Moral Fiction in Ethan Frome
John Gardner's "On Moral Fiction" is a fine example of fictional analysis. After reading the excerpt assigned in class, I was in awe at the truth and reality presented. I had never thought of morality in that sense and found it to be truly inspiring. True morality is just and comes from the heart. Morality found in novels, more like fashionable morality, comes from the head and is thus untrue to the heart. In "On Moral Fiction," Gardner is arguing that literature should consist of fiction that leads to life instead of despair. I absolutely agree with his passage, which could easily be applied to Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome.Gardner discusses how essential character is to moral fiction, since it is through our understanding of character in action that we come to understand the truth of fiction. Ethan Frome's morality is shown throughout the novel as an apathetic one, in which he goes with the flow instead of thinking with his
Gardner argues that current literature suffers most of all from a plain failure of morality. Moral fiction in his view is fiction that attempts to test human values, not for the purpose of preaching or peddling a particular ideology, but in a truly honest and open-minded effort to find out what best promotes human fulfillment. He does so by the kind of analysis of characters and the things they do that brings both writer and reader to understanding, sympathy, and love for human possibility. Because so much present-day fiction fails to be moral in this sense, it undermines our experience of literature and our faith in ourselves. However, Ethan Frome is an exception to these works because it underlines all the important facets in literature and moral fiction. heart before making a decision. He is a very easygoing character. He is the kind of person who doesn't seem to mind making decisions by thought rather than soul. As Aristotle preached, "the moral man must be
Some common words found in the essay are:
Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton, Moral Fiction, Ethan Frome's, Fiction Gardner, Frome Gardner, moral fiction, ethan frome, understanding character action, understand truth fiction, Gardner's Moral, John Gardner's, literature moral fiction, understanding character, understand truth, relate characters, character action, action understand truth, read literature, character action understand, literature moral, morality comes, truth fiction,
Approximate Word count = 657
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
