The more research you do, the more at ease you are in the world you're writing about. It doesn't encumber you, it makes you free.
A. S. ByattRead
I am not sure how much good is done by moralising about fairy tales. This can be unsubtle - telling children that virtue will be rewarded, when in fact it is mostly simply the fact of being the central character that ensures a favourable outcome. Fairy tales are not, on the whole, parables.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote questions the effectiveness of imparting moral lessons through fairy tales, suggesting that outcomes are often based on narrative roles rather than virtues.
A. S. Byatt critiques the common practice of moralizing fairy tales, which often imply that being virtuous will lead to a rewarding outcome. Instead, she argues that these stories typically favor the main character regardless of their moral standing, highlighting that narrative structure plays a significant role in determining outcomes rather than ethical behavior.
Themes
Fairy TalesMoralityNarrativeVirtueCharacters
In practice
Example use cases
During a lesson on storytelling, one might reference this quote to emphasize the difference between fiction and moral lessons.
More from A. S. Byatt
All quotes →It's because I'm a feminist that I can't stand women limiting other women's imaginations. It really makes me angry.
A. S. ByattRead
Why do we take pleasure in gruesome death, neatly packaged as a puzzle to which we may find a satisfactory solution through clues - or if we are not clever enough, have it revealed by the all-powerful tale-teller at the end of the book? It is something to do with being reduced to, and comforted by, playing by the rules.
A. S. ByattRead
Never stop paying attention to things. Never make your mind up finally. Do not hold beliefs.
A. S. ByattRead
Only write to me, write to me, I love to see the hop and skip and sudden starts of your ink.
A. S. ByattRead
I am a creature of my pen. My pen is the best of me.
A. S. ByattRead
Similar quotes
It's not very fashionable, but I love life, and I believe that things disappear and reappear and nothing ever solidifies, no matter how middle-class, housebroken, staid, and solitary someone's life seems to be. That, I think, is what I'm writing about.
Colum MccannRead
Why does no one confess his sins? Because he is yet in them. It is for a man who has awoke from sleep to tell his dreams.
Seneca The YoungerRead
With Othello, Shakespeare posed this problem of a black man in a white society in the role that he's playing. And Shakespeare gave Othello such dignity - he came not from - as he said - not from hate but from honor, from a sense of his own human dignity. And to me, to my mind, there could be no greater character played.
Paul RobesonRead
Events, circumstances, etc., have their origin in ourselves. They spring from seeds which we have sown.
Henry David ThoreauRead
I have seen the rise of fascism and communism. Both philosophies glorify the arbitrary power of the state... But both theories fail. Both deny those God-given liberties that are the inalienable right of each person on this planet, indeed, they deny the existence of God.
Ronald ReaganRead
I believe that the formation of the Chekas was one of the gravest and most impermissible errors that the Bolshevik leaders committed in 1918 when plots, blockades, and interventions made them lose their heads. All evidence indicates that revolutionary tribunals, functioning in the light of day and admitting the right of defence, would have attained the same efficiency with far less abuse and depravity. Was it necessary to revert to the procedures of the Inquisition?
Victor SergeRead