Love Or Harm

Jodi Picoult is a contemporary American best-selling author. She has sharp eyes onhot issues and writes about the conflicts among people and their ethical predicamentswith delicateness. Her novel My Sister’s Keeper was published in2004. It starts with amiddle-class family and is about love and harm. Disaster approaches upon this happyfamily without expectation. Kate, the daughter, is diagnosed with AcutePromyelocytic Leukemia when she is two years old. Although her doctor declares thatany treatment is not to save her life but delay her death, her parents decide to conceivea genetic baby to be a match donor. Thus Anna has the chance to be born and be hersister’s keeper. Anna has to donate her body tissues constantly, from the cord blood tothe bone marrow, even to the kidney. When she turns13years old, she decides tolitigate her parents for her rights of her body. This decision arouses the conflicts of thefamily and the disputes of society. At the end of this novel, Anna suffers a car accidentat the exactly day when she wins her lawsuit and falls into the death of her brain. Herparents agree with the mercy killing to Anna and organ transplantation to Kate. Annawins her rights of her body; Kate gets the organ. In fact, this seeming end is not anend at all. It leaves us with infinite impact and reflection. It is full of love, and full ofharm. Everyone is a victim and a malefactor at the same time. Death is doomed.This thesis aims at a research into the ethical predicament faced by the charactersand their ethical decisions from the perspective of Ethical Literary Criticism. Thisthesis includes six parts. At the first part, it introduces the life of Picoult, herrepresentative work My sister’s Keeper, and the literature review of this novel. In thetheoretical part, it elaborates the significance, the development and practical use ofEthical Literary Criticism. The second part of this thesis analyzes how the familymembers get love from mother and father. The third part emphasizes how lovebecomes harm. The forth part reveals the fighting of the family members because ofthe harm. The fifth part summarizes the ethical predicament in this novel, and pointsout that love sometimes can be harmful and giving means losing. The conclusion part indicates that there is also similar predicament in our society, so we need to cooperateto find a way out.By exploring the conflicts of the major characters and their hard choices, this thesispoints out love sometimes can be harmful. At present, with the development oftechnology, our systems of ethics are challenged heavily. Mercy killing, organtransplantation, and abortion are not news any more. New developments of biosciencehave brought great challenge to the traditional ethical manifestations and principles.How to meet this challenge and save people out of ethical predicament are the taskbefore us.