The Art of Story-Telling

by Marie L. Shedlock

I had been telling a class of young children the story of Polyphemus and Ulysses, and, just at the most dramatic moment in it, some impulse prompted me to go off on a side issue to describe the personal appearance of Ulysses.

The children were visibly bored, but with polite indifference they listened to my elaborate description of the hero. If I had given them an actual description from Homer, I believe that the strength of the language would have appealed to their imagination (all the more strongly because they might not have understood the individual words) and have lessened their disappointment at the dramatic issue being postponed; but I trusted to my own lame verbal efforts, and signally failed. Attention flagged, fidgeting began, the atmosphere was rapidly becoming spoiled, in spite of the patience and toleration still shown by the children. At last, however, one little girl in the front row, as spokeswoman for the class, suddenly said: “If you please, before you go any further, do you mind telling us whether, after all, that Poly ... (slight pause) that (final attempt) Polyanthus died?”

Now, the remembrance of this question has been of extreme use to me in my career as a story-teller. I have realized that in a short dramatic story the mind of the listeners must be set at ease with regard to the ultimate fate of the special “Polyanthus” who takes the centre of the stage.

I remember too the despair of a little boy at a dramatic representation of “Little Red Riding-Hood,” when that little person delayed the thrilling catastrophe with the Wolf, by singing a pleasant song on her way through the wood. “Oh, why,” said the little boy, “does she not get on?” And I quite shared his impatience.

This warning is only necessary in connection with the short dramatic narrative. There are occasions when we can well afford to offer short descriptions for the sake of literary style, and for the purpose of enlarging the vocabulary of the child. I have found, however, in these cases, it is well to take the children into your confidence—warning them that they are to expect nothing particularly exciting in the way of dramatic event: they will then settle down with a freer mind (though the mood may include a touch of resignation) to the description you are about to offer them.[2]

II.—The danger of altering the story to suit special occasions. This is done sometimes from extreme conscientiousness, sometimes from sheer ignorance of the ways of children; it is the desire to protect them from knowledge which they already possess and with which they (equally conscientious) are apt to “turn and rend” the narrator. I remember once when I was telling the story of the siege of Troy to very young children, I suddenly felt anxious lest there should be anything in the story of the Rape of Helen not altogether suitable for the average age of the class—namely, nine years. I threw therefore, a domestic colouring over the whole subject, and presented an imaginary conversation between Paris and Helen, in which Paris tried to persuade Helen that she was a strong-minded woman, thrown away on a limited society in Sparta, and that she should come away and visit some of the institutions of the world with him, which would doubtless prove a mutually instructive journey.[3] I then gave the children the view taken by Herodotus that Helen never went to Troy, but was detained in Egypt. The children were much thrilled by the story, and responded most eagerly when, in my inexperience, I invited them to reproduce for the next day the tale I had just told them.

A small child in the class presented me, as you will see, with the ethical problem from which I had so laboriously protected her. The essay ran:

“Once upon a time the King of Troy's son was called Paris. And he went over to Greace to see what it was like. And here he saw the beautiful Helener, and likewise her husband Menelayus. And one day, Menelayus went out hunting, and left Paris and Helener alone, and Paris said: ‘Do you not feel dul in this palis?’ And Helener said: ‘I feel very dull in this pallice,[4] and Paris said: 'Come away and see the world with me.’ So they sliped off together, and they came to the King of Egypt, and he said: ‘Who is the young lady?’ So Paris told him. ‘But,’ said the King, ‘it is not propper for you to go off with other people's wifes. So Helener shall stop here.’ Paris stamped his foot. When Menelayus got home, he stamped his foot. And he called round him all his soldiers, and they stood round Troy for eleven years. At last they thought it was no use standing any longer, so they built a wooden horse in memory of Helener and the Trojans and it was taken into the town.”

Now the mistake I made in my presentation was to lay particular stress on the reason for elopement by my careful readjustment, which really called more attention to the episode than was necessary for the age of my audience; and evidently caused confusion in the minds of some of the children who knew the story in its more accurate original form.

Whilst travelling in the States, I was provided with a delightful appendix to this story. I had been telling Miss Longfellow and her sister the little girl's version of the Siege of Troy, and Mrs. Thorpe made the following comment, with the American humour whose dryness adds so much to its value: