Pat, the moral, as suggested in the last paragraph, is supposed to be universal: be cautious about the sort of fable the Author tries to tell here. So, there are two points to make in light of this. First, insisting like you do that some other event in the story be universalized still misses the point. Second, even in more archetypal fables, it is the moral that is supposed to generalize, not the plot. So, when– I don’t know– the lion gets a thorn in his paw, we’re not supposed to take that to mean that all lions will step on thorns, even if the author does mean to have his moral reveal a universal truth. That the Author (a character in this fable) revealed a moral that rang empty in this case is a part of the plot of this fable.

Pat, the moral, as suggested in the last paragraph, is supposed to be universal: be cautious about the sort of fable the Author tries to tell here. So, there are two points to make in light of this. First, insisting like you do that some other event in the story be universalized still misses the point. Second, even in more archetypal fables, it is the moral that is supposed to generalize, not the plot. So, when– I don’t know– the lion gets a thorn in his paw, we’re not supposed to take that to mean that all lions will step on thorns, even if the author does mean to have his moral reveal a universal truth. That the Author (a character in this fable) revealed a moral that rang empty in this case is a part of the plot of this fable.

Pat, the moral, as suggested in the last paragraph, is supposed to be universal: be cautious about the sort of fable the Author tries to tell here. So, there are two points to make in light of this. First, insisting like you do that some other event in the story be universalized still misses the point. Second, even in more archetypal fables, it is the moral that is supposed to generalize, not the plot. So, when– I don’t know– the lion gets a thorn in his paw, we’re not supposed to take that to mean that all lions will step on thorns, even if the author does mean to have his moral reveal a universal truth. That the Author (a character in this fable) revealed a moral that rang empty in this case is a part of the plot of this fable.

Yes, on a cursory level you are completely right. But remember that the lessons fables offer are supposed to be universal. And your story is a self-styled fable. So… it’s a fairly straightforward reading to conclude that your statement “it rang somewhat empty” is more general than you imply. Too bad. I was looking forward to attempting to twist myself into a pretzel.

Yes, on a cursory level you are completely right. But remember that the lessons fables offer are supposed to be universal. And your story is a self-styled fable. So… it’s a fairly straightforward reading to conclude that your statement “it rang somewhat empty” is more general than you imply. Too bad. I was looking forward to attempting to twist myself into a pretzel.

Yes, on a cursory level you are completely right. But remember that the lessons fables offer are supposed to be universal. And your story is a self-styled fable. So… it’s a fairly straightforward reading to conclude that your statement “it rang somewhat empty” is more general than you imply. Too bad. I was looking forward to attempting to twist myself into a pretzel.

Nonetheless, I hope that you’ll notice that “it” refers to the summary of the moral in this particular story, not of story-morals in general (for one thing, if I’d meant that, I would have used a plural pronoun or a phrase such as “like all such summaries…”). I still think it takes some, as Professor Elliot would say, “twisting oneself into a pretzel” to take my statement about how this story turns out to be a comment on all how all similar stories will. That’d be like saying that the screenwriter for Coach Carter believes that all high school basketball teams from impoverished areas will always fail to win their league championship, just because in his movie one particular team did so.

Making that inference does exactly what I mean this fable to warn against: reading generalized truths off of single events.