A Study Of The Narrative Ethics In William Trevor's Short Stories

William Trevor,an Irish novelist,short story writer,playwright and editor,is acknowledged as one of the greatest masters in contemporary Irish literary world.William Trevor has published nearly 20 novels,hundreds of short novels,several plays,a children book and a memoirs during more than 50 writing years.As the writer who has published the most short stories in “The New Yorker,” Trevor recognizes himself as a short-story writer who happens to write novels,who earns a reputation as “Irish Chekhov” for his genius craft.For a long time,the studies on Trevor have been mainly focused on his novels,and the discussions on his short stories only are limited to those written before 1990.With an overview of the previous studies,the interdisciplinary study of ethical theme and the ethical effect of the narrating in William Trevor's short stories remains to be delved into.By employing the newly-emerged criticism—the narrative ethics,this thesis conducts an in-depth study of the ethics of story and the ethics of form in Trevor's four latest short story collections,After Rain in 1996,The Hill Bachelors in 2000,A Bit On the Side in 2004,and Cheating at Canasta in 2007 to figure out what Trevor's view of ethics is and how Trevor presents his view of ethics by narrative.This thesis comprises three chapters,the introduction and the conclusion.The introduction gives a brief description of William Trevor' life and his writing thoughts,then reviews the history and present situation of researches on his work at home and abroad and puts forward the central argument,research method and significance of the thesis.Chapter One provides the introduction to narrative ethics,its background,important contributors,and the approaches this thesis has employed.Then the ethical concept of transgression is briefly defined.In Chapter Two,the author discusses the ethics of story by focusing on the ethical theme of the stories.Transgression is an important ethical theme in Trevor's short stories which can be presented through three main phenomena of transgression: infidelity,crime,and adultery.Trevor's writing of transgression reflects his ethical attitude towards society and individual.Concerning the individual feeling and circumstances of transgressors instead of the moral judgment on the transgression,Trevor shows sympathy to the those who are struggling in the alienated contemporary society and explores an individualized,open and diversified ethical world.Chapter Three investigates the ethics of form by discussing how Trevor uses four specific narrating strategies: unreliable third person narrator,shift of focalization,leaving blanks and the subjective mood to conduct ethical intervention on readers.During the process of reading,readers are guided to abandon the moral judgment on transgressors and renew their views of ethics by reaffirming the humanity and expanding their understanding of others.The conclusion generalizes the whole thesis and finds that the roots of Trevor's ethical attitude lie in his dual identity of Ireland and England.