Creating Morals in Victorian Short Stories
I have read recently several Victorian short stories I noticed that
many had similar styles and contents. But the three stories that I
found most interesting were: The Persons of the tale and The House of
Eld both by R L Stevenson and The Superstitious Man’s Story by Thomas
Hardy. In these three stories I found that they were linked by the use
of a narrator to tell the story of what had happened to the main
characters through their fear, heroism and morality.
The House of Eld and The Persons of the Tale both have a moral to
them. They are both written by the same author and although the moral
in The House of Eld is shown at the end and The Persons of the Tale is
a little harder to find both need to be worked out with great thought.
The moral of the Persons of the Tale is that people although they are
all different they are all needed in one way or another to complete
life and the moral at the end of The House of Eld relates to the
story. In the story the boy Jack thinks that everything will be
perfect if he gets rid of the Sorcerer and therefore the gyve, but in
fact in the process he kills his uncle, his father and his mother. The
moral puts across the point that if you get rid of something important
to your family you get rid of them too. R L Stevenson has written
these short stories in the style of Aesop’s Fables, each with their
own meaning and moral. He has done this in an updated version for
their time to help the readers and listeners understand the meaning of
life.
In both the R L Stevenson stories there is a hero. In the House of
Eld, the hero is Jack. He shows heroic characteristics like braveness,
the will to win and determination. In the Perso...
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...ting. This is scary in itself but the moral to the story scares
the people more. It is telling people that if you get rid of something
very important and something you have never lived without you will get
rid of the most important things to you. This implies that if you
reject God then you can lose everything important to you and your
family. And finally in the Persons of the Tale the message that God
has no favourites and that everyone is important teaches the
Victorians to love each other as everyone is just as important as
anybody else.
Overall these three stories are enjoyable, thought provoking and
educational for the readers and listeners. The authors have written
with great language and techniques and have produced good short
stories. They have considered the interests and views of readers in
the Victorian times and they are enjoyable to read.
tale is a child of a tale.
Throughout the classic novel of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn written by Mark Twain we see a lot of moral development with the main character Huckleberry Finn. Throughout the story Huck’s friendships greatly influence his moral identity. Throughout the series of events that unfold upon our main character, Huck Finn, we see huge moral leaps in the way he thinks that are influenced by that friendships he makes on his journey. He starts the book as a young minded individual with no sense morals other than what has been impressed onto him and ends up as a self empowering individual. Through the friendships he makes with Tom Sawyer, Jim, and the Duke and King we see big moral leaps with Huck.
The book I am doing my book report on is called “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” by Mark Twain. This book revolves around a poor fourteen year old boy named Huck who runs away from his drunk father and finds friendship within a former slave, Jim, trying to escape to the free states. They adventure along the Mississippi River and end up stopping at various places throughout the novel and meet people who are all morally inadequate. “Tom told me what his plan was, and I see in a minute it was worth fifteen of mine for style, and would make Jim just as free a man as mine would, and maybe get us all killed besides. So I was satisfied, and said we would waltz in on it.” This quotes illustrates the dangers that come to Huck and Jim in this novel, but how Huck chooses to go with the plan anyhow, since it causes a sense of ‘adventure.’ The setting of this novel takes place before the Civil War in different towns along the Mississippi River in Missouri. I will talk about how Huck meets Jim, how he and Jim have to escape from their present issues, how they form a friendship and come across evil in their journey, and how they both end up free with a little help from Tom Sawyer.
Society establishes their own rules of morality, but would they be accepted in these days?
Mark Twain once said, "Lie--an abomination before the Lord and an ever present help in time of trouble." Twain's description of deceit gives it a type of double meaning. This idea of lying being used for good as well as evil is not unheard of. Many time people find it necessary to lie to maintain a greater good or save a life. However, all too often, people lie for self-serving, immoral purposes. In this quote, Twain elegantly shows the delicate balance between good and evil in the performance of the same act. Furthermore, Twain also shows this complex thought in his portrayal of characters in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twains novel emulates his quote, juxtaposing the good and bad aspects of stretching the truth. Throughout the novel, Twain provides numerous commentaries on the morality of characters. His display of deception in the story continually serves to improve the reader?s understanding of a character?s moral integrity, based on the nature and intent of the lie. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain uses the lies of numerous characters to better define the moral ambiguity of those characters.
People have a general belief that they know right from wrong, but how does one truly know the difference? In the fictional works of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain expertly portrays this idea through his main protagonist Huck. Some people believed that this book was nothing more than a boy 's adventure story, but Sloane discredits this idea by stating “In 1885 the Concord Library Board pulled Huck Finn from its shelves. What could possibly have been so offensive in this humorous book, seemingly directed at children?” (Sloane). Huck begins this novel with the ideals and beliefs that society has forced upon him; a both figurative and literal black and white way of thinking. Before Pap comes along and forces him to run off, he thinks of Jim as one thing; a slave. The longer Huck spends time away from
Samuel Clemens - or as he is most commonly referred to as, Mark Twain - was a seminal American novelist, with his works not only contributing to the general American literary canon, but in fact, greatly inspiring other such elemental writings. Twain is, perhaps, most remembered by the quintessential work, The Adventure’s of Huckleberry Finn, in which the eponymous character travels down the Mississippi River with his close friend, and runaway slave, Jim. In doing so, the two experience Twain’s satirical, yet quite realistic, interpretation of the South, while Huck, consequently, experiences a drastic change in terms of his own morality. When considering this novel’s content from a literary perspective, it seems to be that this notion of moral growth is quite essential to one’s understanding of the plot, as Huck’s character at the story’s conclusion highly contrasts with that of the beginning. Furthermore, and quite importantly, one shall find that evidence is abound for such a change in moral character when one is to examine Huck’s thoughts and subsequent actions in a chronological manner.
...n” is a great example of an old myth or tale reconstructed and adapted for a modern audience in a new medium. It is a progression on one hand in its use of modern language, setting, and style but it is also the product of the old myths in that it is essentially the same on the thematic level. In addition, the level of self-awareness on the part of the narrator and, by extension, the author marks it out as an illustration of the very notion of evolutionary changes of myths and fairy tales. Adaptation is the solution to the fairy tale, and fairy tales have been endlessly changing themselves throughout history and, by some strange transforming or enchanting power endlessly staying the same.”
Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories.
Huck Finn, a narcissistic and unreliable young boy, slowly morphs into a courteous figure of respect and selflessness. After Pap abducts the young and civilized Huck, Huck descends into his old habits of lies and half-truths. However, upon helping a runaway slave escape, Huck regains morality and a sense of purpose. Throughout The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Huck lies to characters, casting the authenticity of the story into doubt but illustrating Huck’s gradual rejection of lying for himself and a shift towards lying for others.
In my final paper I will argue that F. Scott Fitzgerald represents the country in relation to civilization and the city in his novel The Great Gatsby. This novel take takes place in New York City on the East Coast of the United States shortly before the start of the great depression at some point in the 1920’s. This novel is constantly comparing the fictional cities East Egg and the West Egg witch is modeled to be the two different sides of long island. The continued comparison of the society on the East side versus the West side of Long Island shows the difference that earning your wealth has on your morality compared to being born into it.
works of literature have tremendous amounts of similarity especially in the characters. Each character is usually unique and symbolizes the quality of a person in the real world. But in both stories, each character was alike, they represented honor, loyalty, chivalry, strength and wisdom. Each character is faced with a difficult decision as well as a journey in which they have to determine how to save their own lives. Both these pieces of literatures are exquisite and extremely interesting in their own ways.
The presentation of moral courage leads Emilia’s Speech and Felix’s actions to challenge the social and religious morality of their time. For instance, Emilia’s Speech establishes her cynicism towards men as Shakespeare’s lexical choice of ‘would not’ demonstrates that without the contraction displayed, it highlights Emilia willingly not to ‘marry.’ Therefore, her courage to challenge the social and religious morality of her time establishes that she disobeys with the main principle that “Wives submit/to husbands/the Lord” knowing that marriage is an obligation and her refusal demonstrates that she has “sense like the men.” This is evident as compared to the “Fair” Desdemona who does ‘displease’ men it establishes that she has respect and authority because of Othello. Whereas, Emilia lives in Desdemona’s shadow and has a contradictory personality to which her loyalty is divided,[between Iago and Desdemona] similar but different to Desdemona’s “divided duty” to her husband and father.
Most self respecting people have ethics and morals they try to abide by. They create standards that they live life by and construct their own philosophy with. In the novel The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, morals and ethics are a scarce practice. Jay Gatsby lives his life by the over bearing morals and values of devotion, corruption, and his will to control.
This article, is arguing about the cultural history on how the poor and the lower class would tell stories. These stories still affect our society today. This article states that fairy tales at first were meant for adults because children could not read. An example is Brothers Grimm, where “Weber argues that fairy tales can tell us a great deal about the real conditions in the world of those who told and those who heard the tales” (344). It also explains how the Grimm’s brother changed society with their stories of cruelty.