An Analysis Of Ethical Pursuits In The Eye Of The Storm From The Perspective Of Ethical Literary Criticism

Patrick White is an eminent representative of modern Australian writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973.The Eye of the Storm published ini 973 is one of White's masterpieces.The theme of the work relates to the problems of the alienation of human nature and the corruption of ethics under the circumstances of the World War II when western culture suffered the loss of religious faith and reason.The novel tells a story about Hunter family.Three family members intrigue against each other for wealth and fame.The author describes in detail about the distortion of humanity and the emptiness and coldness of spirit in Australian society postwar.There are obvious ethical problems in the novel,but studies from perspective of ethics have hardly been found.Focusing on the ethical problems in The Eye of the Storm,this paper tries to find and analyze the social and personal reasons of the ethical problems and further to explore the author's ethical pursuits behind the ethical problems through the ethical literary criticism put forward by Professor Nie Zhenzhao and Professor Li Dingqing.The study aims to explore the author's ethical thoughts and ideas which are helpful for studying the author and his works in deeper levels and wider dimensions.The study of the novel follows three steps.The first step is to find the ethical knots in the novel and sort out the ethical relationships of the main characters;the second step is to analyze and untie the ethical knots by using the three elements:ethical situation,ethical identity and ethical awareness in the ethical literary criticism;the last step is to further explore the author's ethical pursuits after the untying of ethical knots.