Shannon Hale, author of the Newbery Award-winning Princess Academy and several other books, recently hosted a discussion on the matter of morals in literature. She requested and posted comments on the subject from a number of other authors of young adult fiction, which made for some fascinating reading.
Among those commenting was M.T. Anderson, whose short essay “On Ideology and Chickens with Blankets” is linked in Ms. Hale’s post. After reading it twice, though, I felt it deserved special mention:
“If there is any accusation we fear as writers for children, it is that our books have been somehow instructive, that they have had a message. Our own heritage of primers and abecedaria embarrasses us. We all fear Dick and Jane…. After all, in literary discussions, the charge of didacticism is often precisely what contributes to our marginalization [as writers of children's books] – the dismissive assumption that books for kids are too safe in their scope and limited in their vision.”
Rowling’s answer to the question of moral instruction in her work, as per her 2005 interview with Lev Grossman, was “I never think in terms of What am I going to teach them? Or, What would it be good for them to find out here? Although, undeniably, morals are drawn.” Most authors not writing for a specific demographic with quantifiable viewpoints probably hold to some version of that idea.
But readers have a say in this too. What do you look for in the books you give your children, or the books you read yourself? When does an apparent moral lesson detract from a story or add to it? Do you agree with J.K. Rowling, Shannon Hale, M.T. Anderson, or any of the others, or do you think there are even serious differences among them? If you write fiction of any form, in what ways are you conscious of the relationship between your work and your worldview?
The matter of which morals to be concerned about (equality issues, environmental responsibility, sexual ethics, drug use, etc.) will vary, of course, according to what any of us is passionate about–but regardless of what may specifically concern us, the quandary we face in reading, writing and telling stories is the same.
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Fantastic post.
Kirk said the end of great books is ethical – to teach us what it means to be human. But I don’t think anyone likes sitting down and getting hammered over the head with moral lessons in order to achieve this.
When I read the paragraph you quoted above, I thought of Ron’s response to “The Tale of the Three Brothers” – it’s just one of those stories that are told to keep kids in line and teach them not to do bad stuff. But Rowling plunges us deeper: the “moral” meaning of that Tale flows naturally out of deeper-level stuff about reality: death, the desire for immortality, willingness to embrace death.
Jenna, what a great post!
I confess I enjoy reading many YA books, not only the Harry Potter books, but those like The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and books from authors like Mercedes Lackey and Tamora Pierce. I thought what Carol Lynch Williams wrote was very perceptive:
As soon as we start to preach or teach something, our readers shut us out. They shut us down by setting our books aside and picking up other titles that resonate with them instead of our books.
I tend to write a bit darker story and it’s been funny how many of my writing ‘friends’ have not appreciated my looking at the darker parts of the world. “There’s too much darkness out there. Why contribute to it?” they say.
Why? Because there is so much darkness and because even kids in good families are seeing it and because I hope that my books might offer a bit of light. A glimmer of hope.
When I let people push me to write what they want, my stories become artificial and they start posing the way someone else wants them to pose–like a mannequin in a store window.
Intriguing post, Jenna. Very well done.
I found myself dissatisfied with Anderson’s essay, however. I liked it, I liked the idea with it, but it seemed unconnected with my actual experience as a writer.
Oh, really? That’s never happened to me, to be honest. I when I sit down at my desk, there is a constant question of, what’s going to happen next? How am I going to write the next scene? Do I like this choice of wording, and how the heck am I going to get my hero out of this mess?
I don’t think about ‘ambiguity’ or ‘morality’ or ‘reader response’. I’m caught in the moment, in the adventure, in the existential experience of typing, swearing quietly to myself as I try to remember what comes next.
Worldview just happens. I write with my whole being, and part of that being is how I think about the world. To write without worldview would be inauthentic.
The thing about my worldview, though–it’s not where I frame my answers. It’s where I frame my questions. It’s a starting point, not a conclusion. I’ll even question the conclusions in my worldview, because I’m questioning myself. But this is all somewhat mystic, and largely subconscious. The reason I write is for Story.
If Anderson had put his statement in the first person–’When I sit down at my desk…’ I would listen respectfully. But to say that’s what occupies the thoughts of every writer? He doth protest too much, methinks.
I don’t think that you can escape placing moral and ethical instruction into your written work. You can, however, place it there by creating a void where moral or ethical consideration should be. I think (though others may disagree) that the lack thereof is more dangerous and will come to more harm than the willful inclusion. If you abandon the instruction of what is right and what is wrong you end up with the current pervading cultural belief that everyone determines their own individual truth. There is danger in that belief.
I think the question should not be “am I placing moral and ethical instruction in my writing?” Instead it should be an assumption that you ARE, and an attempt to make the characters real. Let them struggle in sin, doubt, and anguish. Instead of preaching a sermon to the reader, let the characters model the different types of moral and ethical choices that exist in day to day life in the REAL world, whether your genre is fantasy, sci-fi, memoir…
Wow. Great post, Jenna. Lots of interesting questions raised here, and Anderson’s essay is very thought-provoking.
Why do so many authors become so defensive about this lessons/morals in their stories?
They might be defending themselves. Anderson points out that modernism and post-modernism “celebrate” the unclear and polyvalent. Do we, in our post-modern world, feel that people should not impose morals on others? And that therefore stories should not teach lessons/morals? Some feel that story itself inherently has morals, others that the author can’t help but invest his or her morals/worldview into the story. Either way, if a story contains morals, and we feel that a story shouldn’t teach morals, this might explain why writers would feel a need to defend themselves. (How authors feel about this topic probably has something to do with both why authors write stories and how authors write stories.)
Another reason for defense is to protect the story itself. Most authors, I suspect, do not want their story boiled down to only a lesson; otherwise, they could write an essay. John Granger talks about story as kind of an alchemical process. Story acts upon us differently than essays and lectures. We have experiences along with a character, are transformed and come to conclusions along with a character – we’re not told conclusions, we come to conclusions. I think writers feel that this process is important. And maybe telling us a lesson cheapens the effects of the story.
Thanks so much for the comments, everybody! Great thoughts here.
All of you have touched on the things I think about in reading and writing. Travis, I loved that thought of Kirk’s, that literature teaches us what it means to be human–as you point out, a deeper and more important lesson than any simple moral message (the kind of thing Ron assumed the Tale was meant for.)
Fricka, there is almost nothing that will make me put a book back on a shelf faster than the sense that it is trying to teach me something, particularly if I happen to disagree with that something. Carol Lynch Williams is right. It feels like emotional manipulation. Fortunately–well, I might be wrong, but I don’t think stories are that didactic that often, thanks to pretty much everyone feeling the same way.
Mr. Pond, I’m parroting somebody and am not sure who–it might have even been you–but for me as well as that other person, the telling of a story is more a way to think through questions than a way to provide answers. What Anderson describes never happens to me as I’m planning scenes and chapters, deciding what comes next (though very occasionally as I’m writing sentences). But because I’m thinking through questions, and doing so from my perspective, worldview is a natural, wholly organic part of the process. I appreciated Anderson’s acknowledgment of that.
Hey, Aberforth, my sister’s butterbeer is on me.
Welcome to The Hog’s Head, Beth! I’m totally with you on the idea that an intentional moral vacuum has worse potential implications than does an outright claim for truth. Also, you’ve got me thinking about your suggestion that writers assume that their story is providing moral instruction. That brings up the tension between story first and moral first, a difficult dichotomy with no easy resolution (for the conscientious, at least). People will say story first, but they don’t necessarily mean defenestrate the moral.
A likewise good point you make: Without the “struggle in sin, doubt, and anguish” there is no story. That struggle is what keeps us reading, the fascinating conflict, because all of us have experienced those things. Truth that is merely explained in an essay never strikes as deeply as a belief, true or otherwise, that a person has wrestled with on a personal level.
And that takes me to miles365′s comment. I’m so glad you brought up the alchemical process as described by Mr. Granger, Miles, because I think that is the ultimate goal–to read or write a story in which the characters’ struggles become our own, and we are changed along with them.
I am not sure that it is even possible to create a story that feels meaningful by plotting a moral agenda over an alchemical conversion structure. Maybe. But what I think happens, when writers are being authentic, is that the plot and characters and journey–by being drawn from our own imaginations–cannot help but reflect our ideals. After that, the interaction between the reader’s and the writer’s worldview through the medium of story can be a powerful thing indeed.
Good grief, what a long speech–longer than the original post. Sorry, everyone! I guess I’ve been thinking about this a lot.
Fascinating interaction, Jenna–as usual. And a warm welcome to Beth, too. Butterbeers are on Jenna…
The overriding weakness I see in the two articles you linked to is a blunt lack of definition. It’s assumed we know what ‘morals’ means–when the disparate answers to Hale’s query shows we don’t. There’s a strong sense that ‘morality’ is taken vaguely to mean ‘not sleeping around with just anybody’, or perhaps ‘volunteering regularly with a charity you believe in’. The difficulty and the ethics of constructing an actual moral framework aren’t addressed. To put it another way, what are we really talking about?
(I have a tenuous definition I use, but I’ll just leave the tension of the question here for now.)
It’s an important question, to say the least. Here’s part of why. As a fantasist, I agree with George MacDonald (anticipating Tolkien here):
‘The Fantastic Imagination’, A Dish of Orts (1893)
I apologize for the length of the quote, but it seemed so pertinent to this discussion, and so un-PC in a world of postmodern criticism and fashionable words like ‘polyvalency’ (a Chestertonian train car if ever I heard one), I thought you all would like to read it in full.
(Aberforth–did I ask for cloves in my firewhiskey and soda? Then what are they doing in there?)
I love love love that McDonald quote, Mr. Pond. And the whole essay, as I recall–which, for any of you that haven’t read it, can be found for free online here.
You’re right, I think, about the disparate answers to Hale’s question and the general vagueness about definition. Not that there’s an easy definition to be found. It seems to me that the range of morality includes everything from the rightness or wrongness of a single thought to–on the macro level–the acceptance of what it means to be human, and what one chooses to do with that. In every part of that range, there is room for the author to question how the direction of his tale portrays the matter and to wrestle with how the possible portrayals affect the story.
That tension can be constant, depending on the author’s feelings and beliefs about those parts of the story, and there aren’t simple answers. But I think it’s good for authors to take part in the tension, to care about supporting the right. And if the author succeeds, the reader has room to question and think through the characters’ choices in dialogue with his own conscience.
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