Question

why should you avoid giving readers "the moral of the story" in your closing paragraphs?

Answer 1

Sometimes people just need to... Figure it out themselves? Or, it can be considered an "illegal sentence" by doing so.

Answer 2

Thanks . That'll work .

Answer 3

I agree with that answer for the most part. As long as it is just a stort story or something, the reader should probably have already figured out the moral by the end. That said, if you are writing a fable it's a different story. Fables are stories with animals as the main characters in human situations and with human characteristics. The purpose of fables is to teach (usually young children) morals. Aesop concluded each of his fables with the line, "The Moaral Is..." So you could say that it is traditional to state the moral in a fable, but this is not a hard fast rule; many other authors have written fables without stating the moral. However, considering your audience and purpose of a fable, stating the moral makes sense. Sometimes the moral in a fable can be muddled and hard to find due to the animal symbology and other reasons, couple this with the fact that your audience is young children and you can see that the moral of a fable is likely to fly right over your audience's head. Most children won't catch the moral because their minds are to fascinated with the talking animals, or they're simply to young to see it. Therefore it makes sense to state the moral in a traditional fable, but that is the only work you would do this.