A Study of Fairy Tales

by Laura Fry Kready

(b) The penetrative imagination. This power of imagination shows the real character of a thing and describes it by its spiritual effects. It sees the heart and inner nature of things. Through fancy the child cannot reach this central viewpoint since fancy deals only with externals. Through the exercise of this power the child develops insight, intuition, and a perception of spiritual values, and gains a love of the ideal truth and a perpetual thirst for it. He develops genuineness, one of the chief virtues of originality. He will tend not to have respect for sayings or opinions but will seek the truth, be governed by its laws, and hold a passion for perfection. This power of imagination makes of him a continual seeker, "a pilgrim upon earth." Through the penetrative imagination the child forgets himself and enters into the things about him, into the doings of Three Pigs or the adventures of Henny Penny.

(c) The contemplative imagination. This is that special phase of the imagination that gives to abstract being consistency and reality. Through the contemplative imagination the child gains the significance of meaning and discerns the true message of the tale. When merely external resemblance is caught, when the likeness is forced, and the image created believed in, we have fancy. The contemplative imagination interprets the past in the tale and relates it to the future. It shows what is felt by indicating some aspect of what is seen. Through the exercise of this power the child develops the capacity to see. This capacity has received a high estimate from Ruskin, who said, "Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, thousands can think for one who can see." For language-training the capacity to see gives that ability to image words which results in mental growth.

The labor of the spirit seeking the full message of the fairy tale, often is rewarded with bits of philosophy which are the essence of its personal wisdom. Even the Woman Suffragists of our day might be amused to find, in The Cat and Mouse in Partnership, this side-light on one of their claims. The Mouse said she did not know what to think of the curious names, Top-off, Half-Out, and All-Out, which the Cat had chosen. To which the Cat replied, "That is because you always stay at home. You sit here in your soft gray coat and long tail, and these foolish whims get into your head. It is always the way when one does not go out in the daytime." Sometimes the philosophy of the tale is expressed not at all directly. This is the case in Andersen's The Emperor's New Suit, a gem in story-telling art—more suited to the second grade—where the purpose of the story is veiled, and the satire or humor is conveyed through a very telling word or two.—"'I will send my old, honest minister to the weavers,' thought the Emperor. And the old, honest minister went to the room where the two swindlers sat working at empty looms. 'Heaven preserve me!' thought the old minister, opening his eyes wide. 'Why, I cannot see anything!'—But he did not say so." The entire tale is a concrete representation of one point; and the concreteness is so explicit that at the close of the story its philosophy easily forms itself into the implied message of worldly wisdom: People are afraid to speak truth concerning much through cowardice or through fear of acting otherwise than all the world. The philosophy underlying The Steadfast Tin Soldier is even finer as a bit of truth than the perfect art of the literary story: That what happens in life does not matter so much as the way you take it. The Tin Soldier always remained steadfast, no matter what happened. Kipling's Elephant's Child is more charming than ever when looked at from the standpoint of its philosophy. It might be interpreted as an allegory answering the question, "How should one get experience?" a theme which cannot be said to lack universal appeal. The Ugly Duckling is full of sayings of philosophy that contribute to its complete message. The Cat and the Hen to whom the duckling crept for refuge said, "We and the world," and could not bear a difference of opinion. "You may believe me," said the Hen, "because I tell you the truth. That is the way to tell your friends." Their treatment of the Duckling expressed the philosophy: "If you can't do what I can you're no good." The Hen said to him, "You have nothing to do, that's why you have such strange ideas." The Duckling expressed his philosophy by saying quietly, "You don't understand me."

These bits of philosophy often become compressed into expressions which to-day we recognize as proverbs. The words of the Mother Duck, "Into the water he goes if I have to kick him in," became a Scandinavian proverb. "A little bird told it," a common saying of to-day, appears in Andersen's Nightingale and in Thumbelina. But this saying is traceable at least to the third story of the fourth night in Straparola, translated by Keightley, The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Beautiful Green Bird, in which the bird tells the King that his three guests are his own children. "Even a cat may look at a king," is probably traceable to some fairy tale if not to Puss-in-Boots. The philosophy in the fairy tales and the proverbs that have arisen in them, are subjects which offer to the adult much pleasure and fruitfulness.

But one must ask, "Does this philosophy appeal to the child? Is it not adult wisdom foreign to his immaturity?" The old folk-tales are the products of adult minds; but the adults were grown-ups that looked upon the world with the eyes of children, and their philosophy often was the philosophy of childhood. For childhood has its philosophy; but because it meets with repression on so many sides it usually keeps it to itself. When given freedom and self-activity and self-expression, the child's philosophy appears also. And it is the inner truth of the tale rather than the outer forms of sense and shapes of beauty which, when suited to the little child, appeals to this child-philosophy and makes the deepest impression upon him.

In the literary fairy tale there often appears a philosophy which is didactic and above and beyond the child's knowledge of the world. It remains a question how much this adult philosophy appeals to him. Although his tales were written for his grandchildren, so finished a telling of the tale as we find in Laboulaye, with its delightful hits of satire, appeals more to the grown-up versed in the ways of the world. But the sage remarks of worldly wisdom of Uncle Remus could not fail to impress a little boy: "Go where you will and when you may, and stay long ez you choosen ter stay, en right dar en den you'll sholy fin' dat folks what git full er consate en proudness is gwine ter git it tuck out 'm um."—Uncle Remus treated the little boy as if he was "pestered with sense, like grown-ups," and surely the little boy gained much amusement from sayings such as these: "If you know the man thab would refuse to take care of himself, I'd like mighty well if you'd point him out."—"Well, well," said Uncle Remus soothingly, "in deze low groun's er sorrer, you des got to lean back en make allowances fer all sorts er folks. You got ter low fer dem dat knows too much same ez dem what knows too little. A heap er sayin's en a heap er doin's in dis roun' worl' got ter be tuck on trus'."—The child does not get the full force of the philosophy but he gets what he can and that much sinks in.

It is through the contemplative imagination that the child realizes the meaning of particular tales. He learns: that Cinderella means that goodness brings its own reward; that Three Pigs means that the wise build with care and caution, with foresight; that Star Dollars means compassion for others and kindness to them; and that Red Riding Hood means obedience.

The power of the contemplative imagination is based on the indistinctness of the image. It suggests, too, the relation between cause and effect, which reason afterwards proves; and therefore it is a direct aid to science. In the tales there are expressed facts of truth symbolically clothed which science since then has discovered. And now that folk-lore is being studied seriously to unfold all it gives of an earlier life, perhaps this new study may reveal some new truths of science hidden in its depths. The marvels of modern shoe manufacture were prophesied in The Little Elves, and the power of electricity to hold fast was foretold in Dummling and his Golden Goose. The wonders of modern machinery appeared in the magic axe of Espen that hit at every stroke; and the miracle of modern canals sees a counterpart in the spring which Espen brought to the giant's boiling-pot in the wood. The magic sleep from which there was an awakening, even after a hundred years, may have typified hypnotism and its strange power upon man. These are realizations of some of the wonders of fairyland. But there may be found lurking in its depths many truths as yet undiscovered by science. Perhaps the dreams of primitive man may suggest to the present-day scientist new possibilities.—What primitive man has done in fancy present-day man can do in reality.

(3) A basis of truth. All fine emotional effects arise from truth. The tale must hold the mirror and show an image of life. It must select and combine facts which will suggest emotion but the facts must be a true expression of human nature. The tale, whether it is realistic in emphasizing the familiar, the commonplace, and the present, or romantic in emphasizing the strange, the heroic, and the remote, must be idealistic to interpret truly the facts of life by high ideals. If the tale has this basis of truth the child will gain, through his handling of it, a body of facts. This increases his knowledge and strengthens his intellect. And it is to be remembered that, for the child's all-round development, the appeal of literature to the intellect is a value to be emphasized equally with the appeal to the emotions and to the imagination. Speaking of the nature of the intellect in his essay on Intellect, Emerson has said: "We do not determine what we will think. We only open our senses, clear away as we can all obstruction from the fact, and suffer the intellect to see." Attention to the intellectual element in literature gives a power of thought. The consideration of the truth of the fairy tale aids the child to clear, definite thinking because the experience of the tale is ordered from a beginning, through a development, to a climax, and to a conclusion. It assists him to form conclusions because it presents results of circumstances and consequences of conduct. Continued attention to the facts, knowledge, and truth presented in the tales, helps the child to grow a sincerity of spirit. This leads to that love of actual truth, which is one of the armors of middle life, against which false opinion falls harmless.

(4) A form, more or less perfect. Form is the union of all the means which the writer employs to convey his thought and emotion to the reader. Flaubert has said, "Among all the expressions of the world there is but one, one form, one mode, to express what I want to say."—"Say what you have to say, what you have a will to say, in the simplest, the most direct and exact manner possible, with no surplusage," Walter Pater has spoken. Then the form and the matter will fit each other so perfectly there will be no unnecessary adornment.