An Analysis Of The Ethical Dilemma Of The Characters In The Gravedigger’s Daughter From The Perspective Of Ethical Literary Criticism

Joyce Carol Oates(1938-)is a highly acclaimed contemporary American woman writer,dramatist,critic,and poet.Among American writers,she has not only won the National Book Award,and the Pulitzer Prize,but has also been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times.In 2007,she wrote The Gravedigger’s Daughter,a masterpiece of Jewish themes.The novel tells the story of Jacob’s family,a Jewish immigrant,who experiences discrimination and humiliation in American society,revealing that only through active integration into American society can they be accepted by society.In recent years,scholars at home and abroad have studied this novel mainly from the perspectives of identity,thematic analysis,characterization,and trauma,but few scholars have interpreted the novel in depth from the perspective of ethical literary criticism.Ethical literary criticism is proposed by Nie Zhenzhao.The core content of ethics is the accepted and recognized ethical relationship formed between people and society,people and others,and people and self.Guided by this theory,this thesis focuses on exploring the complex ethical environment,abnormal ethical identities,and difficult ethical choices faced by the characters in The Gravedigger’s Daughter.Thus,it stands on the ethical side of history to interpret and explain the literary work and points out the importance of building a harmonious society.This thesis consists of three main parts: introduction,body,and conclusion,of which the body part consists of three chapters.The first part is the introduction,which briefly introduces the life and creative experience of author Joyce Carol Oates,the content outline of the novel The Gravedigger’s Daughter,and the current status of domestic and international research on this work.Finally,the main connotations of ethical literary criticism are explained,and the innovations and research implications of this thesis are presented.The second part of the paper consists of three chapters,analyzing the ethical dilemmas faced by characters from three aspects: ethical environment,ethical identity,and ethical choice.The first chapter mainly discusses three aspects: religious persecution,racial discrimination,and patriarchal oppression.Firstly,from the perspective of religious persecution,the long-standing feud between Christianity and Judaism has led to discrimination and humiliation against Jacob’s family in the United States.Secondly,from the perspective of racial discrimination,the Jewish Jacobs family has encountered difficulties in both Germany and the United States.Finally,from the perspective of patriarchal oppression,his wife Anna and daughter Rebecca suffer from Jacob’s discrimination and violence.Rebecca not only suffers violence and torture from her father Jacob,but also from prejudice and abuse from her ex-husband.The second chapter focuses on the ethical dilemmas faced by Jacob’s family in terms of the abnormal ethical identity.Starting from the alienation of the marital relationship,the lack of ethical identity between Jacob as a husband and father,and Anna as a wife and mother,lead to their relationship transitioning from normal at the beginning to distrust at the end.Analyzing the relationship between parents and children,the whole family lives a rich and happy life in Germany.However,after crossing the ocean to the United States,their eldest son,Herschel,becomes grumpy and abused his parents wantonly.To make matters worse,Gus,the second son who has always been timid,finally cannot bear domestic violence and runs away from home.Their daughter Rebecca also becomes disgusted with her weak mother and violent father.Therefore,the relationship between parents and children has changed from intimacy at the beginning to alienation.The third chapter concentrates on the analysis of the ethical choices made by the Jacobs family.Under the interweaving of human factors and animal factors,Anna,Jacob,and their sons make different ethical choices.Because Jacob cannot integrate into American society,he chooses to commit suicide.The fragile Anna has become a marginal person in society and a vassal of men.Their sons choose to run away from home because of domestic violence and discrimination.Only their daughter Rebecca,her ethical choice and ethical consciousness reach a settlement,and rational will prevails and walks out of the ethical dilemma.The concluding section summarizes the main points of this thesis.This thesis reveals the rich ethical connotations of Oates’ s The Gravedigger’s Daughter based on the abnormal ethical identities faced by the characters in the complex ethical environment and the difficult ethical choices they make.It shows Oates’ deep humanistic feelings,her concern for the new problems of society and her strong sense of responsibility to seek solutions to social problems,and her concern for the living conditions of ethnic minorities.At the same time,it helps to strengthen the concern for family ethics and marriage ethics and calls for women’s self-independence and the establishment of harmonious social relations.