| Utilizing a hermeneutical approach, this dissertation analyzes Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible as an example of how popular literature can function as a form of modern moral theory. Ethical reflection is no less valid because it is couched in fiction, and bringing moral understanding or awareness to a reader, whether or not he can actively engage in the discussion, is the crucial element in understanding the novel's influence as moral discourse. Within the reciprocal relationship among author, novel, and reader is an underlying understanding that the novel as narrative ethics reflects not only a judgment of what is, but what ought to be. The perceptions and opinions we bring to the novel, our hermeneutic of interpretation, influence how we ultimately treat any theological epiphany the novel may inspire, but just as important, the novel's potential to produce such effects gives us warrant to classify the work as narrative theology.;This dissertation demonstrates how Kingsolver has integrated her moral, political and theological views into The Poisonwood Bible, and how they are culturally, religiously, and morally relevant. The dissertation opens with an argument for literature as narrative ethics. Chapter One lays out the current shape of narrative ethics today, as is germane to this dissertation, and the theories and methods of relevant ethicists, theologians, sociologists, and feminists. Chapters Two through Six formally explicate The Poisonwood Bible as narrative theology. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of The Poisonwood Bible's religious, ethical, and social relevance and its influence on our relationship to the Bible, religion, and literature. |
