The moral of the story...

I find myself pondering the plot arc for my cedar falls people and I often ask myself: "What kind of MESSAGE does that send?"  I think it comes from being a semi-teacher, this need to find the underlying message, the moral of the story, or the skeletal element of the Hero's journey.

What is the author really saying here?

It's the sort of shit I love to do when I read.  What commentary am I supposed to be reading-into this?  What political overtones are evident in the plot developments?  What is the embedded symbolism or the over-all theme? Where's the hidden meaning??

Of course nobody ever said Cedar Falls would be LITERATURE.  Good Christ.  It isn't as if I expect Days of Our Lives to have a deeper message about morality and mythology or something.  (I mean, it DOES, incidentally, as all soaps do, say a great deal about the middle-American set of values and norms and mores and taboos, but it isn't really TRYING to do this on any artistic level, it just sort of evolves out of writers writing to a specific demographic; I.E. the midwestern-to-bible belt stay-at-home wife and mom.  Those who like a daily dose of sin and intrigue but like it to stay clean and not vulgar and most generally heterosexual and not interracial unless maybe the other one is one of the more attractive looking ethnic types, you know, almost like they could 'pass'?  And definitely no jews! Heavens no. Rather a black guy than a Jew! or worse, an ARAB!.)

In any case, while I obviously draw from greek myth and ancient legends and tale-as-old-as-time story lines for my writing, I certainly haven't set out to covey a 'deeper meaning' with any of it.  I guess I just wonder, from time to time, if one is emerging unbidden from my subconscious.  Weird to contemplate, right?

For instance.  In re-reading alot of my work as I prepare it for posting on the ALL CEDAR FALLS bloggie, I find certain themes, motifs, and even certain EXACT PHRASES repeated, reiterated, and reimagined time and a gain.  One of the ones that has caught my attention is the idea that so-and-so wasn't a praying man, or that somebody had never prayed before this moment and they weren't even sure how to do it, and similar little things about being generally agnostic.  And as a student of drama and literature and storytelling this piques my interest and I wonder:  Ooooh, what is the author trying to tell us about the nature of God here?  Is she trying to imply that if these people were more christian they wouldn't be getting into these sinful scrapes???  (The author is not, incidentally, trying to imply anything of the sort.  but is her sub-conscious??? dun-dun-duhhhhhhn!!)  And it doesn't help that one of the most empathetic and likeable characters in the whole thing is Maggie, who is devoutly religous and only gets all wrapped up in this awful family when she strays from the rules of the the church and gives in to carnality ('love').  What is the author saying about the nature of Satan?

Ay ay ay.  Incest, rape, murder, lies, blackmail, arson, theivery, etc.  I wonder if it would look like, to an outsider who didn't know me, if I was trying to tell the audience something.  Give them a moral at the end.  Make a point about what to do or what not to do...  But really?  Allz I'm tryin to do is entertain!

And as far as a root message?  I know you all haven't read everything I've written, nor do you know the plot outline that is cooking in my fevered brain, but near as I can tell about an underlying maxim in all this?  Believe it or not it ISN'T: Don't have sex with your teenaged daughter, though that does seem like solid advice.  No, it would be this:  If you have the opportunity to kill your enemy, do it.  Ignore that flicker of humanity that tells you to show mercy and let him live.  Kill your enemy and your life will turn out peachy-keen.  Let him live?  He will fuck-up your day.  Even though he SHOULD owe you his life?  You have only succeeded in creating a bitter, vengeful monster.  

And probably don't sleep with your children.  Cuz, in all fairness?  Your mortal enemy had nothing to do with that one.  But he WILL make everything WORSE! Muwah ha ha ha haaaaaah.