The Ethical Identity Crisis And Ethical Selection In Caligula

Albert Camus is a world-renowned writer and philosopher who has made great achievement in both literature and philosophy,but whose drama has always been neglected by researchers.As the representative works of the dramas of Camus,Caligula has great literary charm and huge research value with rich critical philosophy and paradoxical characters.Camus is not only a writer and philosopher but also a moralist who has always been exploring various kinds of revolting and pondering over the basic issues about the survival of mankind,such as death,freedom,justice and morality by means of interpreting absurd philosophy,which shows the morality of the modern people.So,in this way,it is viable for us to make a study of Caligula by means of Ethical Literary Criticism.The past researchers who analyzed the reasons why Caligula failed to revolt always center on such themes as”freedom" and "denying the mankind",which indeed have grasped the core reasons of the tragic fate of Caligula,but the discuss is just so rude and superficial.So,in this paper the author will start with the chaotic and multiple ethical identity of Caligula and combine the Ethical Literary Criticism with the absurd philosophy,the psychoanalysis theory and the theory of social politics to analyze the issues of the ethical predicament and the ethical selection of the main characters in the drama then to reveal the reason why Caligula failed to revolt the absurdity and the ethical enlightenment through the tragedy of Caligula.At last,on the basis of the above content the author tries to have a deeper understanding of idea of the absurd ethic of Camus.This thesis is divided into three parts including introduction,the main body and conclusion.The first part is introduction,in this part,the author mainly presents the literary achievement,especially the achievement in drama of Camus,then summarizes the creation source and the plot of Caligula as well as the research status at home and abroad.At last,the author illustrates the research technique,the research significance,the innovation point and some related concepts of this paper.The second part is the main body of this paper that can be divided into four chapters.In the first chapter,the author starts with the chaotic and multiple ethical identity of Caligula to reach a conclusion that the big deviation between the self-identification of Caligula and the identity in the eyes of others is an important reason why he has failed to be understood by others as well as to enlighten others.As to Caligula,he considers himself as a torchbearer to help his subjects to realize the absurdity of their life by means of creating an absurd artistic world and slaughter.In the second chapter,the author analyzes that Caligula's chaotic ethical identity leads to the ethical predicament of himself as well as his friends Scipio and Cherea and his mistress Caesonia.Then,by analyzing the ethical predicament of these characters in detail the author describes the prospect of the brutal governing of Caligula which is the concrete reason why Caligula failed.In the third chapter,the author interprets that the main characters in the drama get rid of the ethical predicament by means of ethical selection and the different ethical selections of these characters are just their different attitude and methods to deal with asurdity.At the same time,to Caligula,the animal factor overwhelms the human factor and irrational passion overwhelms the whole morality and ethical and social order which results in the failure of Caligula radically.To some extent,the reasonable ethical selection of Cherea is a right way to revolt the absurdity that Camus may approve of.While,as Scipio has not found a right way to revolt the absurdity so he choose to shelve and get away from the ethical selection.And for Caesonia,her emotion overwhelms her reason so she becomes the accomplice of Caligula which leads to her tragic fate ultimately.The forth chapter mainly interprets that the drama of the author tries to tell the readers the importance of maintaining normal ethical order and sticking to moderate freedom on the basis of the ethical enlightenment of the drama and the idea of the absurd ethic of Camus in the three previous chapters.What's more,Camus has lofty compassion feelings who declares the failure of nihilism through Caligula and to call for the humanitarianism.The third part is the conclusion part,through the above analysis the author summarizes the ethical thought of Caligula and interprets the status of Caligula in the whole literary creation of Camus as well as the value of the drama of Camus and the influences to the future drama writing.