Study On The Ethical Value Of British Children's Fiction

Children's growth is embodied more in rational maturity and moral betterment than in physical development.The process of children's growth is,in a sense,the process of children's socialization from an ignorant and uncivilized natural being to a rational social being who has understood and internalized the social norms and has the ability to make ethical judgment.Children's literature provides rich mental nutrition for children's ethicalization in that reading enables children to be mentally enlightened,emotionally touched and morally edified.Children's literature achieves the artistic effect of fusing instruction with delight by constructing a variety of artistic images for readers to imitate,or to develop moral sentiment through esthetic empathy.In this dissertation,British children's fiction is cited as the sample to expound on the ethical value of children's literature.Apart from Introduction and Conclusion,this dissertation consists of four chapters.The first chapter illustrates the ethical value of animal stories which mainly helps to enlighten readers' ethical cognition and develop readers' ethical sentiment.In view of the similarity in ethical sense between animals and children,animal stories are regarded as an important medium of child readers' ethical enlightenment.The image of Mogli in The Jungle Book serves the purpose of ethical enlightenment.Mogeli's transformation from a wolf in the jungle to a member of human society is metaphoric in that it symbolizes the children's socialization from a natural being to a social being,that is,a process in which one acquires ethical norms and develops ethical awareness so that he or she can live harmoniously in human society.The Jungle Book is rich in ethical value,for through reading and appreciating Mogeli's identity choice and ethical choice,child readers learns to understand that the essential difference between animal and human lies not in the physical appearance,but in the ethical awareness that is unique to human beings.The unenlightened children have little difference from animals in that both are guided by animal instinct rather than ethical awareness that is unique to humans.The little children are in ethical chaos,lack of ethical consciousness,and unable to make ethical judgment.The image of Toad in The Wind in the Willows is a case in point.Toad can be seen as the disguise of an ignorant and innocent boy,whose ethical traits are projected on the image of Toad,and this is the reason why the animal stories are popular among child readers.Toad is similar to an ignorant child in many senses,for he is as "mischievous","self-centered" and "willful" as a naughty boy.His irresponsible behaviors do not result from his evil or vice,but from his ethical chaos or moral ignorance,that is,he does not understand the social norms or behavior codes,nor can he ethically judge his own behavior or predict its consequence.Toad is punished for his irresponsible and willful behavior,which serves as kind of warning against mischief or improper behavior.Toad finally develops ethical consciousness and learns to constrain his own behavior after being taught some ethical lessons and being emotionally inspired by his father-like friend Badger,who represents the socially accepted ethical norms or behavior codes.As a result,Toad is forgiven and accepted by his friends and lives happily in the animal society.In the reading pleasure,children come to understand the behavior codes and social norms with the guide of the stories.Moral sentiment is as important in children's enlightenment as moral cognition,for moral sentiment is the driving force of moral behaviors.In most cases,human behavior is guided by ethical cognition,which is the precondition of moral action.Ethical cognition,however,does not necessarily lead to moral behavior.Such behavior as "willful offense" or "persistent offense" accounts for the behavior of the offensers who have ethical judgment capability but lack moral sentiment.Only when the moral sentiment influences the children,can the moral cognition motivate moral behavior.Cultivating the children's moral sentiment relies heavily on aesthetic empathy,which is the result of moral imagination fuelled by literary images.Empathy occurring in the process of reading is closely relevant to the development of readers' moral sentiment.Excellent literary works provoke readers'moral imagination,which helps readers understand the feeling and pain of the animal or person in pitiable situation.Moral empathy consequently nurtures sense of mercy and that of justice,which further lead to such pro-social behaviors as sharing,soothing,cooperating or helping the wretched beings out of trouble.For instance,the narrator of Black Beauty invites readers to experience and feel the pain that the poor horse is experiencing,so much so that readers are emotionally touched by its bitter experience and morally irritated by the persons who abuse the horse.The reading effect of moral empathy relies heavily on the moral imagination of readers who experience the protagonist's joy,sorrow and anger as the protagonist does in the text.Chapter Two focuses on three kinds of images in fantasy,whose ethical value is analyzed in terms of children's moral internalization.The artistic images in fantasy,which is fairly popular among child readers,can be roughly categorized into three kinds,namely,the pro-social image,anti-social image,and the image of prodigal son.The pro-social images serve as the role model for child readers to imitate,while the anti-social images serve as the ethical warning for child readers to avoid.The antagonists in fantasy are usually punished because of their selfishness,willfulness and cowardliness,and the pro-social protagonists,on the contrary,can eventually fulfill their dream and live happily with the help of magic power or other supernatural power as reward of their virtues like goodness,courage,selflessness and generosity.The ethical message that "Good will be rewarded with good,and evil with evil" is conveyed to readers through the perceivable contrast between beauty and ugliness,good and evil,courage and cowardliness,selflessness and selfishness,so that readers can be guided to make proper choice.Besides the role models and villains,there are always the images of prodigal sons who return to the moral path after being taught some ethical lessons.Most readers in real life are not as noble as the moral heroes,nor are they as evil as the villains.Child readers,who are still undergoing ethicalization,can not completely control their instinct or impulse,so at times they are likely to err unconsciously.Their gradually awakening moral consciousness,however,may make them uneasy and fearful about their wrongdoings and relevant consequences.From the image of prodigal sons who return to the correct path and are forgiven by their friends,child readers gain the necessary courage to face and correct their mistakes.The third chapter elaborates on the value of role model of gentleman and gentlewoman constructed in British school stories and adventure stories.A gender role is a set of social norms dictating what behaviors are socially considered desirable or acceptable for a person based on a person's gender and moral identity.To make the child reader a gentleman or gentlewoman is the ethical purpose of British school stories and adventure stories.The virtuous and righteous protagonists serve as role models for young readers.By constructing a series of images of honorable gentlemen,the stories intended for boy reader convey to the reader the message of gentlemanship,aiming at cultivating the boys into admirable gentlemen who have strong sense of glory and sense of duty.Similarly,the value of girl stories lies in helping young ladies to identify their gender role by providing models of gentlewomen.The school stories intended for girls reflect the gender expectation toward girls,who are supposed to blossom into gentlewomen,and to help the male out of ethical crisis with their good,noble and brave moral agency.The role model is kind of ethical identity construction,aiming at helping readers understand the social gender expectation toward boys and girls,so that readers may come to see that they need to abide by some ethical norms and make the right ethical choice that is suitable for their ethical identity.Undoubtedly,there contains some colonial ideology in the school stories and adventure stories,but the moral traits like courage,severance,righteousness and loyalty embodied by the protagonists deserve to be acquired by readers from any social background.Chapter four illustrates the ethical warning value of science fiction by analyzing the image of scientists and humans' fates in the future.The main stream of British science fiction is"anti-scientism",which is embodied in the fact that the human's future in science fiction is generally gloomy and pessimistic.The "anti-scientism" attitude does not mean to prevent the science from developing,but to express the doubt of "scientism" belief that we can solve any problem with science.When most of the insensitie ordinary people are still enjoying and cheering for the comfort and convenience brought by science,many insightful science fiction writers begin to question science and its application,predicting what kind of harm and threat human beings may have to face if the science activities are not guided by morality.The original purpose of science is to meet human's need for better survival and development,making human more comfortable,more convenient and more affluent.The human's application of science,however,is now deviating away from the original purpose of "serving human beings",and making it a tool to threaten and even destroy human beings.With fantastic plot,fashionable theme and rich imagination,science fiction draws readers' attention to the ethical problems shaded by the brilliance of science,and provokes readers to reflect on the effect of science and the future fate of human beings.The youngsters tend to accept the novel things faster,and they are more enthusiastic about science and its product.The youngsters,the future scientists or potential consumers of science products,may have unmeasurable influence on human fate.The science fiction helps to foster the adulscent's ethics in science,to help them internalize the norms of ethics in science,and to strengthen their ethical consciousness of science.Different from the relatively dull means to dictate to the youngsters the norms of ethics in science,science fiction provides ethical warning or model for readers in a vivid,figurative and intuitionistic manner.The gloomy and pessimistic future we may have to face in the future is kind of warning for readers,who are motivated to reflect on the negative effect of science and technology;the positive imae of wise and courageous scientists constructed in science fiction serves as ethical model,which helps readers understand the value of science in aesthetic pleasure.The Conclusion of the dissertation summarizes the function of children's literary reading in their initiation,holding that the excellent children's literary works are the important mental nutrition for children's mental growth ad moral development.Children can gain beneficial instruction from reading pleasure.Through cognition enlightenment,sentimental training,moral edification,and ethical identification,children come to improve their cognition,sentiment and morality as well.