In case you missed it (and you probably didn’t), recently there was a bit of a debate in the blogosphere over a certain article which decried the darkness prevalent in YA fiction. I can’t remember if I actually read the article, but I did read the responses of many who took issue with the premise, claiming that YA fiction reflects the dark reality teenagers today know.

I’m not going to argue with that point—but I am going to say that I don’t think that a bleak, hopeless vision of reality is a good way to help someone cope with a future that feels tenuous and perilous at best. Even if a book ends in tragedy, it can still reaffirm readers’ hope.

A YA dystopian I read recently is set in a world without love. It’s illegal to even use the word. Already that sounds pretty bad, eh? Naturally, the MC falls in love, and *SPOILER ALERT* the novel ends tragically. And yet we’re left with hope for the MC to have a better life because of the sacrifice made for her.

I think I tend to side with author John Gardner, at least as his On Moral Fiction is summarized by Wikipedia (emphasis mine):

[F]iction should be moral. Gardner meant "moral" not in the sense of narrow religious or cultural "morality," but rather that fiction should aspire to discover those human values that are universally sustaining. [I assume this means things like hope, character, etc.] Gardner felt that few contemporary authors were "moral" in this sense, but instead indulged in "winking, mugging despair" (to quote his assessment of Thomas Pynchon) or trendy nihilism in which Gardner felt they did not honestly believe.

What do you think? Should fiction be “moral”—by this definition or another?

Photo by Tahmid Munaz