The emotional appeal in The Elephant's Child would repay study. The dominant emotional tone is that of the adventurous hero with his "'satiable curtiosity." There is vividness of emotion, steadiness of emotion, and a rich variety in the contrasts of feeling. Emotion of a moral quality is characteristic of its implied message of worldly wisdom but it does not leave one exactly satisfied.
The form of the story is a splendid example of a literary classic style. A pleasing humorous touch is given to the unity of the tale by making the Elephant's Child pick up with his new trunk, on his way home, the melon-rinds he had scattered on his journey to the Limpopo. The coherence in the tale is unusually fine and is secured largely by expressions which look backward or forwards; as, "By and by when that was finished," or "One fine morning," or "That very next morning." Any study will show that the tale possesses the general qualities of form and has its parts controlled by the principles of composition.
