INSTRUCTIVE MORAL FICTION

It turns out that, in English literature, sensitive women can expire of any number of things. Gardening errors. Breezes without a shawl. Ennui. Moving to London. Angry cats. Reading too much. In the case of the latter, I need not worry. Very few women read this blog.

Also, modern medicine has cures for all that now.

Men, in many books, die of gout after a rich meal. Or malaria caught while hunting tigers. Even a charge by a wild pig. Tropical infections.

Nature and the weather are seen as killers. Especially in Romance novels.
Ominous, infinitely threatening, sometimes downright evil.
And to be avoided at times.


Nature kills. Based on a purely common sense and realistic approach, I would suggest that you should not go out rowing on the lake with a skunk in your canoe. Reason being that it's a wild animal, and though likeable and inquisitive, charming even, as it snuffles around your shoes and tries to eat the laces, it might panic when it discovers that it's out on the water.

Your demise would, however, make for some great reading. "Adelbrecht passed away after a boating mishap that gave him pneumonia. Everyone had advised him to wear an extra shawl, but he poo-pooed their superior wisdom. He was not surrounded by friends and family during his final moments, they couldn't even stand to be around him, and his funeral was completely unattended. Both nature and the weather were seen as contibuting factors in his death".
It had been a lovely summer day when he decided to go rowing.
He should have checked his boat for stowaways.
Gwendolyn was eating flies there.

What a charmingly romantic way to go! Except for that fact that Gwendolyn is a small striped animal with phenomenal glands (she survived by the way, the human fell overboard and she had the boat all to herself), it would make for great women's literature. Our hero is done in, quite accidentally, by the heroine, who later joins a nunnery to do penance.


This tale has everything. Clearly defined genders, absolutely no hanky panky, and favourable mention of religion. Buccolic setting. Suitable for a school library.
And a happy ending.



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