From Grilled Cheese to Paninis: a Literary Journey

Are stories with morals antiquated?

I mean, think about it: when was the last time you read a story or watched a movie with a clear “moral” and didn’t inwardly yawn?

But we’ve been born and raised on such stories. Everything from Beatrix Potter to Aesop’s Fables to The Children’s Book of Virtues. Sure, there are plenty that don’t smack of moral instruction, but it’s interesting that a large proportion (if not all) of the old “classics” in children’s literature make a clear value statement. Not only a value statement, but an explicit statement of what one “ought” to do in specific situations.

I think most of us would agree that, as we get older, this kind of story loses its potency with us as readers.

Not that we don’t have fond associations with the books we grew up reading, but we don’t keep looking for that kind of blatant moral guidance as youths and adults.

Why is this?

The philosophers might tell us it’s because once our moral system has been developed, we don’t feel the need to reinforce our values through simplistic narratives. The psychologists might say it’s because our brains have become so accustomed to specific moral patterns that we find the repetition of such fundamental content unstimulating. And some groups in religion might suggest that our distaste for explicit moral statements marks a hardening of the conscience as we mature.

All of these might have a grain of truth. And yet when you look at the history of different cultures, most storytelling traditions started off as instructional. Myths, legends, and lore usually revolved around or pointed to some lesson that the audience was supposed to glean. Especially during medieval European Christendom, stories of the saints were told as fundamental lessons in virtue so that others could follow in their footsteps. Evidently for a while people didn’t tire of hearing stories intended for moral development.

So why do we tire of them now?

Is this a mark of a society that has outgrown spoon-fed, black-and-white morals? Or is it the mark of a society that no longer has an appetite for morality at all?

I think it varies between the individuals that make up society.

With moral relativism gaining ground in our culture, I’m sure there are some people who come to view absolute morals as irrelevant and non-existent. So by the time they reach adulthood, they have no use for fables or their messages.

But for others, growing up means moving from explicit moral statements to implicit value statements. It’s not that they reject the ideas promoted in their childhood stories—it’s just that they’ve developed an appetite for more complex stories that speak through whispers rather than megaphones.

Take for example, The Giving Tree: a children’s story about a boy who knows only how to take and never learns to give. By the end, when he is an old man, he realizes that selfish pursuit leads only to unhappiness. He missed out on what matters most.

Similarly, Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby acquires all the material goods he could possibly ask for… and yet without the woman he loves to share it with him, it amounts to nothing. One of these stories is obviously more simplistic, while the other packs in a host of other themes and sources of tension, but both illustrate a very similar principle. The main difference is subtlety and complexity.

Or take Stella Luna: the story about a bat who grows up with a family of birds, and learns to appreciate their similarities in spite of their differences. There’s the famous line, “How can we be so different and feel so much alike?”

A point echoed, less blatantly, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. When Huck comes to realize that Jim, although a black slave, has the same emotional ties to his family as white people do, he begins to recognize that people of different colors are not fundamentally different from one another.

Obviously neither Gatsby nor Huckleberry Finn is simply a repackaged children’s book. But I suspect that there are many books we read as adults that contain the same “morals” as the books we grew up reading—minus the neon sign announcing “moral of the story” and plus a web of other themes and complex characters.

So maybe we don’t outgrow stories with morals. Maybe we just develop a palate for more sophisticated stories, just like we outgrow grilled cheese sandwiches for Italian paninis.

Okay, I still love grilled cheese, but you get the point. 🙂

What do you think of all this?

How often do you see books/movies for adults that have a glaringly obvious moral? Does this bother you?

What are some children’s stories with messages that you’ve seen reiterated in adult stories? Do you think certain morals/messages are easier to transcribe from children’s stories to adult ones?