fandomhigh | Literature, Class 3: Period 3, Thursday, September 18

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Literature, Class 3: Period 3, Thursday, September 18

"Five hundred years before the birth of Our Lord," Eliza said, jotting a few words on the chalkboard, "a man named Aesop wrote some fables. Allegedly, that is, and many of them may only be credited to him by default; I feel it's important to say that up front. Since this was approximately twenty-five hundred years ago, it even manages to predate old-fashioned sorts like myself." There was a twinkle of amusement to go with this. "Although I recognize not all of you are from this world, so I should not expect all of you to know Aesop's Fables. Although you'll recognize the tropes; that is, after all, the point."

"Fables are simplistic stories in which there is a very clear moral. There is one tale about a boy who cries "wolf!" to alarm the villagers of a wolf attack when there isn't one; predictably, when the day comes that a wolf does attack, no one believes the boy's shouts. Another story involves frogs who wish for a king. Their first king, a log, is dull and boring, so instead Zeus -- who is the deity for all of these stories -- provides them with a stork, who promptly eats a number of the frogs. The moral there is, of course, be careful what you wish for."

"Fables are similar in some ways to fairy tales, but there's a marked difference between the two. Fables are much clearer that there's a moral to each tale; in fact, Aesop had his in a separate paragraph, just after each tale. In this sense, fables are crafted, whereas fairy tales seem to evolve. They come out of our collective thought processes. We take our hopes and fears and dress them up in fantastical elements, witches and elves and fairy queens. Most fairy tales do have a moral, though it isn't the point to the story in the same way as it is with fables."

"For example, the story of the red-cloaked girl. She is traveling to Grandmother's house, and she is warned to stay to the path, lest she wander in the forest and fall prey to wolves. Of course, she fails to listen, and confides her destination in a well-hidden wolf. He beats her to her grandmother's cottage and devours her grandmother, and lies in wait for the red-cloaked girl herself. In some versions of the story -- as there are many, you'll find -- a hunter saves the girl; in others, she outwits the wolf, and in some, she is eaten just as her grandmother was. The moral may not be expressly laid out, but it's apparent: in straying from the path, she has damned herself, and the possibility of redemption seems to vary with who is telling the tale." She smiled at her students. "I needn't point out the more allegorical aspects of the story. While wolves do lurk in forests, this is at its base a story of a young girl falling under the sway of a dangerous creature, and it seems more pointed towards her virtue than her life."

"More recently, fairy tales have been thought to be stories expressly for young children, and with that shift, the stories have undergone some fundamental changes. The tiniest sea-maiden, for example, did not win her human prince's hand in marriage; in the original tale, he loved another, and, unable to kill the one she loved, she was transformed into sea-foam. Removing the gruesome aspects of these stories may seem a good idea to nervous parents, but if there are morals lurking under the surface, if these stories are truly about our own unspoken horrors and dreads, then replacing all unpleasant consequences with the same bland happy ending destroys the significance of each."

Eliza looked around the class again. "I know many of you are from worlds that are not like this one, but if these stories really are universal, then perhaps you've your own versions to share. Many cultures in this world came up with similar stories, the same stories, so much so that there is now a classification system for folkloric tales. Number 310 is all of the stories involving a maiden trapped in a tower, while 518 is quarreling giants who lose their magical objects. There are plenty of archetypes to go round, if any of you have more to suggest?"

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Don't set off false alarms. Don't stray from the path. Careful what you wish for. Are these helpful messages? What would you place in a fable, and how would you relate it? Are there other morals you can see hiding in the stories mentioned above?

Reno mused on that one for a moment, deciding that, if he was going to be in a class that required thoughtful participation an' shit, he was going to at least make an effort to contribute.

"There ought to be some kinda story that tells people to take care of the planet an' hug trees an' all that kinda crap," he decided.

Really. There ought to be.

"That sounds like an excellent topic," Eliza nodded. "Perhaps the story could involve something going wrong, first. Someone harming the planet and coming to realize what a mistake that has been, when the consequences prove dire."

"Yeah," Reno agreed. "Somethin' like the ground not growin' plants anymore. There's a good one."

He shrugged and smiled a bit of a lopsided smile. "Guess it ain't a fable unless it's about, like, penguins or somethin' though, huh? Not much grows in Antarctica. I been there before already, yo."

"Have you really?" she laughed. "I haven't. It could feature penguins. Perhaps their snow is all ruined from someone harming the world. Or their fish are inedible. There should be one penguin who caused the troubles, and another who warned everyone but was ignored; that's standard for a fable, so you know the audience is following."

"Freaky little terrorist penguins," Reno mused idly, eying the ceiling. "Blowin' up icebergs to get a point across, and there ain't nobody listenin'. Maybe the moral is that it's the crazy penguins who end up right in the end, after all. I dunno."

Somehow, Reno's fables were less adorable than Aesop's.

Even when there were penguins involved.

Re: Discussion Topic #2: Morals? [LIT-3]

clevermsbennet.livejournal.com - 2008-09-18 05:58 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Discussion Topic #2: Morals? [LIT-3]

raspberryturk - 2008-09-18 06:03 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Discussion Topic #2: Morals? [LIT-3]

clevermsbennet.livejournal.com - 2008-09-18 06:07 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Discussion Topic #2: Morals? [LIT-3]

raspberryturk - 2008-09-18 06:09 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Discussion Topic #2: Morals? [LIT-3]

clevermsbennet.livejournal.com - 2008-09-18 06:15 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Discussion Topic #2: Morals? [LIT-3]

raspberryturk - 2008-09-18 17:07 (UTC) - Expand

Sokka grinned at Reno. "Tell you what: You lend me some porn, and I'll introduce you to Frond Valley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FernGully:_The_Last_Rainforest).

Reno quirked an eyebrow at Sokka.

"Tell you what: I survive the experience of the first thing someone's lent me out this week, and maybe we'll talk."

Fabio. Fabio's shiny, shiny chest.

... Ow, Reno's brain.

Sokka snickered. "Are you still carrying it everywhere you go?"

"It's in my room, man." Reno raised an eyebrow at Sokka. And then smirked. "I buried it under the porn you ain't gonna get to borrow if you keep teasin' me about it."

"They are pretty helpful, I guess", Michael spoke up. "Might be a better way to teach kids than just telling them what to do."

"It might, at that," Eliza nodded. "Telling children doesn't necessarily convey the full impact of the consequences the way that a fable's examples could."

The only thing Peyton would have had to suggest was that everybody leaves, so you better be careful who you get attached to, but she figured she'd probably do better just keeping her mouth shut.

"How about 'don't be evil'? I mean, most stories have that as their message, and still people don't seem to get it. 'Don't try to take over the world,' that's a good one, too."

"There, you run into the rather difficult problem of defining 'evil,'" Eliza laughed. "I daresay that would be longer than a simple fable."

"Uh... 'Evil' is when you do bad stuff," Sokka explained. "That's simple enough, isn't it?"

And then, because his worldview had been expanded in Fandom, he added, "When you do it on PURPOSE, anyway. Sometimes, you think you're good but you're really evil, and that's not really evil, you know?"

"I doubt everyone could agree on what you are calling 'bad,'" Eliza noted. "How much must you do, to fight evil? Is not actively pursuing it enough? How much of your income shall you be giving to charity? In what ways will you be caring for those less fortunate?"

"Uh... I don't know!" Sokka protested. "Those are HARD questions! Do any of the fables talk about things like that? Or are they all extra-simplistic things like The Boy Who Built His Village To Close To A Wolf's Hunting Grounds?"

"I think," Chad mused, quietly, after a long moment of thinking about his answer and the answers of those around him, "that kids don't really pick up messages in stories as much as we like to think they do, or that they pick up things we don't expect. Stories are nice, and everything, but the actual world around them seems to influence them more, y'know?"

"You may be right," she said. "Do you believe the fairy tales are possibly misleading, then? Teaching them things, perhaps, of which we are unaware, and would not wish for them to learn?"

Chad was quiet for a long while as he considered Miss Bennett's question in response, frowning deeply. He was trying to relate to his own childhood, his own stories, perhaps to use it as a basis for comparison, but...

"It's hard to tell," he concluded, carefully guarding his words, "what a kid will learn and how they will learn it. Some kids don't live in a world where a story is gonna influence 'em enough to make a difference..."

"Children learn best by example," she agreed, giving him a concerned glance. "They often repeat what they know and understand."

Chad nodded, although the look from Miss Bennet had him not really wanting to elaborate any further. "Exactly. So they're jus' not going to process with some."

"They're helpful messages for kids who don't know any better. Once someone's gotten past the age of reason, moral tales aren't as important, 'cause kids should have already learned those lessons. That's why you don't see a lot of adults toting around books of fables, unless they've got kids of their own."

"Or unless they are intrigued by the subject matter," Eliza considered. "For that matter, I carried a few books home on the subject on Tuesday, but that was research for this class, so perhaps I may be forgiven."

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