite covered with lovely white blossoms. Its branches were all golden, and silver fruit hung down from them, and underneath it stood the little boy he had loved.

Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden. He hastened across the grass, and came near to the child. And when he came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, “Who hath dared to wound thee?” For on the palms of the child’s hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints of two nails were on the little feet.

“Who hath dared to wound thee?” cried the Giant; “tell me, that I may take my big sword and slay him.”

“Nay!” answered the child; “but these are the wounds of Love.”

“Who art thou?” said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little child.

And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, “You let me play once in your garden, to-day you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise.”

And when the children ran in that afternoon, they found the Giant lying dead under the tree, all covered with white blossoms.

Oscar Wilde.

STORIES SELECTED BECAUSE OF THEIR INSTINCTIVE INTEREST

RHYTHMIC STORIES:
The House That Jack Built Mother Goose
The Kid That Would Not Go Folk Tale
The Story of Lambikin In Firelight Stories
The Teeny Tiny Lady In Firelight Stories
The Story of Epaminondas and His Auntie Sara Cone Bryant, in Best Stories to Tell to Children
ANIMAL STORIES AND MYTHS:
Nights with Uncle Remus Joel Chandler Harris
The Jungle Books Rudyard Kipling
The Just-So-Stories Rudyard Kipling
The Talking Beasts Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith
The Little Red Hen In For the Children’s Hour
Myths Every Child Should Know Hamilton Mabie
STORIES TO INHIBIT THE SELFISH INSTINCT:
The Little Red Hen In For the Children’s Hour
The Coming of the King Laura E. Richards, in The Golden Windows
The Cooky Laura E. Richards, in The Golden Windows
The Story of Babouscka In For the Children’s Hour
The Legend of the Woodpecker In For the Children’s Hour
Picciola Celia Thaxter, in Stories and Poems for Children

CHAPTER VIII
THE DRAMATIC STORY

IN the previous chapter we analyzed certain primitive phases of mental life as manifested in the instinctive acts of children. These manifestations of instinct form a basis for our story selection, guiding us toward a final and certain goal of child interest.

One phase of instinct was left out of our discussion except as it was touched upon primarily in the analysis of a child’s instinctive interest in rhythm. This is the instinct to express through bodily movements the ideas that have found a permanent place for themselves in the mind.

Little E, three years old, was told by her nurse the folk tale of “The Old Woman and Her Pig.” She had heard very few stories, and this one seemed to delight her beyond words. She laughed and clapped her hands over it, and begged to have it repeated and retold even a third time. She made no comment upon the text of the story, however. A week later, she was left alone in her nursery for a short period during the morning and her mother, busy with household duties upon the floor below, thought that she heard E’s voice. Going, quietly, to the door of the nursery she saw E standing, dramatically, in the center of the room, holding a toy broom under her arm, and shaking her finger at a small china pig that stood on the floor in front of her. As she did this, she said in the exact words of the story that had been told her:

“Piggy won’t get over the stile, and I shall not get home to-night.”

“What are you doing, E?” her mother asked in some surprise.

E looked up in wonder as if she, herself, knew a reason for her actions but one that needed no explanation. Finally she spoke:

“I’m doing a story, mother,” she replied.

This incident of E’s instinctive and almost unconscious dramatization of a story which she had heard and whose images had become fixed in her mind illustrates a very common characteristic of a child’s mental life, the instinctive impulse to vitalize the mental life by putting it into terms of expression. It is true that instinctive expression as commonly defined includes in its first manifestations only certain unlearned motor responses, those forms of expression that are ours without previous training or experience. A child cries at a pain, laughs when he is tickled, starts in fear at a sudden and loud noise. These are the primitive forms of instinctive expression, but beyond these and through the use of certain child stories that are full of action, compelling dialogue, and quick movement comes a development of the dramatic instinct in childhood of wonderful value to the teacher.

Why do we want to make use of the dramatic instinct in childhood?

First, because this instinct to do, to act, to express is so common a part of each child’s mental content upon entering school that it forms part of our previously discussed child brain capital. The instinct to do a story, to give it expression in terms of bodily movement would not be given a child unless it had some value for the educator.

Second, we want to utilize the dramatic instinct of childhood, because it is a very sure way of helping a child to gain poise, self-control, and a complete mastery of his environment. The ability to give adequate expression through speech or action to the mental life characterizes the well-developed individual as opposed to the victim of self-consciousness. It means grace of body and freedom of verbal expression.

What qualities differentiate the dramatic child story from that story which is not as well adaptable for child acting?

Primarily, the story that we select for purposes of dramatization should have the quality of being visual—that is, it should be so full of simple, pictorial scenes, episodes and events that it will bring to the minds of the children a definite sequence of word pictures, stimulative to action. This “moving picture” quality is found in the old folk tales, the fables of Æsop and La Fontaine. Here the stage setting of the stories is simple and easily pictured by the child listeners. The story events find an immediate and permanent place in the child’s mind and a possible outlet in action because of their apperceptive quality.

The story of “The Little Red Hen” is an interesting type of the story that lends itself to child dramatizing because of its visual quality. There is a series of home scenes; the little Red Hen’s garden, her house, her kitchen, all familiar and easily seen by children but illuminated with the interest of mystery because of the Hen, herself, and her friends, the Cat and the Frog. “The Elves and the Shoemaker” is also a good story for child acting, while among the most dramatic visual fables are “The Town Mouse and The Country Mouse,” “The Lion and the Mouse,” “The Lark and Her Young Ones” and “The Hare and the Tortoise.”

The second quality that the story teller should have in mind in selecting stories for child dramatizing is simplicity of dialogue. The story actors should converse, if not in childlike manner, at least in a simple, easy-to-understand vocabulary that will add to a child’s store of words but will not tax him too much in reproduction. Here, again, we must turn to folk tales and fables for simple, straightforward, rich dialogue. Quite naturally and without apparent effort children verbalize the dialogue of “The Little Red Hen” after hearing the story once or twice.

“Who will build my fire?” she said.
“Not I!” said the Frog.
“Not I!” said the Cat.
“Then I will,” said the Little Red Hen.

These and the other bits of simple dialogue that go to make up the plot of this story; the conversation between the Wolf and the Pig in the story of “The Three Little Pigs,” the Lark and her little ones, Jack and the different characters in the Beanstalk story, the “Lion and the Mouse”—these are all examples of easily reproduced dialogue, stimulating spontaneous dialogue on the part of the children.

One further consideration in connection with the dramatic story—spontaneity.

Because of the popularity of so-called story dramatization among kindergartners and primary teachers, a school of child acting in kindergartens and the grades has sprung into life. Stories are dramatized for children rather than by the children themselves, and the results obtained through unnecessary costuming, certain stage properties and memorized dialogue are of no appreciable value in the mental development of the child. A child impersonates a pig gifted with human attributes, spontaneously, but he plays the part of a dressed-up fairy in a wooden, unspontaneous fashion. The difference between the two is just the difference between instinctive expression and prescribed action. In his “Principles of Psychology,” Professor Thorndyke says:

“Given any mental state, that movement will be made which the inborn constitution of the nervous system has connected with the mental state or part of it. The baby reaches for a bright object because, by inner organization, that sense presentation is connected with that act. For the same reason he puts an object into his mouth when he feels it within his grasp. The boy puts up his arm and wards off a blow because his brain is so organized as to connect those responses with those situations.

“Given any mental state, that movement will be made which has been connected with it or part of it most frequently, most recently, in the most vivid experience and with the most satisfying results.”

This careful and concrete statement of the law governing instinctive movement gives us our cue for selecting stories for child dramatizing and our method in presenting them, having in view—not child acting, but spontaneous child action. We will provide no costumes for our children, set no stage, but only give them that story which will suggest to them a recent, frequently repeated, vivid experience with its accompanying satisfying results in certain spontaneous movements.

Suppose we illustrate with a possible, voluntary dramatizing of the old and well loved folk tale of “The Gingerbread Boy.” The experiences suggested to children by this story and suggesting action to them are the chase and the sense stimulus of food. After hearing the story a number of times until they are quite familiar with its dialogue and its characters and its sequence of episodes, the teacher may suggest to the children that they play it. A disastrous way to begin the play would be to assign the different characters in the story to different children, showing them where to stand or asking them to try and use the exact words that the story characters did. Rather should the dramatizing of the story be a developing process on the part of the teacher. If she has made the story permanent in the minds of the children, their rendering of it in action will be free and their dialogue spontaneous.

“Who wants to be the Gingerbread Boy?

“Who would like to be the Gingerbread Boy’s mother?

“I see a child with very bright, sharp eyes. Is he not the Fox?

“We will need many Mowers and some Threshers.

“Who is the Pig, and who the Cow?”

These or similar hints on the part of the teacher are cues for the opening of the play—all that is needed, usually, to start the spontaneous dramatization. As naturally as if she were the story character herself, the little old woman mother rolls and pats the Gingerbread Boy into shape, puts him in an imaginary oven and then falls asleep. He makes his escape, is interviewed in turn by the Threshers, the Mowers, the Pig and the Cow, makes his escape from them also, only to be eventually captured and eaten by the Fox. As the story play goes on, it will be discovered that the child actors are rendering with perfect diction the dialogue of the story, enriching their vocabulary and gaining power of verbal expression. It will be discovered also that their movements are illustrative of the story, and absolutely lacking in self consciousness, typical of an added quota of poise and self-control gained through the play. Certain responses are always made to certain mind situations. What need is there of stage setting since a child actor sees in his mind’s eye the barn full of Mowers whose mouths are watering to eat him up? Why should the tired-out teacher spend long after-school hours sewing together costumes when, at an instant’s notice, a child is able to clothe himself in the sleek red coat and valiant brush of a fox?

It is to be questioned if the books of so-called dramatic stories for children which may be obtained now are really educational or have for their place upon the teacher’s desk a firm psychologic background. Most of them seem to have for their scheme of compiling child acting, not action. The child on the stage is not developing mentally. Rather is he a mentally starved puppet, moved about by the wires of the stage and repeating lines in parrot-like fashion. The little girl, E, quoted at the beginning is an example of mental growth through spontaneous action. So the books of dramatic stories seem to have been prepared having in mind what the child should say or do, rather than presenting such interesting story material in such interesting form that a child will speak and do without any further stimulus than that of the story itself.

In selecting our stories for child dramatizing we will go to original sources and choose only such stories as are so rich in homely, apperceptive incidents, and so marked by possibilities for simple, interpretive dialogue as to lend themselves to instinctive action on the part of the children.