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| ISBN-13: | 9780486144610 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Dover Publications |
| Publication date: | 06/14/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 320 |
| File size: | 628 KB |
| Age Range: | 6 Years |
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The Art of the Story-Teller
By MARIE L. SHEDLOCK
Dover Publications, Inc.
Copyright © 1951 Dover Publications, Inc.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-14461-0
CHAPTER 1
THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE STORY
I propose to deal in this chapter with the difficulties or dangers which beset the path of the story-teller, because, until we have overcome these, we cannot hope for the finished and artistic presentation which is to bring out the full value of the story.
The difficulties are many, and yet they ought not to discourage the would-be narrators, but only show them how all-important is the preparation for the story, if it is to have the desired effect.
I propose to illustrate by concrete examples, thereby serving a twofold purpose: one to fix the subject more clearly in the mind of the student, the other to use the art of story-telling to explain itself.
I have chosen one or two instances from my own personal experience. The grave mistakes made in my own case may serve as a warning to others who will find, however, that experience is the best teacher. For positive work, in the long run, we generally find out our own method. On the negative side, however, it is useful to have certain pitfalls pointed out to us, in order that we may save time by avoiding them. It is for this reason that I sound a note of warning.
i. There is the danger of side issues. An inexperienced story-teller is exposed to the temptation of breaking off from the main dramatic interest in a short exciting story in order to introduce a side issue which is often interesting and helpful but which must be left for a longer and less dramatic story. If the interest turns on some dramatic moment, the action must be quick and uninterrupted, or it will lose half its effect.
I had been telling a class of young children the story of Polyphemus and Ulysses, and just at the most dramatic moment in the story some impulse for which I cannot account 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 center 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 necessary only 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. Altering the story to suit special occasions 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 coloring 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. 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 in writing for the next day the story I had just told them.
A small child 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," 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 any 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.
While traveling in America, 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 humor the dryness of which adds so much to its value:
"I never realized before," she said, "how glad the Greeks must have been to sit down even inside a horse, when they had been standing for eleven years."
3. The danger of introducing unfamiliar words is the very opposite danger of the one to which I have just alluded; it is the taking for granted that children are acquainted with the meaning of certain words upon which turns some important point in the story. We must not introduce, without at least a passing explanation, words which, if not rightly understood, would entirely alter the picture we wish to present.
I had once promised to tell stories to an audience of Irish peasants, and I should like to state here that, though my travels have brought me in touch with almost every kind of audience, I have never found one where the atmosphere is so "self-prepared" as in that of a group of Irish peasants. To speak to them, especially on the subject of fairy-tales, is like playing on a delicate harp: the response is so quick and the sympathy so keen. Of course, the subject of fairy-tales is one which is completely familiar to them and comes into their everyday life. They have a feeling of awe with regard to fairies, which is very deep in some parts of Ireland.
On this particular occasion I had been warned by an artist friend who had kindly promised to sing songs between the stories, that my audience would be of varying age and almost entirely illiterate. Many of the older men and women, who could neither read nor write, had never been beyond their native village. I was warned to be very simple in my language and to explain any difficult words which might occur in the particular Indian story I had chosen for that night, namely, "The Tiger, the Jackal and the Brahman." It happened that the older portion of the audience had scarcely ever seen even pictures of wild animals. I profited by the advice and offered a word of explanation with regard to the tiger and the jackal. I also explained the meaning of the word Brahman—at a proper distance, however, lest the audience should class him with wild animals. I then went on with my story, in the course of which I mentioned a buffalo. In spite of the warning I had received, I found it impossible not to believe that the name of this animal would be familiar to any audience. I, therefore, went on with the sentence containing this word, and ended it thus: "And then the Brahman went a little further and met an old buffalo turning a wheel."
The next day, while walking down the village street, I entered into conversation with a thirteen-year-old girl who had been in my audience the night before and who began at once to repeat in her own words the Indian story in question. When she came to the particular sentence I have just quoted, I was greatly startled to hear her version, which ran thus: "And the priest went on a little further, and he met another old gentleman pushing a wheelbarrow." I stopped her at once, and not being able to identify the sentence as part of the story I had told, I questioned her a little more closely. I found that the word, "buffalo," had evidently conveyed to her mind an old "buffer" whose name was "Lo," probably taken to be an Indian form of appellation, to be treated with tolerance though it might not be Irish in sound. Then, not knowing of any wheel more familiarly than that attached to a barrow, the young narrator completed the picture in her own mind—doubtless, a vivid one—but which, one must admit, had lost something of the Indian atmosphere which I had intended to gather about it.
4. The danger of claiming coöperation of the class by means of questions is more serious for the teacher than the child, who rather enjoys the process and displays a fatal readiness to give any sort of answer if only he can play a part in the conversation. If we could in any way depend on the children giving the kind of answer we expect, all might go well and the danger would be lessened; but children have a perpetual way of frustrating our hopes in this direction, and of landing us in unexpected bypaths from which it is not always easy to return to the main road without a very violent reaction. As illustrative of this, I quote from "The Madness of Philip," by Josephine Daskam Bacon, a truly delightful essay on child psychology in the guise of the lightest of stories.
The scene takes place in a kindergarten, where a bold and fearless visitor has undertaken to tell a story on the spur of the moment to a group of restless children.
She opens thus:
"Yesterday, children, as I came out of my yard, what do you think I saw?"
The elaborately concealed surprise in store was so obvious that Marantha rose to the occasion and suggested, "an el'phunt."
"Why, no. Why should I see an elephant in my yard? It was not nearly so big as that—it was a little thing."
"A fish," ventured Eddy Brown, whose eye fell upon the aquarium in the corner. The raconteuse smiled patiently.
"Now, how could a fish, a live fish, get into my front yard?"
"A dead fish," says Eddy.
He had never been known to relinquish voluntarily an idea.
"No; it was a little kitten," said the story-teller decidedly. "A little white kitten. She was standing right near a big puddle of water. Now, what else do you think I saw ?"
"Another kitten," suggests Marantha, conservatively.
"No; it was a big Newfoundland dog. He saw the little kitten near the water. Now, cats don't like water, do they ? What do they like?"
"Mice," said Joseph Zukoffsky abruptly.
"Well, yes, they do; but there were no mice in my yard. I'm sure you know what I mean. If they don't like water, what do they like?"
"Milk," cried Sarah Fuller confidently.
"They like a dry place," said Mrs. R. B. Smith. "Now, what do you suppose the dog did?"
It may be that successive failures had disheartened the listeners. It may be that the very range of choice presented to them and the dog alike dazzled their imagination. At all events, they made no answer.
"Nobody knows what the dog did?" repeated the story-teller encouragingly. "What would you do if you saw a little kitten like that?"
And Philip remarked gloomily:
"I'd pull its tail."
"And what do the rest of you think? I hope you are not as cruel as that little boy."
A jealous desire to share Philip's success prompted the quick response:
"I'd pull it too."
Now, the reason of the total failure of this story was the inability to draw any real response from the children, partly because of the hopeless vagueness of the questions, partly because, there being no time for reflection, children say the first thing that comes into their heads without any reference to their real thoughts on the subject.
I cannot imagine anything less like the enlightened methods of the best kindergarten teaching. Had Mrs. R. B. Smith been a real, and not a fictional, person, it would certainly have been her last appearance as a raconteuse in this educational institution.
5. The difficulty of gauging the effect of a story upon the audience rises from lack of observation and experience; it is the want of these qualities which leads to the adoption of such a method as I have just presented. We learn in time that want of expression on the faces of the audience and want of any kind of external response do not always mean either lack of interest or attention. There is often real interest deep down, but no power, or perhaps no wish, to display that interest, which is deliberately concealed at times so as to protect oneself from questions which may be put.
6. The danger of overillustration. After long experience, and after considering the effect produced on children when pictures are shown to them during the narration, I have come to the conclusion that the appeal to the eye and the ear at the same time is of doubtful value, and has, generally speaking, a distracting effect: the concentration on one channel of communication attracts and holds the attention more completely. I was confirmed in this theory when I addressed an audience of blind people 1 for the first time, and noticed how closely they attended, and how much easier it seemed to them because they were so completely "undistracted by the sights around them."
I have often suggested to young teachers two experiments in support of this theory. They are not practical experiments, nor could they be repeated often with the same audience, but they are intensely interesting, and they serve to show the actual effect of appealing to one sense at a time. The first of these experiments is to take a small group of children and suggest that they should close their eyes while you tell them a story. You will then notice how much more attention is given to the intonation and inflection of the voice. The reason is obvious. With nothing to distract the attention, it is concentrated on the only thing offered the listeners, that is, sound, to enable them to seize the dramatic interest of the story.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Art of the Story-Teller by MARIE L. SHEDLOCK. Copyright © 1951 Dover Publications, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
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