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Values Dissonance/Literature: Difference between revisions
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*** Shiro (the Japanese guy) [[Mauve Shirt|gets upgraded]] to a fellow scientist and martial artist later in the series, after graduating, and learns to speak better English. Also gets a girlfriend. Seems even "Doc" thought he hadn't been quite fair to him ...
* [[Joseph Conrad (Creator)|Joseph Conrad]]'s ''[[Heart of Darkness (Literature)|Heart of Darkness]]'' is filled with colonial-era racism, making it reprehensible to a modern audience. The native Africans are repeatedly portrayed as violent, ignorant, subhuman cannibals... ''and those are the good ones.''
** This is a debate that's been raging at least since Nigerian author Chinua Achebe published his famous essay denouncing ''Heart of Darkness'' in 1976 - and, not surprisingly, the divide seems to often be along racial lines. People of African descent feel patronized and humiliated by Conrad's language, and perhaps they should, but white readers are so cheered to find [[Fair for Its Day|a Victorian-era book that (tentatively) condemns racism]] that they will often bend over backwards to defend Conrad. The protagonist of the novel, Marlow, is certainly an enigma in this respect: he does put forth his opinion that imposing imperial rule on people of different races is wrong, but he also uses the words "nigger" and "savage" without compunction and seems to be offended by Africans speaking defiantly to Europeans. It could be argued that Conrad was walking a tightrope: he wanted to change European hearts, but stealthily, so he very carefully demolishes the rationale for racism ''while using superficially racist language''. Achebe complains that [[Rule
*** Also note that "nigger" wasn't recognised as racist until the 70's in Britain, a good 80 years after Heart of Darkness was published.
* In Theodor Fontane's 19th century novel ''[[Effi Briest (Literature)|Effi Briest]]'', the eponymous, sixteen-year-old protagonist is married off to the much older Baron Innstetten by her parents. She consented to this, passing up a chance to marry a cousin she genuinely liked, because of his excellent career prospects. This is, for the time and in the opinion of everyone involved, a sensible and normal decision. Bored and feeling constrained in her marriage, she then has an extramarital affair with an (even older) military officer. Modern readers may feel unsympathetic to Effi because marrying for money is now considered cold and unscrupulous. This book is remarkable for the amount of [[Alternative Character Interpretation]] for both Effi and Innstetten, and how widely opinions vary on which characters readers blame or excuse.
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** Also, as an interesting mark of how perspectives change, when Doyle depicted Mormons as a [[Religion of Evil]], that wasn't considered controversial, whereas his similarly unsympathetic depiction of the Ku Klux Klan was. Nowadays, this is essentially reversed. He supposedly later issued an apology to the Mormons after being taken to task by them.
** In ''The Yellow Face'' (A reference to a mask), when the mother of a mixed-race daughter showed Holmes and Watson a locket with a picture of herself and her black husband, Watson commented that the man was "strikingly handsome and intelligent-looking, ''but'' bearing unmistakable signs upon his features of his African descent." Authors of the time would often describe sympathetic non-white characters as being very attractive except for their non-white features.
*** Though [
*** I think the point is that the woman is afraid her past married to a black man will come up which will harm her social standing, as opposed to casting aspersions on black people. She is specifically concerned about the reaction of her husband - {{spoiler|who as it happens reacts beautifully}}.
** ''The Three Gables'' opens with a black man in an ugly salmon-colored suit coming in to threaten Holmes. Both Holmes himself and Watson's narration insult him repeatedly, in a manner that would certainly be considered racist today; Holmes repeatedly refers to Steve Dixie's smell and even comments about his 'woolly head'. And it has a Jewish villainness. Way to go, Sir Arthur!
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** Quite a few culprits are allowed to go unprosecuted on the condition that they leave Britain, or are treated as if the crimes they've committed outside of Europe are none of Holmes' affair. Crimes outside the U.K. may not be ''Lestrade's'' jurisdiction, but Holmes takes pride in not having the same constraints as the police, so it seems hypocritical when his commitment to justice ends at the British coastline.
** In the "Lion's Mane" case, upon realizing that the killer was a giant jellyfish, Holmes immediately locates the creature trapped in a tide pool and kills it ''in the name of justice'', regardless of the fact that it's a mindless organism that didn't even know it'd poisoned somebody and is in no position to harm anyone else.
* In one of Doyle's "Professor Challenger" stories, [
** The skin-tone ordering is somewhat alleviated by the fact that the story suggests the order was more on the lines of 'the equator first, then outwards from there' rather than ordered by skin-tone alone.
** "The Slavonic population of Austria is down, while the Teutonic has hardly been affected." [[Sarcasm Mode|No, not racist (in the wider sense) at all]]
* In the book ''[[Gone With the Wind]]'', all the sympathetic male characters (except Rhett, who is something of a rogue) are in the Klan. Moreover, all the black characters speak in a stereotypical slave dialect, while the white characters speak perfect English. Readers might also be surprised by the fact that Gerald and Ellen name each of their three infants who died in infancy [[Dead Guy, Junior|Gerald Jr]], as reusing names lost to infant mortality was a common practice at the time.
** It's not so much that they "speak perfect English". The problem is that the slaves' accent is written in ''eye dialect'' -- non-standard spelling, used to indicate an unusual accent and frequently an illiterate one -- while the whites' accent is not, as if somehow the white accent isn't an accent at all. (Some Americans do this unconsciously when they say that someone from the Midwest "doesn't have an accent". Oh yes they certainly do, and as strong an accent as any other.)
*** And, seeing as Mammy is a house slave, her accent likely wouldn't have been all that different from Scarlett's, yet she gets the eye dialect treatment while Scarlett does not.
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** What most critics of ''The Charge of the Light Brigade'' don't realize it that it ''worked''. Despite heavy losses it went through and the Russian cannon were stopped.
*** On the other hand, they were the ''wrong cannons'' and the action (and subsequent rout) broke the momentum of the allied counter-attack, leading to the Russians holding the captured redoubts and winning the battle.
** Note that poem has been deconstructed at least since ''1890'', when Rudyard Kipling wrote [
* There's an interesting dissonance in how modernity tends to look at "fops" in both historical fiction and works actually written in the 18th century. There's often an assumption that a man wearing makeup, facial powder, and elaborate clothing must either be [[Ambiguously Gay]] or a [[Camp Gay]], even though this was the style of the time for heterosexual men. Many people dressing this way were more along the lines of being [[The Casanova]]. (Possibly including Casanova.)
** To make matters even more dissonant, male characters derided as "effeminate" in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literature aren't any sort of [[Camp Gay]]. Instead, they're hyper-heterosexuals whose feminine mannerisms are supposedly a way of ''attracting'' women.
*** Indeed, this "superficial-femininity as a means of attracting females" has seen a recurrence in several modern subcultures, most notably the Anglo-European [
* ''[[Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Literature)|Romance of the Three Kingdoms]]'' (the novel, not the anime) manages to have a TON of [[Values Dissonance]] because it is set in early-AD China (the main story is from 184 to 234) and because of the Confucian moral slant of the novel. Some of the most extreme examples are ironically from the main protagonist Liu Bei, who sometimes puts [[Honor Before Reason]] to the point where other good guys, despite sometimes having similar moral slants, have to call him on it.
** It's not helped by the fact that Liu Bei comes across like a [[Designated Hero]] quite often (especially in pure [[Values Dissonance]] scenes like throwing his infant son at the ground because the valuable general who managed to save the child could have been killed in the process, and Liu Bei considered his general far more valuable than his son), and Cao Cao is more of a [[Designated Villain]]. ''Many'' people who read the books today consider Cao Cao to be the far more noble, honorable, and ''likeable'' character.
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* ''Cup of Clay'' by Carole Nelson Douglas contains a brief scene in which a traveller from our world thinks a woman from a [[Medieval European Fantasy|pseudo-European society]] is bisexual. A man who knows the woman is appalled at the concept--"Such a monster would be destroyed."
* [[Enid Blyton]]'s children's books often encounter [[Values Dissonance]] -- [[The Famous Five]] are often criticised for the fact that Anne takes pleasure in preparing food for the boys (although it's hardly surprising for her to act as a subordinate, given that she's also the youngest child. There's also the tomboy Georgina (George) to balance things out a bit.) The Faraway Tree series had Miss Slap (a teacher who slapped children) changed to Miss Snap in modern editions (she just shouts a lot), and even changed a boy who didn't go to school (he worked on his father's fishing boat) into a boy who went to school and only went on the boat at weekends. Her use of golliwogs and the word "nigger" have also been altered in reprint, as has the tale of [[Unfortunate Implications|a black doll who wanted to be pink]]. As early as 1960, a publisher rejected a story of hers, saying ''"There is a faint but unattractive touch of old-fashioned xenophobia in the author's attitude to the thieves; they are 'foreign'...and this seems to be regarded as sufficient to explain their criminality."''
* When Samuel Richardson's ''Pamela'' first came out, one of the complaints of "antipamelists" was not that Pamela fell in love with her boss/kidnapper after several [[Near
** One of the other complaints was that the book was a bad example - not because near rape is bad, but because am upper class man marrying the help is the worst possible thing.
* For societies which value the concept of romantic love, folk tales (even from previous periods in the people's own history) where the heroine's reward after her ordeal is essentially to bag a man of wealth can be a bit jarring.
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* [[George Orwell]] wrote about Values Dissonance in his essay on [http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/smollett/english/e_ts Tobias Smollett]: ''Duelling, gambling and fornication seen almost morally neutral to him. It so happens that in private life he was a better man than the majority of writers. He was a faithful husband who shortened his life by overworking for the sake of his family, a sturdy republican who hated France as the country of the Grand Monarchy, and a patriotic Scotsman at a time when — the 1745 rebellion being a fairly recent memory — it was far from fashionable to be a Scotsman. But he has very little sense of sin. His heroes do things, and do them on almost every page, which in any nineteenth-century English novel would instantly call forth vengeance from the skies. He accepts as a law of nature the viciousness, the nepotism and the disorder of eighteenth-century society, and therein lies his charm. Many of his best passages would be ruined by an intrusion of the moral sense.''
* [[H Rider Haggard]]'s adventure novel ''[[King Solomons Mines (Literature)|King Solomons Mines]]'', which pre-dates ''Heart of Darkness'', is equally unlikely to be regarded as a balanced picture of African tribal societies, although Haggard at least seems to regard the tribespeople who aren't villains as ''noble'' savages. However, an even more striking piece of Values Dissonance is that the first thing on Allan Quartermain and chums' agenda, before even starting their adventure, is mowing down numerous elephants and giraffes on a hunt. In his defence, he does make elephant hunting sound like the most fun you could have standing up.
** Similar attitudes about wildlife are extremely common in older wilderness-adventure fiction. Even the Hardy Boys were known to shoot wild animals on sight, either because they were [[Attack! Attack! Attack!|attacked by a predator for no reason]], or because the creature in question was considered a dangerous pest at the time.
* ''[[Paradise Lost (Literature)|Paradise Lost]]'' regularly gets criticized for being misogynistic due to Eve's role in the plot. This is partially [[Fan Dumb]] because ''Paradise Lost'' is based on [[The Bible (Literature)|The Bible]], which defines Eve fulfilling that exact role. However, for the time and culture it came out in, Eve is a very progressive female character. The level of character development, her level of intelligence and reasoning, and her extremely significant role in the plot were almost unheard of in female characters, who were regularly little more than background characters added when needed by the plot.
** Also, Milton goes to great lengths to distinguish that Eve and Satan are distinct and unalike. Consider that at the time, it was an acceptable artistic portrayal to have the serpent or tempter ''possess Eve's face,'' showing that in fact the serpent was an aspect of Eve, therefore women are evil, a-''ha!''
* A substantial part of [[Plato (Creator)|Plato]]'s ''Charmides'' involves a group of middle-aged men discussing a 15-year-old boy's beauty, having him brought before them, and lusting after him. There are descriptions of the men almost falling out of their chairs at the sight of him, and jokes about how seeing the boy naked would make them forget about other things. To be fair, the men (and especially the author's role model, hero, and mentor, [[Socrates (Creator)|Socrates]]) seem more interested in his unusual level of wisdom for his age and his ability to engage in philosophical discussions as they were in his body. They never actually touch him.
** [[Truth in Television]]: This type of attitude was considered normal in most of the Hellenistic world at the time. In the 21st century, some teachers really do fawn over their favorite students like this, although it isn't usually sexual in nature and is probably more related to the paternal instinct than the sexual one. Lookism exists in adults' treatment of youths as well, even when this lookism isn't sexual.
* In the short stories of ''[[Carnacki, the Ghost
* ''[[A Little Princess]]'' ends with Sara being restored to her wealth and position and her friend Becky ends up as Sara's personal attendant. Modern audiences may find this a little shocking but in the context of when the novel is set, it's a fitting happy ending. Considering that Becky would have risen into a very powerful position and gained security as well as a kind and friendly mistress it's a very happy ending indeed.
* [[George Macdonald Fraser]] wrote mostly historical fiction, which can lead to a lot of [[Values Dissonance]]. Usually it's [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]]. The author was from the Greatest Generation and a pretty firm believer in [[Political Correctness Gone Mad]], though, so sometimes even his lampshading can be dissonant to younger readers.
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* Jahnna N. Malcom's ''Jewel Princess'' series had a couple of cases that this troper can remember. In the first book, Roxanne, the future princess of the Red Mountains, runs away before the coronation because she doesn't want to be a princess- she'll have to move to a place she either hasn't been to or doesn't know well, she prefers running around and climbing trees to remaining indoors, her future kingdom is a desert mountain range unlike her sisters', which are all much more widely populated and idyllic, and she'll have to rule over her people, despite not wanting to rule and having no real experience at it. After running away, she makes some allies, foils an attempt to put an impostor on her throne, and returns to the coronation willingly. OK, fine. Except that Roxanne is about eleven (though she doesn't act like it), and the idea of giving a pre-teen that kind of responsibility, especially since she wasn't prepared for it, is a ridiculous idea..
** Another example comes from the third book. In it Emily, the princess of Greenwood, is a notorious practical joker who has played tricks on everyone while refusing to see that most other people don't think that they're funny. Eventually, when a prank is played on a subject that seriously harms him, the people of Greenwood believe that Emily played it, and one of them says that he's going to talk to her father (the King) about her, because 'when a princess starts harming her own people, it's time for her to stop being a princess'. Again, fine, but like Roxanne, Emily is eleven, and expecting an eleven year old to be responsible and mature on that level is simply ridiculous- not to mention that there was no proof that it ''was'' Emily, and she had several witnesses that would have given her an alibi and testified to her non-violent nature if it had come to it.
* [
* ''Sisterhood'' series by [[Fern Michaels]]: There certainly is this! In the first book ''Weekend Warriors'', Kathryn Lucas insults Yoko Akia about being wishy-washy just because she's Asian and she's different. Indeed, the series portrays Asians as being different from other people to the point of being virtually alien. That, and books in the series like ''Vendetta'' cheerfully play the [[Yellow Peril]] trope as straight as an arrow!
* The modern reader of [[Margery Allingham]]'s ''Police At The Funeral'' are likely to abruptly realign their sympathies when the secret minor villain George Faraday is using to blackmail his aunt is revealed: {{spoiler|George is the result of a 'messalliance' with a mullatto woman (i.e. a woman who was the product of an interracial marriage) - a fact of which George is not at all ashamed but his aunt would do anything to keep hidden}}. Good on you, George!
* During the 1850s, there existed an entire genre of [
* The ''[[Land of Oz (Literature)|Land of Oz]]'' series has a few of this. One of the major ones is in the second book, where young boy Tip learns that he is the lost Princess of Oz and is transformed into his "[[First Law of Gender Bending|true form]]". After he does so, he changes from his previous personality into an out-and-out girly girl who does little to no adventuring. A few other bits of dissonance shows up as well, such as in the first book when the Tin Man, who can't bear to see any other creature die at the hand of another... kills a wildcat that was chasing a small mouse by chopping off its head with his ax.
** On the other hand, the book series is actually quite [[Fair for Its Day]] regarding topics such as feminism. The Land of Oz is ruled by four women and a man in the first book, and the women are portrayed as equally likely to be Wicked as they are to be Good. Female characters that appear later on range from good to bad on the morality spectrum, and each and every one of the characters, female or not, are different and varied characters. Same goes for the male characters; they are all equally as likely to be good characters as they are to be bad characters, and just as varied as the females.
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