Ethics # 9

 Stories that teach a moral lesson  “Boy that Cried Wolf ”

 New interest in storytelling across the professions  Stories can serve as a “laboratory” where moral decisions

can be tried out

 Literature and Medicine or Literature and Leadership classes are popular

 Bibliotherapy = reading stories to children to explain difficult issues

 Some psychologists are having patients tell about their own lives as if they were stories

 Humans are “storytelling animals.”

 Beginning-middle-end pattern

 Cause and effect

 Most can recall at least one story that impacted their lives.

 Catharsis

 Myths  Present stories of gods, goddesses and cultural heroes who

inform society about the ideal behavior

 Fairy tales  Stories with morals, not just for kids  Entertainment fiction but also teach about customs  Good rewarded; bad punished  Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, etc.

 Parables  Allegorical stories for adults  Really about ourselves and what we should do  Prodigal son parable

 Fables  Product of “new” children’s literature in 18th and 19th

century

 Toned-down fairy tales with message to “behave”

 New interest in Aesop, ancient Greek fabulist

 Superheroes (Superman, Spiderman, Batman)

 Flawed characters who are redeemed (or not)

 The Bargain: someone bargains with fate to gain some advantage (Dr. Faust, Dorian Gray, Angel Heart)

 The Good Twin and the Bad Twin: (Jekyll and Hyde, Fight Club)

 The Quest: journey story (Odyssey, Moby Dick, No Country for Old Men)

 War Stories: concerned with duty and honor, morality of war itself

 Westerns: good and evil are clearly articulated, courage vs. cowardice

 Science fiction: dystopias, often harsh look at the future

 Mystery and crime: concrete good vs. evil story, some in this genre twist this idea (bad cop, sympathetic villian)

 Not a new debate

 Violence and bloodshed

 Copycats inspired