🚀 go-pugleaf

Well, I may define my terms differently from you but here is my understanding
of the difference between Morality, a Moral, a Theme, and a Thesis.

1) Morality is a set of rules for making ethical decisions.

2) A moral, is a story which illustrates a set of rules for making an ethical
decision.

3) A theme is a subject explored by a work.  The subject may be a set of
rules for making ethical decisions.  It may also be the question of God's
existence and nature, or anything else including the meaningless of life.  A
theme is NOT a Morality OR a moral.  A moral draws a conclusion from a
situation, a theme only portrays a situation.  The theme of a story may
illustrate a "morality," but is not itself a set of rules.

4) A thesis is a theory about the cause-effect relationship of events which
occure in the real world.  One may use a theme to illustrate a thesis.  (BTW
a thesis is the same as a moral, except it does not neccessarily include
ethics.)}i

Fiction, especially modern genre fiction, often contains the thesis: unusual
circumstances inspire unusal performances from ordinary people.  There are
several other theses' which one might lump in as a sort of "Heroic
Archetype."  There are a lot of reasons why this "Heroic Archetype" shows up
in most cultures' accounts of fictional or mythical events.  I strongly
recommend you read a book called "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" by Jopseph
Campbell.

To summarize the theses of this work: fictional and mythical accounts have a
structure analogous to the common human experience of challenging one's own
physical, spiritual, or psychological limitations.  (In a comedy one
overcomes those limitations, in a tradgedy, one fails).

It is my belief that this aspect of fiction is an inevitable result of the
human mind's hardwired approach to the world.  If you don't like this
constraint, you are free to try to write anything you like, but I think
you'll find it creeping in.


--
Alan


alan_barclay@mindlink.bc.ca