The Art of Story-Telling

by Marie L. Shedlock

“Poetry,” says Professor Bradley, “is a way of representing truth; but there is in it, as its detractors have always insisted, a certain untruth or illusion. We need not deny this, so long as we remember that the illusion is conscious, that no one wishes to deceive, and that no one is deceived. But it would be better to say that poetry is false to literal fact for the sake of obtaining a higher truth. First, in order to represent the connection between a more significant part of experience and a less significant, poetry, instead of linking them together by a chain which touches one by one the intermediate objects that connect them, leaps from one to the other. It thus falls at once into conflict with commonsense.”

Now, the whole of this passage bears as much on the question of the truth embodied in a Fairy Tale as a poem, and it would be interesting to take some of these tales and try to discover where they are false to actual fact for the sake of a higher truth.

Let us take, for instance, the story of Cinderella: The coach and pumpkins to which we have alluded, and all the magic part of the story, are false to actual facts as we meet them in our every-day life; but is it not a higher truth that Cinderella could escape from her chimney corner by thinking of the brightness outside? In this sense we all travel in pumpkin coaches.

Take the story of Psyche, in any one of the many forms it is presented to us in folk-story. The magic transformation of the lover is false to actual fact; but is it not a higher truth that we are often transformed by Circumstance, and that love and courage can overcome most difficulties?

Take the story of the Three Bears. It is not in accordance with established fact that bears should extend hospitality to children who invade their territory. Is it not true, in a higher sense, that fearlessness often lessens or averts danger?

Take the story of Jack and the Bean-Stalk. The rapid growth of the bean-stalk and the encounter with the Giant are false to literal fact; but is it not a higher truth that the spirit of courage and high adventure leads us straight out of the commonplace and often sordid facts of Life?

Now, all these considerations are too subtle for the child, and, if offered in explanation, would destroy the excitement and interest of the story; but they are good for those of us who are presenting such stories: they not only provide an argument against the objection raised by unimaginative people as to the futility, if not immorality, of presenting these primitive tales, but clear up our own doubt and justify us in the use of them, if we need such justification.

For myself, I am perfectly satisfied that, being part of the history of primitive people, it would be foolish to ignore them from an evolutionary point of view, which constitutes their chief importance; and it is only from the point of view of expediency that I mention the potential truths they contain.

Question III. What are you to do if a child says he does not like Fairy Tales?

This is not an uncommon case. What we have first to determine, under these circumstances, is whether this dislike springs from a stolid, prosaic nature, whether it springs from a real inability to visualize such pictures as the Fairy, or marvellous element in the story, presents, or whether (and this is often the real reason) it is from a fear of being asked to believe what his judgment resents as untrue, or whether he thinks it is “grown-up” to reject such pleasure as unworthy of his years.