An Ethical Critique Of The Family Tragedy In My Sister, My Love

Joyce Carol Oates is a prominent female writer in the history of contemporary American literature, noted for the great prolificacy and diligence. With her rich life experience, Oates devotes herself to focusing on the social life. She incisively mirrors the survival and spiritual predicament of contemporary American people with the incomparable art of expression. The novel My Sister, My Love: The Intimate Story of Skyler Rampike, published in 2008, unfolds the dysfunctional mystery of Rampike’s family through the reminiscences of Skyler Rampike.In the novel My Sister, My Love: The Intimate Story of Skyler Rampike, Oates turns her attention to the helpless and vulnerable adolescents today. The tragedy of Rampike’s family stems from not only the loss of family ethics but also the disorder of social ethics,and ultimately the two children become the innocent victims. This thesis analyzes the causes of the tragedy and its severe hurt to children by applying the ethical literary criticism, explores the ethical thoughts of Oates, and discusses the importance and practical significance of constructing the good ethical order.The thesis consists of three parts. “Introduction” briefly introduces Oates and her works, and outlines the significance of the study and literature review both at home and abroad. The body part includes four chapters. Chapter One discusses the origin and development of ethical literary criticism as well as its main ideas, providing the theoretical basis for the study. Chapter Two analyzes the various external ethical factors that result in the family tragedy. The prevalence of consumerism has led Americans to alienation from the pursuit of happiness. Thus, violence, fraud and many other wicked behaviors can be easily caught in school life due to the change of social value orientations. Moreover, the negative effect of high technology provokes new ethical crises of media and network. Family, as an important part of society, has inevitably become a victim of such tendency. Chapter Three explores the loss of conjugal ethics and the deformity of parent-child relationships from the perspective of family ethics, and points out that they are the direct cause of the tragedy. Chapter Four focuses on the psychological distortion of the children. They suffer a lot physically and mentally from the cruel society and disordered family relationships. The divorce of parents and their partiality to Bliss not only lead to the imbalance of sibling relationship but also cause the deficiency of Skyler’s personality. He is confused about his ethical identity and lacks ability to express love, which answers for the failure of his cultivating a normal love and friendship with others.The conclusion part summaries the whole thesis and points out Oates’ s intention of writing the novel. Oates criticizes the dark side of American families today with a satirical pen. As a writer with humanistic care, Oates emphasizes the importance of reconstructing the harmonious families and good ethical order. She calls on the public to take an active interest in the healthy growth of children and cultivate them with love instead of unconcernedness.