Study On Jose Saramago’s Novels From The Perspective Of Ethical Literary Criticism

Jose Saramago is the only Portuguese writer to win the Nobel Prize for literature.His works focus on the nation and humanity,and the destiny of Europe and humankind.The“Blindness” and the “Seeing” contain rich ethical thoughts.However,due to the late start of the domestic research on Saramago’s works,which mainly focuses on the ideological content and overall style of his works,the research on the ethical values of these two novels is relatively lacking.Therefore,based on the literary ethics proposed by Professor Nie Zhenzhao and combined with the method of close reading of the text,this paper starts from the ethical background of the creation of these two novels,discusses the ethical choices people make under such circumstances and the transformation of their ethical identity,and explores the ethical connotation and ethical enlightenment brought by Saramago’s novels.The thesis mainly includes three parts: introduction,text and conclusion.The introduction mainly introduces Saramago and his works,and clarifies the research status,purpose and significance of this topic,as well as the main research content and research methods.The text includes four chapters: the first chapter analyzes the ethical environment of Saramago’s literary creation.Literary ethical criticism emphasizes that text analysis should return to the specific ethical environment,so this chapter mainly analyzes the social ethical environment,cultural ethical environment and living ethical environment of Portugal at that time from three perspectives,in order to fully grasp the social environment at that time.The second chapter,based on the text,analyzes and explores the ethical conflicts from the perspectives of people and people and society.Ethical conflicts arise in a specific social and historical period.When people in a specific historical period face the constraints from all sides of the society,they inevitably have certain ethical conflicts,which indirectly lead to the conflict of human nature,social disorder and variation.Therefore,this chapter discusses the ethical conflicts in the main novels.The third chapter focuses on the different ethical choices made by the characters in the novel when facing the same ethical dilemmas,and studies how different people make ethical choices when facing ethical conflicts and dilemmas,as well as the different results brought by different ethical choices.In the real society,the generation of all ethical problems is closely related to ethical choice,and people’s ethical choice will also change with the transformation of the ethical environment,so this chapter mainly analyzes the ethical choice of the characters in extreme predicament,so as to show the transformation of the values of the characters in the novel.The fourth chapter mainly discusses the ethical teachings and ethical enlightenment brought to people by the novel,respectively from the awakening of individual rational consciousness,the return of government responsibility consciousness,the reconstruction of national democratic system,the unique value and significance presented in the novel.The conclusion part summarizes the whole part.