Morality and Trangression in Contemporary Fiction
By: Pranav Selot
Tags: Transgression, Morality, Fiction, Stories

We often come across fictional work in which moral values have been dealt with in either a positive way or a negative way and we frequently ask ourselves, what would we do if we are in that situation. Do our deeds adhere to our moral values? But before starting to talk about Morality and transgression in the work of fiction, it is important to know if morality is subjective or objecting. According to me, it is both, some things shouldn’t be done, like killing innocent people and robbing a bank, in this case, morality can be objective as this kind of a deed is universally considered wrong. Morality is also subjecting in the sense that it differs from society to society, religion to religion. If an individual from one society is seen to be immoral in another society, then it can’t be called objective as there are differences in the moral values of two different societies, which leads to disagreement and conflicts.

In the work of contemporary fiction, authors tend to write keeping in mind what is right and wrong. While in some fictional works, what we see or read is something which can’t be true in the real world, for example, parodies or bizarre humor, morality doesn’t play a huge role here as the focus is somewhere else. But when it comes to fiction that is set in the real world, it is important for the author to distinguish good from bad. The author often creates a moral dilemma for us by letting the character do both good and bad deeds. In the movie, Joker, critics said movie has bad ideas and inspire real acts of violence. So is it irresponsible to make a film in which killer is glorified. Plato during his time (428–348BC) believed that art should make people courageous, self disciplined, it should show good people being rewarded and the evil being punished. According to him, Art has a social responsibility which is to be educational which should be policed while to instill right set of values in people. Long after that came Edgar Allen Poe who in the aesthetics movement told us that Art should exist for its own sake without caring what a particular group in a society think about it.

The fiction that is written helps us form our perception and beliefs about the world. And that is only possible when there is a mix of both good and bad. It is highly influential, it may not have a social responsibility as not all work of fiction can teach us only moral values. On the other hand, criticism can tell us the difference between right and wrong. The work of authors is to show what they have written, be it morally incorrect, but in the end its on us how we perceive what we saw. It is on the critics how they want to express their opinion on someone’s work.

As human beings, we judge the characters too fast. One act is enough for us to know something about the character. Fiction prepares us to deal with such situations, such people in the real world. It tells us that the world is full of all kinds of people through the movies and books we read. And it is important to show all kinds of people and situations rather than keeping us oblivious to what takes place in this world. Mirzapur, Amazon Prime series gives us a hint of what takes place in a few towns of India, it instills a fear in us, makes us familiar of the realities of the world.

It should be there responsibility of the writer to show the flaws in people, in the society in order to have a clearer sense of who we are, what moral values do we have. Anything in this world that is not being used in the writing stories is basically being neglected by us. It can be a serious issue such as rape or violation of rules written by a particular society. Therefore it’s important to address such issues in movies and books in order to increase our awareness, to help us form our perspectives on issues, to have a sense of right and wrong. In many movies, TV shows and novels, we see transgression and immoral activities taking place. Sometimes these situation are shown in a negative light with a hero who is trying to prevent these activities from taking place and many times these activities are shown in the positive light where the main characters are the ones creating transgression.