| George R.R.Martin is an American fantasy novelist and his fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire has achieved immense popularity around the world.Martin creates many unforgettable and unique female characters in the novels.The thesis focuses on four of them.They come from different families and are faced with different ethical issues.Under the guidance of ethical literary criticism,the thesis concentrates on ethical conflicts of four characters in A Song of Ice and Fire.It first discusses the ethical environment which these female characters live in,then analyzes their different ethical identities and ethical choices and lastly points out the ethical value behind all this.The introduction part presents George R.R.Martin’s writing career,outlines the plot of A Song of Ice and Fire,and reviews the literature concerning the study of the series.Besides,the theory of ethical literary criticism is briefly introduced.In Chapter One,the thesis focuses on the complicated ethical environment of female characters,i.e.the social ethical environment and the family ethical environment respectively.Chapter Two probes into the changes of ethical identity of four female characters,including Daenerys Targaryen and Cersei Lannister’s change of social identities,and Sansa Stark and Catelyn Stark’s change of family identities.Chapter Three discusses different ethical choices of female characters in detail: Daenerys Targaryen and Sansa Stark’s choice for survival and self-development;Cersei Lannister and Catelyn Stark’s choice for mad love and lust for power.Chapter Four tries to explore ethical value from the experience of female characters.On the one hand,through the examples of Catelyn and Cersei,this thesis concludes that extreme ethical egoism does harm to the morality.On the other hand,by analyzing the result of Sansa and Daenerys,this thesis points out that the pursuit of salvation is the ultimate correct choice for women. |
