How would people characterize A Wrinkle in Time? It’s been ages since I’ve read it, but it’s another indisputably (?) classic children’s book. IT and a lot of the good/evil shadow imagery seem somewhat morally simplistic in my memory, but I seem to recall other moral complexity, e.g., with the Mrs. Ws.
I’m also having trouble characterizing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in terms of moral complexity, but it also doesn’t fit in with the other examples in that it lacks a high-stakes struggle. Alice in Wonderland is the other major children’s classic fantasy I can think of, but I can’t recall what, if any, type of morality it presented.
Good question. As I recall, I found the first half much more interesting than the last half. In retrospect, I think that one reason was that the Ws required thought to understand but It did not. (But I don’t recall thinking this at the time, so take that with a grain of salt.)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory […] Alice in Wonderland
The morality in these is farcical, so it’s easier to be grey, or just meaningless. (In Tim Burton’s recent adaptation of Alice, which has a coherent plot unlike the original, the morality was very black and white.)
Now I remember the famous debate in The Horn Book Magazine about the morality in Charlie. I found most of that debate pointless becauseCharlie’s morality is farcical, so why would you expect it to make sense? (Well, the debate wasn’t only about morality.)
And that reminds me of Ursula Le Guin (who took the anti-Charlie position in the first April 1973 Letter to the Editor at the above link); she wrote the children’s fantasy trilogy Earthsea. This has a fairly grey morality, especially the middle book, which is told from the perspective of an antagonist (at first) of the trilogy’s main protagonist. Years later, Le Guin wrote a sequel trilogy, which (while earning a mixed reaction from the fans) addressed some of the problems that she saw in the original trilogy; it was even greyer, but it was not marketed to children anymore. In any case, Earthsea is not a counterexample to ewbrownv’s claims, because the story does explore ‘unconventional morality, novel social forms, etc’ (and does it well, IMO).
Ob MoR: Earthsea has an anti-lifeist moral, but because it is grey, it treats the lifeist position with some respect; the villains are more misguided than evil, and you can sympathise with them. Lifeists still won’t be happy with it, especially in the sequels, where gur urebrf qrfgebl gur nsgreyvsr (although once you get to that point, this is pretty well justified). But at least the lifeist position is not dismissed out of hand.
How would people characterize A Wrinkle in Time? It’s been ages since I’ve read it, but it’s another indisputably (?) classic children’s book. IT and a lot of the good/evil shadow imagery seem somewhat morally simplistic in my memory, but I seem to recall other moral complexity, e.g., with the Mrs. Ws.
I’m also having trouble characterizing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in terms of moral complexity, but it also doesn’t fit in with the other examples in that it lacks a high-stakes struggle. Alice in Wonderland is the other major children’s classic fantasy I can think of, but I can’t recall what, if any, type of morality it presented.
Good question. As I recall, I found the first half much more interesting than the last half. In retrospect, I think that one reason was that the Ws required thought to understand but It did not. (But I don’t recall thinking this at the time, so take that with a grain of salt.)
The morality in these is farcical, so it’s easier to be grey, or just meaningless. (In Tim Burton’s recent adaptation of Alice, which has a coherent plot unlike the original, the morality was very black and white.)
Now I remember the famous debate in The Horn Book Magazine about the morality in Charlie. I found most of that debate pointless because Charlie’s morality is farcical, so why would you expect it to make sense? (Well, the debate wasn’t only about morality.)
And that reminds me of Ursula Le Guin (who took the anti-Charlie position in the first April 1973 Letter to the Editor at the above link); she wrote the children’s fantasy trilogy Earthsea. This has a fairly grey morality, especially the middle book, which is told from the perspective of an antagonist (at first) of the trilogy’s main protagonist. Years later, Le Guin wrote a sequel trilogy, which (while earning a mixed reaction from the fans) addressed some of the problems that she saw in the original trilogy; it was even greyer, but it was not marketed to children anymore. In any case, Earthsea is not a counterexample to ewbrownv’s claims, because the story does explore ‘unconventional morality, novel social forms, etc’ (and does it well, IMO).
Ob MoR: Earthsea has an anti-lifeist moral, but because it is grey, it treats the lifeist position with some respect; the villains are more misguided than evil, and you can sympathise with them. Lifeists still won’t be happy with it, especially in the sequels, where gur urebrf qrfgebl gur nsgreyvsr (although once you get to that point, this is pretty well justified). But at least the lifeist position is not dismissed out of hand.