Moral
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A moral (from Latin morālis) is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. A moral is a lesson in a story or in real life.
Finding morals
As an example of an explicit maxim, at the end of Aesop's fable of the Tortoise and the Hare, in which the plodding and determined tortoise won a race against the much-faster yet extremely arrogant hare, the stated moral is "slow and steady wins the race". However, other morals can often be taken from the story itself; for instance, that arrogance or overconfidence in one's abilities may lead to failure or the loss of an event, race, or contest.
The use of
Arts
Throughout the history of recorded literature, the majority of fictional writing has served not only to entertain but also to instruct, inform or improve their audiences or readership.
Morals have typically been more obvious in children's literature, sometimes even being introduced with the phrase: "moral of the story is …". Such explicit techniques have grown increasingly out of fashion in modern storytelling, and are now usually only included for ironic purposes.
Some examples are: "Better to be safe than sorry" (precautionary principle), "The evil deserves no aid", "Be friends with whom you don't like", "Don't judge people by the way they look", "Slow and steady wins the race", "Once started down the dark path, forever will it hold your destiny", and "Your overconfidence is your weakness".[2] Aesop's Fables are the most famous of stories with strong moral conclusions.
Moral tales
Morals were one of the main purposes of literature during 1780–1830, especially in
The ability of children to derive moral lessons from stories and visual media develops around the age of 9 or 10 years.[4]
See also
References
- ISBN 979-8353946595.
- ^ "Aesop's Fables: Online Collection - Selected Fables". Retrieved 18 March 2013.
- ISBN 0195146565.
- ^ Pai, Seeta. "And The Moral Of The Story Is ... Kids Don't Always Understand The Moral". NPR.
External links
The dictionary definition of moral at Wiktionary