End And Endlessness:On The End Of The Affair From The Perspective Of Levinas’Ethics Of The Other

Graham Greene is a British novelist in the 20 th century who has been nominated 21 times for the Nobel Prize in Literature and awarded the Jerusalem Prize.William Golding regards him as “the ultimate chronicler of the consciousness and anxiety of man in the twentieth-century.” As one of the Catholic themed tetralogy,The End of the Affair reflects Greene’s ethical considerations about human emotions and consciousness through the evil of religion.Based on Emmanuel Levinas’ ethics of the other,this thesis focuses on the concept of “the other” as opposed to “the self”,and makes an in-depth analysis on the ethical tracks of Sarah,Henry and Bendrix as “the self” in love from ignoring “the other” to encountering “the other” then to responding“the other” and explores the solution to the ethical conflicts.This research tries to dig out the ethical implication and highlight the profound ethical value of the works,and make up the insufficiency of the existing research results.This article consists of five chapters.The first chapter introduces Greene and his related works,reviews the current research situation at home and abroad,expounds the core points of Emmanuel Levinas’ ethics of the other,and clarifies the connotation of the theoretical terms that will participate in this thesis.The second chapter analyzes how the heroes ignore the other.Henry’s self-isolation and isolation from the other,Bendrix’s self-narrowness and possession of the other,Sarah’s self-focus pity and neglect of the other will be represented.And it points out that ignoring the other results in love’s coming to an end.Chapter Three expounds how the heroes encounter the other.It will analyze that Sarah hears through God the appeals of Bendrix and Henry in the form of “face”;that Bendrix finds the appeals of Sarah through her “saying”;and that Henry admits his love for Sarah through voicing“desire” to her so as to manifest that the self begins to discover and acknowledge the existence of the other on consciousness.And it foreshadows that the encounter with the other makes love refreshed.The fourth chapter describes how the heroes respond to the other.It will show Sarah’s response to Henry and Bendrix,Henry’s and Bendrix’s responses to Sarah,and even their responses to more people around.And then it expounds love will go toward endlessness through taking the responsibility for the other and responding to the other is to take the responsibility for the other unconditionally.In this process,the self gradually gives way to the other,and eventually evolves into “the self-for-the other”.The fifth chapter is the summary of the full text.Based on the research above,this thesis finds that Greene’s ethical thinking about the self and the other is reflected in his works: through responding to the other,love between the self and the other will become endless;otherwise,love will end.The action of responding to the other should be extended from lovers to people,so that the future of mankind would be accompanied by love.