A Study On The Ethical Issues In A.S.Byatt’s “Frederica Quartet”

Atonia Susan Byatt(1936--)is a brilliant British novelist and literary critic in contemporary literature.Since winning the Booker Prize in 1990 with Possession,she has received widespread attention.In contrast to the academic community’s focus on the themes and forms of Byatt’s works,the ethical ideas conveyed through Byatt’s works should also be given attention by the academic community.This thesis selects Byatt’s “Frederica Quartet”as the research objects,which were completed after more than 20 years of creation.“Frederica Quartet” is full of a wealth of information from the 1950 s and 1960 s,with family,religion,and technology being the areas where the author puts in particular effort.This thesis is based on a close reading of the text and adopts the method of literary ethics criticism to analyze the ethical environment in which the text is situated,explore the ethical issues in the areas of family,religion,and technology in the quartet,and aim to uncover the historical and contemporary value of the work.The thesis is divided into three parts,in addition to Introduction and Concluding,the main text is divided into three chapters.The first part is Introduction,which includes an introduction to the topic of this thesis and a summary of previous research results at home and abroad.Finally,the research methods and significance of this thesis are explained.The second part is the main text.The first chapter analyzes the problems of family ethics in the “Frederica Quartet” from the perspective of family ethics,combined with the specific situation of British society in the 20 th century,this thesis analyzes the manifestations and causes of family ethics,and the contemporary insights revealed in Byatt’s portrayal of family ethics,namely the importance of children’s education and the need for women to maintain independent consciousness.The second chapter starts with religious ethics,analyzing the factors that caused the disorder of religious ethics in the context of the diversity of cultural movements at that time,and explaining the significance of the change in attitudes towards homosexuality and the search for spiritual strength for the reconstruction of new religious ethics.The third chapter starts with the ethics of technology,exploring the conflicts of technology ethics that exist in the “Frederica Quartet”.It combines the historical back ground of the rapid development of science and technology in the 20 th century to discuss the technological ethical dilemmas presented in the “Frederica Quartet”,and the significance of the characters making the right ethical choices in the dilemma for the re-construction of technological ethics.Conclusion is the third part.In Conclusion,the ethical issues of family,religion,and science exposed in Byatt’s “Frederica Quartet” are summarized,and Byatt’s desire for a new ethical order reconstruction is revealed,as well as the realistic significance of the ethical connotations conveyed in the novel for contemporary society.