The Interpretation Of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections From The Perspective Of Ethical Literary Criticism

Jonathan Franzen is a famous contemporary American novelist and essayist.The Corrections as his masterpiece of creating novels during the transition period not only enabled the author to receive extensive attention from American society,but also won both the 2001 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2002 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction.Focusing on the creation of family themes,Franzen from the Lambert family shows the development of a country and a time,reveals the problems of society and human existence.He tries to return to the traditional values and save the lost self through“correction”.It expresses the author’s awareness of U.S.society,his concern for individual growth,and his reflection on ethics.Therefore,criticizing literary ethics is not only conducive to the interpretation of the works,but also important for the author’s own ethical thought.This article uses the views of Professor Zhenzhao Nie and Professor Jianjun Liu’s ethical literary criticism to conduct an ethical analysis of the novel from the perspectives of survival ethics,sexual ethics,family ethics,and interpersonal ethics.The first chapter analyzes the survival ethics in the novel from the relationship between existence and dignity,freedom,equality,and justice,and shows the author’s traditional moral and ethical tendencies with different ethical choices.The second chapter analyzes the sexual ethic of the novel by means of Sphinx factor.Through three different sexual ethical choices,it shows the people’s attitudes and standards in dealing with sexual relations and the author’s reflection on contemporary American sexual ethic.The third chapter starts with family ethics and analyzes the husband-wife relationship,parent-child relationship,and hand-foot relationship in the middle-class nuclear family.At the same time,it calls for the construction of a reasonable family order.The fourth chapter discusses the interpersonal ethical relations,and describes the comparison between people and people in the consumerism society and the interest relationship.It shows the alienation of interpersonal relationships and the confidence to rebuild good interpersonal relationships.Finally,through the interpretation of the literary ethics of the work,we can see the ethical mis-orders that exist in human society and between man and society in the United States in terms of survival,sex,family,and human relations.Franzen has a serious writer’s social responsibility,keenly aware of the serious threat posed by the technological and economic changes behind it to human life and survival,he tried to return to traditional morality and achieve a harmonious and complementary ethical relationship.His idea of ethics and morality has reference significance to the ethical choice of the present society.