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/lit/ - Literature

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4873729 No.4873729[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

Should a story have a moral or teach the reader something?

>> No.4873733

If it's resonant, it does. That's why discussing the isolation of this fact is common.

>> No.4873739

Yes and no.

All truly great work has something to say--even if the message is conflicted or isn't exactly a moral. But beating the reader over the head with the moral, especially if the author has to distort the story to do so, is a major flaw.

>> No.4873747

No. It just has to be aesthetically pleasing

>> No.4873770

>>4873747
But everything aesthetically pleasing thereby communicates something. Our sensibilities don't just come to us out of nowhere; they're formed by an intersubjective reaction to prior culture, technology, and nature. The fact that a particular work succeeds at an aesthetic level, for a particular audience, says something in itself--and says something that the artist has to be conscious of.

>> No.4873777

Shallow literature focuses on plot.
Good literature focuses on characters.
Great literature focuses on ideas.

>> No.4873796

>>4873777
this sounds like bullshit

>> No.4873802

>>4873796
Nope

>> No.4873808

>>4873802
It is. I'm pretty sure you made it up or someone of similar repute (to you, that is, a 4chan user)

>> No.4873811

>>4873777
Eleanor Roosevelt likes this

>> No.4873817

>>4873770
This is a good point. Just wanted to say that because I just came here from /tv/ and your post is a nice break from the shitposting

>> No.4873821

>>4873729
No.
This doesn't mean having those is bad though.

>> No.4873853

It seems like it would be very hard to make a story that nobody would ever learn anything from... So really any story in a way would teach something to some reader.

>> No.4873865

Read On Moral Fiction by John Gardner (same that wrote Grendel)

He discusses your question and leans towards yes. Pretty interesting, if you want to read into the subject deeper than 4chan answers.

>> No.4873872

>>4873811
>tfw americans attribute it to Eleanor Roosevelt when it's a direct quote from Plato
>americans in charge of education

>> No.4873881

>>4873865
Oh shit I completely forgot about that book. Had to read it for AP Lit, that book was great.

>> No.4873885

>>4873872
>when it's a direct quote from Plato
>in English
nice try

>> No.4873910

>>4873770
>says something that the artist has to be conscious of

This is blatantly untrue. A work of art, particularly literature since it relies on language which is radically subjective and constantly changing, is open to multiple interpretations. Smarty-type people love to draw parallels between Kant and deSade, but I doubt that putting the two men together would produce a useful dialogue.

If someone asked me to show them THE work of 21st century literature, I'd show them this:
http://www.asstr.org/files/Collections/Alt.Sex.Stories.Moderated/Year2003/40678
The baby talk; the repetition of cliches like "beautiful;" the inadequately described violence; the characters reduced to just names that suffer; sexual fantasy, violence and the demand of enjoyment lifted into their emptiest most unsatisfying form; no beauty; no reason; no purpose; just a list of the dead and dying presented for casual, Sunday morning perusal.
The writer was just trying to get his and other people's rocks off, though (I wonder if he succeeded).

>>4873729
A moral is unnecessary.
You can't teach people anything unless they want to learn it, so trying to teach through fiction is an exercise in frustration.

>> No.4873934

>>4873910
link isn't working

>> No.4873985

>>4873934
Well, this doesn't make any sense. Chrome is being strange to me, I think. Try it without the http://
Like so:
www.asstr.org/files/Collections/Alt.Sex.Stories.Moderated/Year2003/40678

>> No.4874023

>>4873910

Link broken. But here's the thing, bruv: this worked on some people. Some set of people with certain commonalities of temperament and cultural experiences. And the author wrote for them, conscious that the work would speak to them.

> A work of art, particularly literature since it relies on language which is radically subjective and constantly changing, is open to multiple interpretations.
But authors are (to some extent at least) conscious of and even exploiting the ambiguities of language. Some works of art aren't meant to produce a single reaction that unites people--they're intended to polarize opinion. And even when the subjectivity of language, and the author's limited understanding of the world, distort the intended effect, the questions that the author raises and the responses people have to them still constitute some kind of message. Take, e.g., Serial Experiments Lain--meant to play on a cultural divide between Japan and the West and draw out some deep difference of opinion. Failed to do so--Japanese and Western viewers had largely the same response. But the provocation was still intended, and there's still some intelligible message about the growing relationship with telecommunications in the 90s and how it increasingly revealed previously invisible cultural currents.

>> No.4874105

>>4873729
Yes, but it shouldn't be intentional.

>> No.4874141
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4874141

Regardless of whether or not you 'put one' in, every story has a moral and something to teach. Sometimes when people already have a moral beforehand it can come out so unsubtle that it is painful (and useless) to read, the best are the ones which do not try to make some sort of message; I think the writer's subconscious leaks in better also and puts in things beyond what the writer thinks he knows or understands

>> No.4874237
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4874237

>>4874141
I think that for the most part, when literature is trying to force a moral to the point where it becomes propagandistic, it can ruin perfectly wonderful writing. However, even propaganda can make for genuinely good literature, as in pic related.

>> No.4875273

>>4873777
this is worse than that stupid 'small minds discuss people' bullshit

>> No.4875332

>>4875273
But it's true, great minds discuss ideas put forth by people, not the people themselves.

>> No.4875868

>>4873729
LOL. This thread is fucking hilarious, all the self-important "writers" giving themselves such bloated purpose in educating and helping the poor readers with meaning, purpose, knowledge, morals.

Go fuck yourselves

>> No.4876013

Each form of art should isolate itself with its own capabilities, morals and philosophical ideas embedded into books often corrupt it. If the writer is trying to embed his belief into a work, the anti-ideas, or straw men, become caricatures, as with the protagonist. A prime example of this would be "The Fountainhead," or "Atlas Shrugged." Now, don't get morals, ideas and teachings confused with deeper meaning. The greatest works have an interior meaning or allegory etc. Morals or arguments in fiction very easily corrupt it, the only novel I've ever read that has not succumbed to corruption is Crime & Punishment. Yet, Dostoevsky could've easily communicated his idea through an essay, rather than using a fictional scenario. Morals in novels don't make or break novels, but they have the capability to.

>> No.4876048

>>4875868
>>>/middleschool/
Nobody in here has claimed a) to be an author or b) that fiction writers generally have something to say worth listening to. I would certainly say there are some novelists with interesting ideas. I also think that most authors are motivated by a sense that they have something to say (even if they're mistaken about its quality).
I'm curious why you even bother reading, or coming to a place where people talk about books, if you think otherwise.

>> No.4876057

>>4873729
A book should leave the reader in a state of awe and enlightenment after reading it.
If a kid feels smarter for reading the 4th Harry Potter book, then sure, it served its purpose.

The fact he read something as plebby as that, means that there is more hope for him to read something worthwhile when he grows up than someone who never reads or reads like a book a year.

All literature serves a purpose, unless you feel nothing after reading it or thinking about it, then its either that the book is shit or you are shit (mostly the latter).