The Tale: Methods of Storytelling

An Introduction to The Pearl by John Steinbeck

FRESHMAN ENGLISH

Archbishop MoellerHigh School, Mr. Rose

Traditional storytelling takes many different forms – parables, fairy tales, fables, myths, legends, etc. – but these forms all have certain characteristics in common. For example, they all have protagonists who face conflicts and obstacles that need to be overcome before some truth is discovered or learned, or some virtue revealed. Traditional storytelling is often grouped under the general heading of folklore

What is Folklore?

The term “folklore” is generally used to refer to the traditional beliefs, myths, tales, and practices of a people which have been disseminated in an informal manner -- usually by word of mouth. The term was coined by William J. Thoms in 1846. Thoms was a British antiquarian who wanted a simple term to replace various awkward phrases floating around at the time to discuss the same concept -- phrases such as "popular antiquities," "the lore of the people," and "the manners, customs, observances, superstitions, ballads, proverbs etc, of the olden times."

The Folktale (or Folk Tale)

A folktale is a story (fictional) or legend (based on historical fact) forming part of an oral tradition.

Tall Tales

Early American settlers faced tremendous challenges: How could they tame a huge and wild land? The settlers had two choices: either give up or find ways to cope. One way of coping was by telling humorous stories about heroes and heroines. Pecos Bill, they said, could squeeze rain out of a cyclone. Flatboat Annie or "Big Annie" could tug a boatload of cargo all by herself. Most heroes and heroines of tall tales have unknown origins. Often there was a real person who was known for unusual strength or courage, e.g. Johnny Appleseed and Davy Crockett. Stories were told about these people and their deeds. As stories were told again and again, they were exaggerated – they got taller and taller (or “attenuated,” if you like). Eventually, the heroes and heroines became larger-than-life characters. In other cases, some of the tall tale characters, like Pecos Bill and Flatboat Annie never lived at all. They are completely fictional characters who became more fantastic with each retelling of their stories.

American tall tales use hyperbole, an extreme exaggeration for the sake of emphasis. Generally, the exaggeration creates a picture that is impossible and funny. Here is an example:

One time snowflakes fell so large in Oregon that the ladies put handles on them and used them for umbrellas.

Myths & Legends

Though the terms “legend” and “myth” are often used interchangeably, they have separate and specific meanings to folklorists. Both myths and legends are stories with casts of characters and plotlines followed to their conclusions, yet their core elements are different.

Myths are tales about the acts of godlike or supernatural beings or animals which serve to explain the creation of the world or how certain elements of our world came to be, e.g., how the raccoon got its mask, or “Why the Waves Have Whitecaps.” Later this quarter we will be studying Classical mythology – from ancient Greece and Rome.

Legends, on the other hand, are traditional tales handed down from earlier times and believed to have some historical basis. Although both types of stories are told as fact, they are not normally believed to be literal truth by either the tellers or their audiences.

Urban Legends

An urban legends is a specific class of legend, differentiated from traditional legends by being told and believed as accounts of actual incidents that befell or were witnessed by someone the teller almost knows (e.g., his sister's hairdresser's mechanic). These tales are told as true, local, and recent occurrences, and often contain names of places or entities located within the teller's neighborhood or surrounding region. They contain many folkloric elements and are disseminated through word-of mouth or the mass media -- in recent years especially through the internet. “The Vanishing Hitchhiker” is an example of an urban myth that has been around with certain variations since the 1930’s. It has actually been told to me by a friend who believed the tale (about a friend’s friend) to be true:

Joe Smith (or whatever name you like) is travelling along a desolate road in his car late one night. Joe sees some unfortunate-looking person thumbing for a lift and decides to take pity on him. When the hitchhiker gets into the car he insists on sitting in the back seat. Joe and the hitcher chat away, for the most part seeming perfectly normal, exchanging details of their personal histories, none of which strikes Joe as anything out of the ordinary. Then the conversation turns: The hitchhiker says he hasn’t seen his mother in ten years, and when Joe turns around to react, he is surprised to find that the hitchhiker has vanished, leaving nothing but his backpack on the seat. Once Joe reaches his destination, he looks through the backpack and finds the man’s address. When Joe arrives at the address he finds that the person living there is the hitchhiker’s mother, but she tells Joe that her son died ten years before: He was hit by a passing car while hitchhiking on the same road where Joe picked him up.

Old Wives’ Tales

An old wives’ tale is a traditional belief, often irrational or grounded in superstition, and typically stated in the form of a maxim or proverb. Some are as simple as: “If you sneeze with your eyes open, they will pop out.” Others are more involved, like this old wives’ tale born in the back hills of Kentucky about the surefire way of learning the initials of the man or woman you’re going to marry:

To learn the initials you will need: two people, the one who desires the initials and another to assist; a King James Bible; a pair of scissors; a tissue or soft cloth. Open the scissors partial and then wrap with the tissue. Place the scissors in the King James Bible at the beginning of the Book of Ruth. Each person then places his little finger in each handle of the scissors, just using the tips of the little finger. The helper then states the first letter of the alphabet: “A”. The person wishing to know whom she will marry recites, “And Ruth said, Retreat me not to leave thee, or return from following after thee. Whither thou goest, I will go. Whiter thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people and thy God my God.” Repeat this for each letter of the alphabet. When the helper says the first initial and the other one begins to repeat the quote, the scissors will fall from both fingers. This will be the first initial. Repeat to find the last letter of the last name.

Fables

A fable is a short, pithy animal tale, most often told or written with a moral tagged on in the form of a proverb. To convey a moral is the aim of most fables, and the tale is the vehicle by which this is done, providing both an illustration of and compelling argument for the moral.

As a specific development in form and content of the animal tale, the fable is comparatively sophisticated and does not originate as a folktale, though it may make use of folk material, and once composed may be absorbed into a culture and exchanged as traditional oral folklore.The oldest and still most popular fables are Aesop’s fables from ancient Greece. I bet you’ll remember this one:

The Hare and the Tortoise by Aesop

A Hare one day ridiculed the short feet and slow pace of the Tortoise, who replied, laughing: "Though you be swift as the wind, I will beat you in a race." The Hare, believing her assertion to be simply impossible, assented to the proposal; and they agreed that the Fox should choose the course and fix the goal. On the day appointed for the race the two started together. The Tortoise never for a moment stopped, but went on with a slow but steady pace straight to the end of the course. The Hare, lying down by the wayside, fell fast asleep. At last waking up, and moving as fast as he could, he saw the Tortoise had reached the goal, and was comfortably dozing after her fatigue.Slow but steady wins the race.

Parables

A parable is a short tale which illustrates one or more instructive lessons or morals. It differs from a fable in that fables use animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as characters, while parables generally feature human characters. It is a type of analogy. Both fables and parables are types of analogies.

The most well-known parables are those told by Jesus in the Gospels: The Good Samaritan, The Prodigal Son, The Lost Coin, The Unforgiving Servant, The Ten Virgins, the Rich Fool, The Friend at Night, etc. All of these stories are told by Jesus to illustrate a spiritual principle. Here is an example that illustrates the principle of forgiveness:

The Unforgiving Servant from the Gospel of Matthew

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a certain king, who wanted to reconcile accounts with his servants. When he had begun to reconcile, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. But because he couldn't pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, with his wife, his children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, have patience with me, and I will repay you all!” The lord of that servant, being moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.

But that servant went out, and found one of his fellow servants, who owed him one hundred denarii, and he grabbed him, and took him by the throat, saying, “Pay me what you owe!”

So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, “Have patience with me, and I will repay you!” He would not, but went and cast him into prison, until he should pay back that which was due. So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were exceedingly sorry, and came and told to their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him in, and said to him, “You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt, because you begged me. Shouldn't you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, even as I had mercy on you?” His lord was angry, and delivered him to the tormentors, until he should pay all that was due to him. So my heavenly Father will also do to you, if you don't each forgive your brother from your hearts for his misdeeds.

Proverbs

A proverb is a way of simply stating a universal truth as dramatized in a parable or fable. For example “Slow and steady wins the race” is a proverb stating the universal truth dramatized by “The Hare and the Tortoise.”

Fairy Tales

A fairy tale, or wonder tale, is a kind of folktale or fable. In these stories we meet witches and queens, giants and elves, princes, dragons, talking animals, ogres, princesses, and sometimes even fairies. Marvelous and magical things happen to characters in fairy tales. A boy may become a bird. A princess may sleep for a hundred years. A seal may become a girl. Objects too can be enchanted — mirrors talk, pumpkins become carriages, and a lamp may be home to a genie.

The oldest fairy tales were told and retold for generations before they were written down. French fairy tales were the first to be collected and written down, but now we can read fairy tales from almost any culture. When these stories were studied together, something amazing was discovered. From countries as distant and different as Egypt and Iceland similar fairy tales are told. Both Egypt and Iceland have "Cinderella" stories, as do China, England, Korea, Siberia, France, and Vietnam; and the list doesn't stop there. There may be a thousand versions of the Cinderella story, each with a unique telling which carries cultural information about the time and place the story was told. One thing is for sure:People everywhere like stories in which truth prevails over deception, generosity is ultimately rewarded, hard work overcomes obstacles, and love, mercy and kindness are the greatest powers of all.

Today, some authors still like to retell and invent new fairy tales. The Cinderella story was recently re-imagined by Diane Goode in her book Cinderella: The Dog and Her Little Glass Slipper. Jon Scieszka's fractured fairy tales in The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales are another example of a retelling but with humor.

The Pearl by John Steinbeck

Most American folk tales (tall tales and legends) were passed down from generation to generation through an oral tradition or compiled in books written by unknown authors. Some famous American authors, however, have retold these tales in their short stories and novels. Washington Irving, known as the “Father of American Literature,” wrote two of the most famous American folk tales: “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (featuring the Headless Horseman) and “Rip Van Winkle.”

“The Pearl” by John Steinbeck is another famous re-telling of a folk tale that has taken many forms. Steinbeck himself considered the story a parable, one that relates to Jesus’ parable of “The Pearl of Great Price”: "Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who is a merchant seeking fine pearls, who having found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it." – from the Gospel of Matthew 13:45-46.

John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck is one of the greatest storytellers of the 20th century. His novellas The Pearl, Cannery Row,

The Red Pony, and Of Mice and Men not only introduce readers to a fascinating, realistic cast of characters, make the hillsand seacoast of California and Mexico come to life, but also tell intriguing stories of the lives of real people. Steinbeck’scharacters are not the rich men and women of California’s boom days, but are the homeless, the migrant workers, thepoor fishermen, and the farmers. However, each of these people has a deceptively simple, but important story to tell, astory filled with love and pain. The stories tell us not only of the lives of the poor who seek to live off the land, but of thestruggles of all people.

Literary Devices Used in The Pearl

Archetypes

An archetype is a universally understood symbol , or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied or patterned. Archetypes are often used in myths and storytelling across different cultures. The characters in The Pearl are archetypes. They are only important in terms of how they develop the storyline. They are relatively undevelopedand in terms of much contemporary fiction, they are “flat.”This is true in most of the oral storytelling tradition.

The importance of this tale lies not in the individual characters, but in what the listener takes away from the tale.However, it is important to examine some of the supporting cast of characters who take on more significance than thosecharacters who provide the story’s action. These characters carry the symbolic and thematic message of the tale. So, while you’re reading, make special note of the doctor, the priest, the villagers, the pearl dealers, and the trackers. None of these characters is named (other than Kino and his relatives).

Symbols

In literature (and in everyday life) a symbol is a person, object, image, word, or event that evokes a range of additional meaning beyond and usually more abstract than its literal significance. Symbols are educational devices for evoking complex ideas without having to resort to detailed and boring explanations that would make a story more like an essay than an experience.

Conventional symbols(also called universal symbols) have meanings that are widely recognized by a society or culture. Some conventional symbols are the Christian cross, the Star of David, a swastika, or a nation’s flag. A literary or contextual symbol can be a setting, character, action, object, name, or anything else in a work that maintains its literal significance while suggesting other meanings. A dove suggests peace, the color green suggests life, a vulture suggests impending death, etc.