A Modern Tale[18]
The Elephant's Child
The Elephant's Child might be examined here more particularly because it is unusually interesting as an example of the complete test applied to the child's fairy tale. One need not test it as to interest for it was written especially for children by one who could play with them. As to literature it certainly has mind and soul; there is no doubt about its structure or its appeal to the sympathies. The quantity of good humor and fun it bestows upon childhood is a permanent enrichment; for even a child's world has need of all the good cheer and fun that can be given to it.
This tale is especially interesting also because it might be classed as almost any one of the types of tales. It is not accumulative though it possesses to a marked degree three characteristics of the accumulative tale, repetition, alliteration, and all sorts of phonic effects. And it is not an old tale. But it is not only one of the most pleasing animal tales we possess but one of the best humorous tales having the rare quality of freshness. It is realistic in its portrayal of animal life; and it is highly romantic in its sense of adventure, the heroic, the strange, and the remote.
As a short-story it shows the essentials, originality, ingenuity, and compression. The single interest is how the Elephant got his trunk, and everything points to the climax of his getting it. The plot is "entertaining, novel, comical and thrilling." The structure is very easily seen in these ten episodes:—
1. The introduction; the family; the Child; his home; his
questions; the new, fine question.
2. The Elephant's Child set out to answer his own question.
3. The Elephant's Child met Kolokolo Bird.
4. The Elephant's Child journeyed to the Limpopo.
5. The Elephant's Child met the Python.
6. The Elephant's Child met the Crocodile. He got his trunk.
(Climax.)
7. The Elephant's Child gained experience from the Python.
8. The Elephant's Child's journey home.
9. The Elephant's Child's return home.
10. Conclusion. How all elephants got trunks. Peace.
The characters are unique and interesting. They are usual animals but unusual in what they say. They exhibit animal traits and motives but they also show us a hidden meaning in their actions and words. They seem living, they speak directly; yet they preserve the idea of the fable for they are symbolic. The Elephant's Child typifies human innocence, the inexperience of youth; the Kolokolo Bird, a friend; the Python, experience or wisdom; and the Crocodile, guile or evil. All the animals become very interesting because we are concerned to know their particular reason for spanking the "'satiable Elephant's Child." What they say is so humorous and what they do is consistent, in harmony with their natural animal traits. The Child is the hero. He is a very attractive character because he has that rare charm we call temperament. He is curious, polite, and sweet, and follows his own nose in spite of everything. He wins out with strength, experience, and a new nose; and we are rejoiced at his triumphs. His questions are so funny and yet they seem quite what any elephant with a bump of curiosity might ask. To the Giraffe—"What made his skin spotty?" To the Hippopotamus—"Why her eyes were red?" To the Baboon—"Why melons tasted just so?" And at last, "What does the Crocodile have for dinner?"
The setting of the tale is suggested continually in expressions which show visual imagination of a high order: such as, "And he lived in Africa"; "dragged him through a thorn bush"; "blew bubbles into her ear"; "hove him into a hornet's nest"; and "from Graham's Town to Kimberley and from Kimberley to Khama's Country, and from Khama's Country east by north to the Limpopo."
The tale possesses most delightful humor. A verbal magic which fairly scintillates with the comic spirit, and clinging epithets of which Kipling is a master, suggest the exact picture needed. Humor is secured largely through the use of the unique word; as, "spanked," "precisely as Kolokolo Bird had said," and "for he was a Tidy Pachyderm." Often it is increased by the use of newly coined words; as, "hijjus," "curtiosity," "scalesome, flailsome, tail," "fever-trees," "self-propelling man-of-war," and "schloop of mud." Another element of humor in the tale is the artistic use of repetition, which has been previously referred to as one of the child's interests. Sometimes one meaning is expressed in several different ways; as, "immediately and directly, without stopping, for a long time." Or we are given contrasted terms; as, "a little warm but not at all astonished," and then later, "very warm and greatly astonished." One main element of humor is this way in which expressions reflect back on preceding ones. Sometimes we are given very surprising, startling, expressions; as, "wait-a-bit-thorn-bush "—which reminds us of the "all-alone-stone" in Water Babies—and "he sang to himself down his trunk."
As to imagination, The Elephant's Child is a delightful illustration of the appeal to the associative, the penetrative, and the contemplative imagination. While its philosophy may be understood in part by the child it has a deeper meaning for the adult. It seems to imply that it is the way of life to spank somebody else. It is the stronger who spank the weaker until they become strong enough to stand up for themselves. Then nobody spanks anybody any more and there is peace. When the Child asked a question that no one would answer he set out to find his own answer just as in life it often is best to work to answer one's own questions. When the Elephant trusted the Crocodile he got something to keep just as in life the innocent may bear the marks of a contest though in no sense responsible for the contest. Experience in the guise of the Python helped the Child in his contest for life with the advice his own common sense would have offered. As an allegory of Experience The Elephant's Child does not view life as a whole; it gives but a glimpse of life. It would say: Experience teaches us to make the best with what we have. The way to get experience is to try a new power, just as the Child with his trunk tried to kill the fly and eat grass. As soon as he had received his new power he tested it on the Hippopotamous. He won the respect of his kind by beating them at their own game.