Girl Eaten by a Tree by Mark Ryden
What
strikes you about this picture? What is the first thing that draws
your attention?
The
girls? The situation? The setting? The action? The conflict? The
girls' motives?
Who
are these girls? What are their backgrounds? Why do they share the
same facial features? What are they doing? What is the tree doing?
What time of day is it? In what forest are they? Where are the girls
going? Why are they in the forest? Why did the tree attack one of the
girls? Why don't the two girls help the one who has been attacked?
Envision
several answers for as many of these questions as you can; write them
out, each in a complete sentence.
You
can start a story with an answer to any of these questions, but each
answer must be interrelated with the one before and after it so that
a chain of incidents develops which is based on cause-effect
relationships throughout.
Next,
as Aristotle suggests in Poetics, arrange the incidents in a pattern organized by the story's
beginning, middle, and end. (Edgar Allan Poe gave good advice when he
said to know the story's ending before you begin writing.)
Stories
are hard to plot because, although they seem simple, they are, in
fact, complex: all the parts (answers to the questions of who?,
what?, when?, where?, how”, why”, and how many? or how much?, are
interrelated. By identifying causes and effects among the incidents,
they appear logically connected, unified, and coherent.
Let's
try the exercise.
For
me, the situation captures my immediate attention. Perhaps the
painting's artist, Mark Ryden, anticipated that the situation would
be most prominent, as he named the work Girl Eaten by a Tree.
Initially,
therefore, maybe I should focus my attention on the situation: a girl
being eaten by a tree.
Who
is the girl? The sameness of the facial features and the similarities
in the dress of the two sisters watching the third girl being eaten
by the tree suggests that the two girls are sisters. Although we
can't see the third girl's face, her clothing is similar to that of
the other two girls, which could suggest that she is their sister;
possibly, her appearance is identical to theirs—a triplet. For now,
that will be my interpretation: The three girls are triplets.
Notice
how, starting with the situation, I veered off to a consideration of
the painting's figures, the characters of the story? That's likely to
happen, and it's fine: the elements of the story are, after all,
interrelated; one question is apt to suggest the answer to another.
But
back to the situation: why is the girl being eaten by a tree? Perhaps
she insulted the tree, and it is eating her to avenge itself. Maybe
she happened to be walking closest to the tree, and the tree snatched
her up because it is hungry. It could be that the tree is a sentinel,
guarding the forest, and it is eating the girl because the tree
perceived her (and possibly her sisters) as being in some way a
threat. It's also possible that the two girls who are watching their
sister being eaten by a tree are only imagining the situation. Maybe
they discussed a scene in a fantasy in which a tree devoured one—or
all—of them and the memory of this earlier conversation inspired
one of the girls to imagine it happening as the sisters walk through
the forest.
For
now, I am going to say that the girl in the yellow dress is imagining
the situation. Why? We'll come back to this question in a moment, as
we envision the girls' background.
Why
are they in the forest? They are taking a shortcut. From where to
where? From their house to Grandma's house (allusions can exp[and the
theme of a story; this one may even have suggested an ending to the
story!)
Obviously,
it's daytime, but the sky seems overcast; it is gray. Rain seems to
be on its way: there's a storm coming, it seems, and it may be an
emotional as well as a meteorological storm. (Symbolism is often
highly effective in a narrative.)
Apart
from the tree's grasping and devouring of the girl in blue, there is
no overt action, other than the girl in the yellow dress's touching
the shoulder of the girl in the pink dress while holding up her other
hand, as if to ward off the tree, and the girl in the pink dress's
folding her hands together, as if she is making a silent plea.
Why
aren't the other girls helping the victim? Especially if they are
sisters—and triplets, at that—one would expect that the other two
would be seeking to free their sister from her attacker. Perhaps they
are frozen with fear? Their shocked expressions suggest that thy may
be. In addition, their hair (not a single one of which is out of
place), their pressed dresses, the ribbons restraining their hair,
and the attitudes they have adopted suggest that these girls are
unaccustomed to the violence they've encountered. Not only are they
terrified, but they are also at a loss to know how to react. They are
helpless. Al they do, probably instinctively, is to watch, as one
wards off the tree and the other pleads silently for deliverance.
And,
now, what about the story's ending? The allusion to Little Red Riding
Hood (the girls were going to Grandma's house when the tee attacked
one of them) suggests that a hero will appear, rescue the girl, and,
perhaps, chop down the tree (or, at least, the limbs with which it
holds the girl). Obviously, the scene Ryden has depicted is
fantastic, so the appearance of a woodsman fits the genre well.
Now,
we need only break the story into its three divisions, beginning,
middle, and end. (Notice that we have figured out our ending before
writing the story.) In doing so, we can insert words that indicate
CAUSE and EFFECT.
Beginning
On
an overcast morning, BECAUSE they plan to spend the day with their
Grandmother, three young girls, triplets, who are dressed in similar
dresses, bows, socks, and shoes, travel together through a forest,
BECAUSE it is a shortcut, chattering about their plans and about the
story of Little Red Riding Hood.
Middle
BECAUSE
the tree is hungry, it snatches one of the girls. (The tree has human
features—eyes, nose, mouth, and arms—and characteristics—it is
hungry, predatory, and conscious.) BECAUSE they are shocked and
frightened by the tree's attack, the other girls, feeling helpless,
look on in horror, BECAUSE they do not know what to do and are
paralyzed with fear.
End
BECAUSE
a woodsman, happening to be in the area, chances upon the scene, he
cuts off the limbs (arms) of the tree, freeing the girl, who has not
come to harm. The girls are unable to thank him BECAUSE he is gone
before they can do so. The girl in yellow finds that she holds the
woodsman's ax BECAUSE, as she realizes, it was she who vanquished the
tree. She took strength from imagining herself to be a woodsman
BECAUSE doing so made her feel strong and gave her courage. She
thought of herself as a woodsman, she thinks, BECAUSE her talk with
her sisters made her think of him when her sister was endangered. In
fact, their talk and the creepy forest CAUSED her to imagine the
whole incident—her sister was never attacked, except in her own
mind. But, now, BECAUSE she has learned of her own strength and courage, the girl needs no surrogate hero: she herself is strong, courageous, and heroic.
Although
this seems a simple story, whether it is or is not depends on how the
story is written. Possibly, a writer could make profound statements
about such matters as gender roles, sisterhood, fantasy as a means of
personal empowerment, self-discovery, and self-realization. Before
writing such a story, an author might do well to read Bruno
Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment.
Although Bettelheim's scholarship has been tarnished by allegations
of his misrepresentation
of his credentials, by plagiarism,
by abusive
behavior toward his students, and other
issues,
his study of the therapeutic potential of fantastic literature is
stimulating, indeed, and may suggest psychological and social
directions for a narrative about a girl in a forest who imagines an
assault upon her sister, especially when her sister, a triplet, is
identical in appearance to herself.
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