Ethical Criticism On Edith Wharton’s Novels

Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was active in the literary cirle of America at theturn of the19-20th century. During her life time, she was honored several times forher literary contributions as a female writer. Her works won her both commercialprofit and an important place in the history of American Literature. In1921, shebecame the first female writer to win the Pulitzer Prize in American literary history;in1923, she also was the first female to receive the honorary degree of the doctordegree from Yale University; and in1927, she was nominated for the Nobel Prize inliterature, for which Wharton’s was recognized as one of the literary masters by theliterary circle. At the beginning of21st century, American Library published EdithWharton: Selected Novellas and Short Stories, which makes her join the rank ofAmerican classical writers.The standard of the Pulitzer Prize in literature was delivered to Wharton “forthe American novel which shall best present the wholesome atmosphere of Americanlife and the highest standard of American manners and manhood.”①The committeeholds that Wharton’s The Age of the Innocence promoted American moral standard,which reflects that the literature area focuses its attention to the ethical issues. Andthe ethical issues are involved in the important aspect of social conflict. Whartondidn’t agree with the award word. But it shows that Wharton’s works do pay muchattention to ethical values.Wharton once was regarded as the last female writer of Victorian Age, whichrelates to the themes that her works show. Victorian Age of Britain is an ageemphasizing moral standard. Wharton certainly is the right person to win the title for the ethical theme reflected in her works.At the turning of the20th century, America is in the process of transition fromtraditional society to modern society. In this process ethical contradictions becomethe serious problem that cannot be ignored in social life. All these factors raise thestudy of Wharton’s works from the aspect of ethical issues. Therefore the study ofWharton’s works from the point of ethics criticism is the discussion from the bottomof the problem. Therefore, the study of Wharton’s works from the aspect of ethicalcriticism means that the academic circle pays high attention to essential problemsthat Wharton’s works concerns.Because Wharton was in the transition period from traditional society tomodern capitalism society, the conflict between traditional ethical views and modernethical views is to show what kind of the position the individual occupies. Therefore,the conflict between individual ethics and collective ethics is one of the mostimportant one at that time. The development of capitalism market economy requiresestablishing individual’s principal status in the development of the society. Whartoncaught this conflict in her works, which reflects that she paid more attention to theindividual ethical status at the turning century. Therefore Margaret Drabble, thefamous British novelist and literary biographer, said that Wharton “caught up withthe age when she analyzed the society”①, sometimes “even beyond the age”.This thesis analyzes Wharton’s six novels with the related theory of ethics andnarratology. Early in the “ancient Greece, Platon and Aristitle had emphasized theeffort of moral education of literary works.”②In1957, Northro Fry, the Canadianliterary critic, put forward “ethical criticism” in his work Anatomy of Criticism, andhe believes that “the study of literature arts in ethical criticism,takes the latter ascommunication between the past and today,……ethical criticism and historicalcriticism are just like scales on two ends of the balance”③, both are indispensable.Therefore, when ethically analyzing Wharton’s works, this thesis also evaluates themin that time’s socio-culture context and ethics. American scholar Adam Zachary Newton writes Narrative Ethics (1995), and he puts forward the concept of narrativeethics, meanwhile he applies it to the field of literary criticism.In China, relatively early study works about ethical literary criticism which wecan find is Ethics of Literature and Art edited by Zeng Yaonong in1992. The authorexamines the development skeleton of ethics of literature east and west in the book’ssecond chapter, the further discussion the relations between literature, art and ethics,as well as it subjects characteristics etc.. In1997, Exploration of Ethics waspublished, the author Qiao Shan further discusses the relationship between literatureand ethics, and in its conclusion he points out that “aesthetics is the future ethics”. In2004, Professor Nie Zhenzhao in Huzhong Normal University published EthicalLiterary Criticism: A New Exploration to Literary Criticism Method in the journal ofForein Literature, and it pushes forward the development of ethical literary criticism.In1999, Liu Xiaofeng published Heavy Flesh: Narrative of Modern Ethics, and hecombined ethics and narrative. In2008, Wu Maoguo published Narrative Ethics ofModern Novels and further explained the interactive relationship between ethics andnarrative. In the process of narrative,“the essence of ethics is to establish a publicorder, so when the disordered life is reconstructed to orderly narrative by narrative,narrative is mentally fit the basic requirements of ethics. So in other words, theexistence of ethical order is the fundamental basis for the narrative unity”①.Therefore, based on academic research achievements which have been obtained,as to the study of Wharton’s works, reviewers should firstly places it in its particularhistorical background, and explores the influence on her works which the historicaldevelopment and social ethics environment brought, then analyze ethicalcharacteristics of the works and the relationship between the narrative methodsadopted by the author and the presentation of ethics of the works.Wharton takes family as an important window displaying the conflict betweenthe individuals and social ethics moral. In the six selected works, Wharton describessix kinds of home. It reflects the individual’s ethical dilemmas in the period of socialtransition period: the house of mourning in which the individual loses the subject position of individual ethics; the house of illness in which the individual misbalancesin individual ethic and traditional ethic; the house of money worship in which theindividual are obsessed with consumption ethics; the house of forbearing in whichtraditional ethical systems suppresses individuals’ dominant position; the house fullof love in which the pursuit of individual ethics contradicts with the traditional ethics;and the house of ideal in which the individual finds the principal position ofindividual ethics. In the six works, based on the analysis of individual’s ethical statein the family ethical environment, Wharton indicates the discordance betweenindividual’s desires and the traditional ethical values, as well as the contradiction andopposites between individual’s ideal and reality of the society.Wharton’s six novels, The House of Mirth, Ethan, Frome, The Custom of theCountry, The Age of Innocence, New Year’s day and The Buccaneers span a longperiod of time, which is a total of32years from1905to1937. During this time, notonly does the world history change a lot (outbreak of the First World War), but alsoWharton’s living environment and social background has also undergone the changesof the time. Therefore, when criticizing Wharton’s novels, the academic circlecouldn’t ignore the historic study of Wharton’s novels.Takeing the First World War as the demarcation, Wharton’s creation could bedivided into two main stages. The first stage is from1905to the eve of the FirstWorld War, and during this period, Wharton’s major works include The House ofMirth (1905), Ethan Frome (1911) and The Custom of the Country (1913). InWharton’s pre-war works, the ethical conflicts between individuals and society isvery fierce, and the result is that the individual commits suicide to resolve the ethicalconflict. Facing the irreconcilable ethical conflicts and cruel social reality, Lily Bart,the heroine in The House of Mirth, died of taking overall sleeping pills; Ethan inEthan Frome attempts to suicide but failed; Ralph Marvell in The Custom of theCountry, shot and killed himself. These literary cases show Wharton’s attitude ofabandoning traditional ethical value systems.The second stage is from the end of the First World War to Wharton’s death in1937, which includes her major works: The Age of Innocence (1920), New Year’s Day (1924), and The Buccaneers (published after her death in1938). Relatively,although conflicts between individuals and society still exist after the First WorldWar, but they are more moderate in Wharton’s works. In The Age of Innocence, shealso criticizes the shackles and bondage that the upper society’s traditional customsand ethics brought to individuals, but to a certain extent, she shows the miss andreflection to the past life and the old order. In New Year’s Day, Lizzy is abandonedby the upper society, but the author lamely set up a meaning world (seeking the lastspiritual comfort in religion) for her at the end of the novel. It is really the author’supset to make up the lack of human nature care that the ethics conduct in the realworld, which applying the ultimate power of religion.Due to the loss of the valuestandard after the First World War, Wharton has to build the transcendencedimensions of the ethics on the conversion of religion, and thus it reflects theauthor’s pessimism. In the works of this period, Wharton shows her discontent to theethics in the real world, but she is short of corresponding measures to thetranscendence dimensions of reconstructing the ethics conception. There is greatdifference between the tone and her pre-war works, which highlights her moderatetreatments on the novel’s theme as a writer of realism in the turning of the century.Most commentators think The Buccaneers is outstanding in Wharton’s fictions, evenBritish television also shoots a TV series for it, and from the audience’s affection, wecould see readers’ welcome attitude towards her works. It shapes the image of Nan, arebel character in this novel. Nan manages to obtain love, and achieves his familyethics, which reflects Wharton’s construction of ideal family ethics.In the processing of works’ narrative structure, Wharton sets aside theimplication of the work, and gives the traditional social ethics values a loud slap, theintegrated use of dual narrative structure, frame structure, shear jump (omitted),limited perspective, children’s perspective narrative methods, and etc.As a code of guiding human’s social behavior, ethics explores the relationshipbetween men, man and family, man and society, man and nature. And the literaturealso embodies the basic category of ethics, which takes the focus of man as its ownduty. Therefore, no matter in the past or in the futrure, it is full of important theoretical and practical significance for the construction of China’s harmonioussociety in current period of social transformation to study the ethics of Wharton’snovels.