The Unbearable Lightness of Growth: Ethical Consciousness and Ethical Selection in Ian McEwan’s The Cement Garden
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Shang Biwu
Abstract
Typical of McEwan’s “shock of literature,” The Cement Garden not only generates a sense of shock and uneasiness for the reader but also foregrounds a number of ethical issues for us to ponder. Adopting a perspective of ethical literary criticism and its attendant conceptual framework as formulated by Nie Zhenzhao, this paper examines the problems that the fictional figures Jack, Julie, Tom, and Sue encounter. In particular, it argues that owing to the untimely death of their parents, Jack and his siblings have lost their moral models to follow, which makes it difficult to acquire ethical consciousness and formulate ethical norms. In the meantime, the animal factor in Jack and his siblings frequently takes control over the human factors, and they are thus prevented from maintaining ethical consciousness and behaviors based on reason. Taking on inappropriate identities and driven by incestuous desire, Jack and his siblings eventually create an ethical chaos within the fictional world. Viewed in this light, the novel not only reveals the puzzles and difficulties of children’s self-development but also suggests that, after their biological selection, human beings must carry out an ethical selection as well.
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Note
This work was supported by The National Social Science Fund of China, grant number 13&ZD128, 14BWW039.
© 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Contributions
- General introduction
- Ethical Literary Criticism: East and West
- From Homer’s Odyssey to Joyce’s Ulysses: Theory and Practice of an Ethical Narratology
- The Ethics of (Fictional) Form: Persuasiveness and Perspective Taking from the Point of View of Cognitive Literary Studies
- Leger(e)demain: Reading and the Restless Hand
- Towards an Ethical Literary Criticism
- The Unbearable Lightness of Growth: Ethical Consciousness and Ethical Selection in Ian McEwan’s The Cement Garden
- Visions of the End of Culture: Civilization, Barbarism, and the Realm beyond Forgiveness
- Wie deutsch ist es?
- The Danse Macabre and Shakespeare’s Battle of Shrewsbury
- Die pfadabhängige Matrix des Labyrinths
- Reviews
- Francesco Bono, Luigi Cimmino, Giorgio Pangaro (Hgg.):Morte a Venezia. Thomas Mann / Luchino Visconti: un confronto. Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino Editore, 2013 (Cinema. Passaggi di confine. Collana diretta da Christian Uva), 238 S., ISBN 978-88-498-3937-1, € 14,00.
- Philosopher en langues. Les intraduisibles en traduction. Sous la direction de Barbara Cassin. Paris: Éditions Rue d’Ulm / Presses de l’École Normale Supérieure 2014, Zweite Auflage, 218 Seiten. Evelyn Dueck:L’Étranger intime. Les traductions françaises de l’œuvre de Paul Celan (1971–2010). Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter 2014 [Communicatio. Studien zur europäischen Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte], 466 Seiten.
- Elke Sturm-Trigonakis:Comparative Cultural Studies and the New Weltliteratur. Translated from the German by Athanasia Margoni and Maria Kaisar. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2013.
- Kushner, Eva (ed.).L’époque de la Renaissance. Tome III. Maturations et mutations (1520–1560). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2011. 636 pp. (A Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages XXVI)
- Claudia Hillebrandt/Elisabeth Kampmann (Hrsg.):Sympathie und Literatur. Zur Relevanz des Sympathiekonzeptes für die Literaturwissenschaft. Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 2014 (= Allgemeine Literaturwissenschaft; 19), 308 Seiten.
- Loescher, Jens:Schreiben. Literarische und wissenschaftliche Innovationen bei Lichtenberg, Jean Paul, Goethe. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter 2014. 454 S.
- Ernst van Alphen:Staging the Archive. Art and Photography in the Age of New Media. London: Reaktion Books, 2014.
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Contributions
- General introduction
- Ethical Literary Criticism: East and West
- From Homer’s Odyssey to Joyce’s Ulysses: Theory and Practice of an Ethical Narratology
- The Ethics of (Fictional) Form: Persuasiveness and Perspective Taking from the Point of View of Cognitive Literary Studies
- Leger(e)demain: Reading and the Restless Hand
- Towards an Ethical Literary Criticism
- The Unbearable Lightness of Growth: Ethical Consciousness and Ethical Selection in Ian McEwan’s The Cement Garden
- Visions of the End of Culture: Civilization, Barbarism, and the Realm beyond Forgiveness
- Wie deutsch ist es?
- The Danse Macabre and Shakespeare’s Battle of Shrewsbury
- Die pfadabhängige Matrix des Labyrinths
- Reviews
- Francesco Bono, Luigi Cimmino, Giorgio Pangaro (Hgg.):Morte a Venezia. Thomas Mann / Luchino Visconti: un confronto. Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino Editore, 2013 (Cinema. Passaggi di confine. Collana diretta da Christian Uva), 238 S., ISBN 978-88-498-3937-1, € 14,00.
- Philosopher en langues. Les intraduisibles en traduction. Sous la direction de Barbara Cassin. Paris: Éditions Rue d’Ulm / Presses de l’École Normale Supérieure 2014, Zweite Auflage, 218 Seiten. Evelyn Dueck:L’Étranger intime. Les traductions françaises de l’œuvre de Paul Celan (1971–2010). Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter 2014 [Communicatio. Studien zur europäischen Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte], 466 Seiten.
- Elke Sturm-Trigonakis:Comparative Cultural Studies and the New Weltliteratur. Translated from the German by Athanasia Margoni and Maria Kaisar. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2013.
- Kushner, Eva (ed.).L’époque de la Renaissance. Tome III. Maturations et mutations (1520–1560). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2011. 636 pp. (A Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages XXVI)
- Claudia Hillebrandt/Elisabeth Kampmann (Hrsg.):Sympathie und Literatur. Zur Relevanz des Sympathiekonzeptes für die Literaturwissenschaft. Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 2014 (= Allgemeine Literaturwissenschaft; 19), 308 Seiten.
- Loescher, Jens:Schreiben. Literarische und wissenschaftliche Innovationen bei Lichtenberg, Jean Paul, Goethe. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter 2014. 454 S.
- Ernst van Alphen:Staging the Archive. Art and Photography in the Age of New Media. London: Reaktion Books, 2014.
