Do you know any other who manage to kill animals or young children in their books?

Question

I've noticed that very few novellists are capable or this, they can kill thousands of men, hundreds of women but you never see anyone killing a child or an animal.
How come?

The only proper exception I found to this is Stephen King, who doesn't have any problem killing anything in his books lol.

Answer 1

If a child or a (lovable) animal dies because of the actions of a book's character, that character is pretty much irrevocably "evil" for the readers from that point onwards. There are plenty of examples of book characters killing children or animals - anything from Peter in "Ender's Game" to the main character's father in "The Giver" or Cruella DeVil in "101 Dalmations" - but it's very hard to make the evil character into something morally ambiguous or challenging afterward. I would say Peter in "Ender's Game" does the best job of this, and it still takes the better part of a four-book series to turn him from a cruel kid (skinning squirrels alive) to a wise but callous emperor. Even then, he's still not a "good" character, just a ruthless one who happens to be doing the morally right thing this time around.

Answer 2

There are books with kids being killed you just haven't discovered the authors of them. I think most authors want to keep children alive but if the story calls for a serial molestor then you will find child killings. They just don't focus on you getting to know the child though so you don't feel that much pain reading it. Most cop novels are that gruesome. I have read about animals being killed in a Dean Koontz book. I don't think writers have problem getting rid of animals.

Answer 3

Edward Gorey. The man made a career out of killing children. Check out the Gashlycrumb Tinies--it's an alphabet book of children dying in the most morbid ways possible.

Answer 4

Lots of children are killed in Dickens's novels - not by a single human being but many of them by the ignorance and injustice of society. It's the same in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre.

Answer 5

Personally I think that its really hard to write, they are generally innocent helpless characters, you really can't help feeling sorry, they never did anything bad (in general).

But as the previous answers say, they are many exemples of killed animals or children in litterautre both old and new.

Answer 6

Some classics like Old Yeller, Bambi, and The Yearling have quite emotionally wrenching death of animal scenes in them.

Answer 7

One classic, William Golding's Lord of the Flies, is a significant example because a child is killed by another child.

Answer 8

The Harry Potter series has the deaths of several animals and children.

Answer 9

Don;t some kids get killed in Philip Pullmans books, His Dark Materials, can't remeber which one tho'

Answer 10

Where the Red Fern Grows.....

If I remember...I only read it once because I hated it, they killed two dogs and describe it vividly.