Household Tales · Chapter
The Giant and the Tailor explained
A boastful tailor sets out to see the world and encounters a giant.
What happens
A boastful tailor sets out to see the world and encounters a giant. The giant hires him as a servant, but the tailor's exaggerated boasts frighten the giant, who eventually tricks the tailor into being flung into the air, never to be seen again.
Free preview opens on this chapter — companions, themes, and character notes appear beside the text.
Narrative arc
Story tension across the book — this chapter sits in Falling action.
- Setup
- Escalation
- Breaking point
- Aftermath
- Closing
The emotional and psychological peak occurs when the sisters, driven by envy of the Queen’s beauty and their o…
Full beat labels and climax notes unlock in the reader.
Follow the arc while readingThemes in this chapter
- Virtue Rewarded and Vice Punished
The tailor's boastfulness and deceit lead to his downfall, as he is tricked and flung away.
Characters to notice
- the tailor
A boastful tailor who claims he can do extraordinary feats, frightening the giant.
- old Hans
The giant refers to himself as 'old Hans' in his thoughts.
Key passages
“A certain tailor who was great at boasting but ill at doing, took it into his head to go abroad for a while, and look about the world.”
A tailor who was more skilled at bragging than at sewing decided to travel and see the world.
Introduces the tailor's character flaw.
“What! the whole forest, young and old, with all that is there, both rough and smooth, and the well and its spring too,” growled the credulous giant in his beard, and was still more terrified.”
The giant, believing the tailor's boast, muttered in fear that the tailor could bring the entire forest and well.
Shows the giant's gullibility and growing fear.
