An Interpretation Of To Kill A Mockingbird From The Perspective Of Ethical Literary Criticism

Harper Lee is one of the most famous novelists in American literary history. Up to now, she only publishes two novels, among which the first one—To Kill a Mockingbird has achieved a great success. Lee successfully composes a story about a white lawyer—Atticus Finch defending for a black man who is mistakenly accused of raping a white woman through the narration of a nine-year-old girl. In this novel Harper Lee expresses her ethical pursuit of justice and equity, goodness and love,sublimation and harmony. Since its publication, many scholars and critics has interpreted it from different perspectives. Some critics regard To Kill a Mockingbird as a southern gothic novel. Some other critics analyze this novel from the perspective of Bildungsroman, symbolism, gender, narrative strategies, feminism, racial discrimination and so on. This thesis endeavors to apply the theory of ethical literary criticism to interpret this novel. Ethical literary criticism, which is initially proposed by Professor Nie Zhenzhao, analyzes and interprets literature from the perspective of ethics. Based on the theory of ethical literary criticism, this thesis makes an effort to explore the author's ethical pursuit and propositions hidden in the novel by analyzing human-society relationship, human-other relationship, human-self relationship and human-nature relationship.This thesis splits up into six parts. Chapter one serves as the introduction section of this thesis, which introduces Harper Lee and her novel To Kill a Mockingbird, the theory of ethical literary criticism and literature review. Chapter two will mainly analyze the relationship between the human and society. The contradictions between black people like Tom Robinson who live in the bottom level and the society become increasingly severe. The marginalized poor white family such as Cunninghams and Ewells struggle hard to survive in the society. The southern women represented by Miss Maudie and Scout as the weak in the society also suffer from discrimination and constraints. It expresses the author's demand of establishing a society full of justice and equity. Chapter three through analyzing the conflict and fusion between the white and black people, the coldness and mutual rejection among the white, and Scout, Dill and Boo's absence of maternal love and Mr. Radley and Bob Ewell's distorted paternal love, it manifests the author's pursuit of goodness and love with regard to human—other relationship. Chapter four will focus on the relationship between human and self. In this part, it reveals the author's pursuit of sublimation in dealingwith the human—self relationship through the obvious contrast between Mayella Ewell and Atticus' s absolutely different ethical selection and their life ending. In the fifth Chapter the antithesis and harmony between human and nature will be discussed.Bob Ewell exploits nature without restraint and in return nature retaliates against human's actions. Finally, human beings like Miss Maudie and Mayella return to nature's arms. It fully demonstrates that harmony and coexistence between human and nature is the common appeals of all human beings. Chapter six is the conclusion. It generalizes four different dimensions of ethical relationships and sums up the authors' ethical pursuit and propositions, revealing that ethical interpretation of literary works will be of great realistic meaning.