ESSAY: THE ROLE NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES PLAY IN THE PRESENTATION OF FEAR-INDUCING ELEMENTS IN CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

 

THESE DAYS, IT SEEMS LIKE WE’RE ALL LIVING   in a fairy tale. Our wicked stepmother, Queen Covid, has forced us into a dark wood. Many of us have succumbed to the temptation of the eating strange candy houses to sooth our frustrations over all the lockdowns and restrictions, the loss of business and trade, and of course the lack of simple human engagement. But, instead of munching on that stupid gingerbread house they’re building next door (I HATE anything gingerbread!), I decided to dust off a couple more essays of mine (not perfect, not bad) that were written a long, long time ago, in a land far, far away..….[Prof’s comments and corrections in red]

Cheers, Jake.

 

 

IN CHILDREN’S LITERATURE, NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES ARE USED TO AID children in examining a story’s themes and moral lessons as well as providing them with distance from the story’s more threatening plot elements and confusing character portraits. In both “Hansel and Gretel” and The Hobbit it is important to note that the plot structures provide the child with a sense of predictability in determining the stories’ outcomes. In “Hansel and Gretel”, the structure is cyclical. The journeys taken by the two children occur in a pattern of three. The initial discovery of their parents’ plot and Hansel’s response to it, followed by their abandonment and subsequent return, is repeated almost identically in a passage shortly following. These first two journeys begin at night with the children overhearing their parent’s plot. They leave for the forest the next morning and begin their adventures at midday when they stop to eat and sleep and are left alone in the forest. The third cycle also begins at midday of the third day in the forest when they follow a small white bird to the old witch’s cottage. This cyclical plot structure provides the child reader with a sense of security. The first journey ended well and that bodes well for subsequent journeys. After their second abandonment, the failure of Hansel’s use of breadcrumbs to aid him and his sister to return home is seen as less threatening because of this emerging pattern. By the time of their third midday departure, the child reader sees the recurring pattern clearly and can observe the often-frightening events that befall the two children with a greater distance. The child intuits that the plot will progress to a favourable conclusion.

 

InThe Hobbit, the plot structure is episodic with each chapter recording Bilbo as he journeys from his home to the Lonely Mountain. Each chapter, as well, has a title that provides a clue to the general tone and content and relates it to the work as a whole. A story with this format is more easily seen as a unified progression, and the novel’s sub-title, “There and Back Again” also demonstrates its cyclical nature. As with “Hansel and Gretel”, this framework focuses the child reader on the process of maturation and the acquisition of knowledge. [This point wasn’t made about H&G] The novel also provides a fantastic background of improbable characters, impossible challenges and horrific events. In almost every chapter, Bilbo meets a new character and is challenged in some manner. He either meets the challenge within the confines of the chapter or else begins a process of self-discovery to understand how he can meet the challenge. The challenge may seem insurmountable at the time and the character facing him overwhelming, but the child reader views them within the structure of the plot where one episode follows another, one challenge follows another toward an eventually satisfactory conclusion.

In real life, such patterns are not obvious, nor are they so depicted in most adult literary genres, the notable exception being the comic tradition [Same is true about tragedy] where the plot is structured toward a predictable ending. The special significance of such patterns being created for children’s literature has to do with the primarily didactic role of the genre. Literature for children is created as a tool to teach. [Not solely surely?] Children are not born with experience—they gain it. Such literature provides an important tool by which children can learn to understand their experiences [ref.?] and to communicate them; in doing so they mature into adult members of their society. The episodic plot of The Hobbit and the cyclical structure of "Hansel and Gretel" play important roles in showing children that the tremendous challenges given Bilbo and the frightening adventures of Hansel and Gretel are really processes of maturation. It is not so much that Bilbo kills the giant spider in the forest of Mirkwood, but rather that “he felt [he was] a different person” afterwards. (Tolkien, The Hobbit, 144) More subtly perhaps, the child senses that the specific adventures, the trials, confrontations and even tragedies that occur in the stories are not as important as recognizing the fact that the protagonists are involved in a process of self-discovery.

    Wilhelm Grimm and Jacob Grimm in 1847

The narrator also plays a role in creating distance form a story’s characters and events. “Hansel and Gretel” begins with the traditional fairy tale opening, “Once upon a time…” (Lang, The Blue Fairy Book, 251) that indicates an omniscient narration. The narrator is seen as a reporter of ‘history’ and as such is seen as someone who is knowledgeable of the story’s events and can explain them to the reader. The story’s events are also assumed to have been completed. They have happened in the past and can therefore be safely examined. The narrator relates the story of Hansel and Gretel chronologically, focusing primarily on the activities of the children. The narrator does provide dialogue between the stepmother and the father, as well as commentary on witches and on the relations between men and women, but  not the thoughts or feelings of any of the characters. However, the narrator occasionally provides direct commentary to guide the reader as to character and motivations when, for example, the old witch is deemed “wretched”. (253) The narrator’s comments on a man being “done for” (257) if he but once gives in to a woman’s argument provides the reader with a rationalization—though a rather poor one—for the father’s behaviour. (We should note that such passages also act to remove the reader, temporarily, from the story’s action, and serves to remind the reader of the narrator’s controlling presence.) With such a third person narration, the reader does not get as close to the character’s psychologies or experiences, thus providing further distance from the violent and threatening actions in the story.

    J.R.R. Tolkien

Tolkien also provides a traditional fairy tale beginning with the opening line to his novel’s preface: “This is a story of long ago”. He uses, as well, a third person omniscient narration to relate the story’s events that are also from the distant past. Here, the narrator provides us with more information in terms of biography and historical information for the various characters but there is little examination of their internal realities. Tolkien provides such information to help us judge Bilbo’s character, and he also provides some of Bilbo’s emotional and psychological states when, for example, the dwarves sang, and Bilbo felt “the love of beautiful things made by hand…moving through him.” (14) [Contradictory statements in last two paragraphs] Other characters’ backgrounds are given by the narrator, including that of the curious figure of Gollum, who we learn had lived “ages and ages and ages before…in a hole in a bank by a river.” (69) However, Tolkien does not allow his narrator to enter their internal states to any great extent, [Untrue see pg. 85 for Gollum’s internal state, 207-8 for Smaug’s, etc.] and the reader remains essentially an observer of character and event. Had the story been centred in the consciousness of Bilbo using a first-person narration, the reader would have been forced to identify with him more strongly, and the trials and challenges presented to him would have been more difficult to see objectively in terms of a larger process with an identifiable goal.

Interestingly, Tolkien’s narrative voice proves more intrusive than the one found in “Hansel and Gretel”. Throughout The Hobbit, the narrator enters and disrupts the flow of the story’s action. For example, during Bilbo’s interview with Smaug, the narrator states, “This of course is the way to talk to dragons.” (205) Its use here reinforces the story’s narrative structure for the child reader, and provides suspense and maintains interest. The narrator’s commentary forces the reader to wait momentarily for the scene’s outcome. In a similar manner, Tolkien uses scene changes to create suspense when, for example, he leaves Bilbo and the dwarves in the dark tunnels of Smaug’s mountain at the end of Chapter Thirteen and devotes the following chapter to the battle of Laketown.

FOR “Hansel and Gretel”, the narrator intrudes most distinctly at the story’s end and provides a striking passage that reminds the child reader that the “story is done”. (258) Here, the narrator returns to a first-person narration and calls the reader’s attention to the fact that they have been reading a story. The reader is significantly distanced from the story’s fearful events by such a device. As such, the reader is asked to be an observer and to focus upon the story’s thematic elements and moral lessons, rather than identify with characters and events.

Additionally, this ending* provides a 'performance cue' for the adult reading the story to a child. One can imagine the speaker concluding the tale and pointing to an imaginary mouse scurrying’ across the room. To add, illogically, that the mouse can be made into “a large fur cap” (258) promotes a further distancing from the tale’s unrealistic events. Mice cannot be made into fur caps any more than witches can exist, or ducks can carry children on their backs.

 

    "Roasted old lady with potatoes and carrots! Yummy!"

In briefly discussing their tone and style, we see that both stories’ narrators have an ironic and even humorous tone in their attitude toward the reader, as if to say not to take it all too seriously. In “Hansel and Gretel”, the story’s end most clearly illustrates this. In The Hobbit, such commentary as, “Now you know enough” (20) and “of course they did none of these” (5); or the ironic observation that “Mr. Baggins was not quite so prosy as he liked to believe…” (5) All convey to the reader a tone of relaxed goodwill that reassures the reader that, indeed, all will be well. In terms of style the dialogue in “Hansel and Gretel” is interesting. It is quite formal and more in keeping with an educated middle-class background than reflecting the language of a poor woodsman’s family. Hansel says for example, “Don’t cry, Gretel, and sleep peacefully for God is sure to help us.” (253) The children’s use of poetic language in responding to the witch’s question and in calling the duck to their rescue adds a further note of unrealism to their characters and distances the reader from them.

In The Hobbit however, Tolkien’s use of riddles, poetry and song is more appropriate to their context and actually helps to create portraits of the story’s characters that are easier for the reader to identify with. Songs are sung by the dwarves in scenes that depict social gatherings, for example. Bilbo uses riddles to outwit Gollum in a contest of wills. The dialogue is naturalistic. Trolls are depicted as having a rough, lower-class accent while Bilbo speaks with a typically middle-class accent and idiom. Such variety provides the reader with richer depictions that allow for a more complex appreciation of individual characters' values and motivations. Here, Tolkien uses a literary device to engage the reader in identifying with characters instead of providing a distance from them. We should note, however, that the magical elements of Tolkien’s story and his use of imaginary beings are themselves devices that distance the child reader from any close identification with individual characters. Because “Hansel and Gretel” is a more ‘realistic’ story which contains some magical elements, tone and style are necessarily more important to it as a distancing device than for Tolkien’s story. Dragons and hobbits do not exist, but little boys and girls do.

 

Thus far we have discussed literary devices that seem, for the most part to distance the reader from identification with character and event. In examining techniques of characterization, on the other hand, we find both stories are structured so that the reader can identify with the stories’ characters and at the same time maintain distance from them. This is done using stereotypes. In general, the genre of fairy tales has no place for fully developed characters. The characters of Hansel and Gretel are stereotypes. Firstly, the setting in which they are placed is ambiguous, located “on the outskirts of a large forest.” (251) There is no time or place given. Their family name is not given, neither are the ages of the children or their physical descriptions. Details of their clothing, home and their biographies are also not given. They are not designed as individuals but rather they act to portray human traits and archetypes.

Traditionally, fairy tales are short, cyclical in structure and didactic in purpose, and do not allow much room for any detailed attempt at characterization. The use of stereotypes is deliberate, however, both as a distancing device and as a vehicle through which to express individual human characteristics. By ascribing a specific trait such as cruelty, for example, to a particular character, the reader can more clearly see the results of such a trait as that character interacts with others in the tale. The children’s stepmother and the old witch both represent cruelty. The stepmother is an example of the cruelty found in social systems (she is wife to the father and the children’s stepmother.) On the other hand, the old witch represents a more generalized cruelty found in nature (or perhaps fate). She is portrayed as a supernatural being that can “smell…when human beings pass by”. (256)

    "Smaug"

The children themselves are generalized. They are portrayed as ‘every child’. They are small and they ride on the backs of ducks, and are powerless when confronted with adults’ decisions. The use of these stereotypes allows the child reader to safely explore the various aspects of powerlessness that Hansel and Gretel experience, as well as to appreciate the process of learning and maturity they undergo in their quest to gain control in their lives.

The Hobbit places a greater emphasis on characterization, as the novel form permits a more detailed elaboration of individual character. However, true to the requirements of the fairy tale genre, Tolkien’s characters remain as stereotypes. We learn most about the character of Bilbo as Tolkien’s narrator provides the reader with his biography and descriptions of his home and his habits. His disposition is also described, particularly that he “never had any adventures or did anything unexpected”. (1) In the course of the novel, however, Bilbo’s actions take on heroic proportions when he kills the giant spider, for example, and names his sword “Sting” (149) or later, in the tunnels of Smaug’s mountain, when “he had become the real leader of their adventures.” (203) His actions denote bravery and a previously unknown taste for adventure, but Bilbo remains at the story’s end as we first meet him, as someone who desires only to have a safe and comfortable existence. His journeys seem not to have appreciably changed him; though he “was no longer quite respectable” (227) and he now wrote poetry and visited with elves. He did not appear to change much, at least on the surface.

Nor do any of the other characters in the story develop any real depth of character or demonstrate major changes. Trolls remained slothful, and goblins, raging and bloodthirsty. The dwarves remained moneywise and resourceful, and the eagles stayed aloof. Beorn is still unyielding while Gandalf is always there when he is needed. The characters remained as stereotypes, and as such, the child reader is more easily able to examine character traits and the moral values ascribed to each. As well, Tolkien’s use of imaginary beings facilitates the reader’s ability to examine such traits and values without obscuring them with the closer examination that would result if the characters were human.

Finally, in discussing symbolism and motif in the stories, an important element in The Hobbit is Tolkien’s use of landscape. Bilbo is from “Bag End, Under Hill”. (15) He lives under a hill in a cave. So many of the story’s characters live in caves or underground, and much of the story takes place underground or journeying to, through or under Tolkien’s major landscape motif of mountains. 

The foreboding presence of the Misty Mountains and the image of Smaug’s Lonely Mountain looming in the distance, occupies much of the story’s imagery and the readers imagination. Tolkien’s presentation of the gloomy light of Mirkwood and the dangerous darkness of the “wild” and his description of the weather and the corrupted natural growth with desolated lands surrounding Lonely Mountain, all provide the reader with a strong impression of the physical landscape and its power in shaping the emotions, actions, and perceptions of those in it.

There is a sense of external forces at work shaping the character and spirits of the landscape’s inhabitants. Trolls and goblins are products, to a great extent, of the dark and oppressive environments they inhabit. The Wood Elves of Mirkwood are degraded by the corrupted forests they occupy, and Smaug, the story’s most corrupt character is seen as almost a part of the landscape—an elemental force, volcanic and violent. Dwarves, interestingly, live underground but are seen along with humans and elves to have achieved some compromise with their environment. The eagles and birds operate fully in their environment, but like Beorn they occupy specialized niches in it. Beorn, for example, maintains his kingdom through his own brute force.

With this predominate motif of the power of landscape, Tolkien calls the reader’s attention to the differences between the internal and external realities portrayed in the novel. The child reader sees that it is Bilbo’s own internal resolve and personal growth that have allowed him to overcome many of the apparently overwhelming physical challenges and external forces arrayed against him. It is the strength from within that is stronger.

 

Similarly, the symbolism of the forest in “Hansel and Gretel” is seen as a journey through darkness to discover the light of self-knowledge. The story is seen as empowerment through language. The stepmother has power through words. Her arguments dominate the father. Her words disguise the reality of Hansel’s comments (when he alludes to the true purpose of their journeys into the woods).  The old witch uses language to trap the children and it is not until Gretel, in turn, uses language to trick the old witch that the plot changes for the better. Hansel’s use of logic does not aid them after a certain point: His use of pebbles works while his use of breadcrumbs does not. His use of non-verbal trickery temporarily saves him from the witch’s plans. But, when he and Gretel are confronted by the lake, it is Gretel use of language that gets them across. Thus, language is seen as a means of gaining control in the world and this, of course, would be significant for any child reader acquiring their own mastery over language. The somewhat unsatisfactory ending in which the children are seen to relinquish their newfound control back to their father, who, it should be remembered, had abandoned them, may be more the Grimm’s own desire to emphasize conservative values and reinforce traditional social hierarchies than a true representation of the children’s accomplishments.

IN CONCLUSION, the narrative techniques discussed provide the child reader with the opportunity to examine the stories’ underlying themes and implicit moral lessons. In many ways, the plot is shown to be secondary to the lessons of growth and experience gained by the various characters. The journeys undertaken by them are internal ones. The drama of the external events is seen by the child reader as artifice, and they are not as significant as the sense of internal growth the child reader witnesses in the stories’ protagonists. The various techniques guide the child away from the confusing details of plot events and complex characterization, and toward the more subtle truths of maturity.

__________________________________________

 

 

 

 

*There are several versions of "H&G" published by the Grimm brothers (and others, like Lang) over the decades. You'll find, the original 1812 ending is more abrupt and 'adult-oriented'. 

After tricking the witch to enter the oven, Gretel leaves as the "old woman began to scream and groan in the hot oven", where shortly she "burned miserably to death." (49) She then rescues her brother:

 

"Meanwhile, Gretel went straight to Hansel and opened the door to the coop. after Hansel jumped out, they kissed each other and wee glad. the entire houose was full of jewels and pearls. so they filled theri pockets with them. then they went off and found their way home. Their father rejoiced when he saw them again. He hadn't spent a single happy day since his children had been away. Now he was a rich man. However, the mother had died." (48, Zipes)

Later editions add the more playful and happy-ending imagery (eg. The 1891 Lang edition changes the mother figure to a less loveable "step-mother" one. So it's more okay she dies, presumably. Lang allows H&G to ride on the back of a duck to ferry them across the lake and get home where they "lived happily ever afterward.") These 'kindly' embellishments, we know, act to distance the child reader from the harsher aspects of the plot, and to have them focus on the internal journey and growth of the story's two children. In the original Grimm version, the adult world is more present, as are its concerns.

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

Hansel and Gretel in The Blue Fairy Book. Ed., Andrew Lang. Dover Publications Inc., N.Y., 1965. 

 

The Original Folk & Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. trans. Jack Zipes. Princeton University Press, Princeton New Jersey, 2014.

 

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit. Methuen Publications. Toronto, 1977.

 

 

Grade= A/85

Apart from the strangely stunted first paragraph, this is an outstanding effort, Don, observant, thoughtful and well-argued. Good work! Interesting and impressive M.P.

 [p.s. I "unstunted" the first para. for this post. ed.]

 

 

 

 

In Class Assignment: 

In What Way is Sendak’s "Where The Wild Things Are" a Fairy Tale?

 

ONE OF THE KEY ELEMENTS OF FAIRY TALES and an element present in Sendak’s work is the conflict that exists between the small and the large (the powerless and the powerful). In this case in conflict is described by Sendak on two levels, the real and the imagined. There is the everyday conflict that exists between Max and his unseen parents. Max is not allowed to make “mischief of one kind or another.” He is sent to his room without supper. In the imagined world that Max creates for himself, he is surrounded by powerful, seemingly threatening beasts over which Max assumes the dominant role.

There is of course the element of the Quest in Sendak’s story. Max is forbidden to be the “wild thing” his mother calls him and sets out on an imaginative quest to discover the land where the wild things live. The element of ‘plastic' time, where Max journeys for a year in the course of a single night, is fairy tale-like. He is provided with a boat to aid his quest, suggestive of the supernatural aids present in fairy stories. Max himself passes through trials. He successfully journeys across his imaginary ocean, meets, and overcomes the challenges of the wild things, assuming his place as their king—also a common reward motif found in fairy tales. Interestingly, Max somewhat arbitrarily sends the wild things to bed without supper—suggesting the capriciousness of kingly power and the ambiguous nature of such rewards. Sendak brings the story full circle, successfully returning Max, through the means of another trial, this one of separation from the wild things, across the sea to his bedroom.

The fact that Max awakes to the smell of food (his supper has been given to him) suggests a strong element of benevolence in the powers that control Max’s life. While his imaginative journey has seemingly provided him with the opportunity to act arbitrarily, his real-life experience may, in fact, be the more important. [Yes; link this, too, to the resolution pattern of the fairy tale in its innate value confirmed. Cogent and profound--also well written! I've kept a copy to show as a "model" of coherent writing under pressure--with your permission.]