Morality and Writing

[nihoran]

Sooo…my questions are…

Do you have to write your characters so that the protagonist is “good” and the antagonist isn’t “evil” and the readers can’t “judge him?” It seems to make writing so stilted if you have to do it that way, but is it immoral to do otherwise?

Also, is it a sin to read works by authors like Hemingway, where the protagonists sometimes do questionable actions?

 

[Matrix_Refugee]

Definitely not immoral: Francois Mauriac, a devout Catholic and French novelist, once said “A literature of edification falsifies life: to depict man in all his miseries is to unmask the abyss opened, in the modern world, by the absence of God.” Mauriac himself wrote some characters who did some very questionable things: “Therese” dealt with a woman who poisons her husband and nearly kills him, after years of putting up with his rather piggish behavior; what she does is wrong, but we understand why she tries to kill him, since he wasn’t very loving to her, to the point that the poor thing felt used and emotionally abused (and since the guy was emotionally distant at best with her, at worst was rude to her and crude with her when it came to the marital act, a psychologist probably would say she was emotionally abused). Not immoral to read stories where the characters do questionable things, either, otherwise, it would be immoral for us to read history, and that’s not exactly the most morally edifying narrative, either.

 

[philial]

The Bibles has some hair - raising stories in it too!

 

[Matrix_Refugee]

The Bibles has some hair - raising stories in it too!

Oooh yes… As a good for-instance: what happens to Agag, the king of some tribe living in the Promised Land, is like something straight out of the SAW movies. Then there’s Jael nailing a tent-peg through an enemy’s head. Or Judith making like some Angelina Jolie-esque Hollywood assassin.

 

[GratefulFred]

In a simple expression, all life is about the struggle between good and evil.

Moral writers can deal with evil, its temptations and effects, in ways that show how to struggle and avoid and or break the bonds of evil and secure the good that God means for us.

But the use of gratuitous violence, beyond what is needed to make the point well enough, to revel in disgusting images and behavior is, in my opinion, uncalled for and often is immoral, sometimes, very immoral.

For example, I think many video games revel in wanton violence and are immoral. Good can struggle with evil and triumph without ripping bodies apart in gruesome ways, just for the sake of shock, or worse yet, for “fun.”

We become what we consume. We have to be aware of life’s pitfalls to see simular situations coming and avoid them or deal with them effectively. But a constant diet of the grotesque and gruesome is bad for us. It is dangerous to dance with the Devil.