utile

I remember in my first or second year of college having a professor - the typical academic: white hair, bearded, glasses, ethereal in his discussion of literature.  I remember him sharing that the Greeks believed that writing must have utile - it must be useful, have purpose - and I agreed.  I was glad people from long ago were as practical as I.  Finally I had justification for not liking Jack London's To Build a Fire.  I don't mean to be simple, but I do want happy endings.  I want admirable or victorious characters.  I want them to overcome seeming insurmountable obstacles and change.  I want bitterness and hurt to be resolved.  I want those that are lost to be found.  I want hope restored.

It doesn't mean I don't want injury or death.  It doesn't mean I don't want catastrophic events in the story or loss of a significant or even main character in the end - but I  want cathartic events that change people - and in the end, for the better.

I don't need the character to die, or be unlikable, or do horrific or strange things.  I don't find any redeeming qualities in these.  

The world provides enough of this.  

I realize this probably disqualifies me somewhat as an English teacher - and maybe one day I'll reread the classics and try again to like some of the more notorious ones, I am open.  

A colleague of mine sees things differently then me.  In the books we've read, she finds Mr. Terupt's coma, Melody's paralysis and subsequent accident with her sister, Sadako's cancer - she finds these traumatic and too hard for fifth graders to deal with.  To real.  

I find Skeleton Man - where every kid's worse fear comes to life: a skeleton man takes her parents and comes after her to eat them all (his namesake is a result of eating himself).  I find this horrifying.  Inappropriate for kids this age (9-11yrs).  I can't even support Percy Jackson - maybe for older kids - but there are terrifying demon's that come to life and pursue them, they go to the depths of Hades where evil is tortured eternally, and the mediocre wander aimlessly.  I find these things - the unknown, the spiritual, our fears taking on physical form - I find these too real.  To real in a way we don't understand, and surely such young minds don't - they are stories that give physical form and words to fears they are trying to suppress, it brings up philosophical and spiritual ideas they may not be quite ready to wrestle with.  It's just too heavy.

My colleague and I are sensitive to different things.