The Ethics Of Desire

From ancient Greek to modern society, desire has always been the most concerned subject obsessing many a scholar and philosopher. In Greek mythology, Aphrodite and Dionysus constituted an important part, which in a sense indicates the unusual worship of desire of ancient Greeks. That gods and heroes express their love and hatred without constraint is regarded as metaphor of human desire. The Renaissance shifted man's Interest from Christianity to humanity. Humanism, together with science, upheld rationality as means to maintain natural order as well as human society. As moral ethics intensified, rationality and passion are at war. Is desire evil or good? That is a question.By analyzing Kate Chopin's The Awakening, the thesis focuses on exploration on the ethics of desire from an existential point of view. Edna Pontellier's life is reevaluated in relation to three aspects: subjectivity, ecstasy and physical pleasure. Desire is both the motivation and proof of existence. Nietzsche, the existential philosopher, even claims the carnival existence of body and soul.Edna's been proving the ethics of desire throughout her life. She interests us not because she is a woman, the implication being that her experience is mainly important in that it may represent that of other women. Quite the contrary, she interests us because she is human and is one of us. She proves the values of desire by ardently yearning for intensity, for passion. Spiritually and physically, she has been resisting the decaying power of mediocre life. Awakened to her inner desire, she affirms the value of her life as an individual instead of as someone's mother or wife. She explicitly rejects her role as possession and an object even at the expense of her life.The thesis sets off with an introduction of the final scene of the novel and points out that as the climax of the fiction it describes in a detailed way Edna's affirmation and enjoying of sensuous and "delicious" desire. The thesis then gives a brief introduction to the critics' views on Edna's final death.The second chapter presents the concept of ethics. Ethics is moral philosophy. Good ethics is a joy. It aims to soothe, to nurture the individual instead of simply making rules or instructions. Desire, as human nature, is motivation of life. Desire, spiritually or physically, is ethical in that it stimulates human beings to live out our life in an authentic,vivid and passionate way, which in turn gives the justification of the ethics of desire.From the third chapter to the sixth chapter, the thesis focuses on Edna's spiritual and physical awakening. By unfolding bit by bit the petals of her desire, Edna, once the sleeping beauty, is awakened to the joy of living as an individual instead of as someone's wife, mother or daughter, and thus begins to take the initiative in her life. By regaining her subjectivity, she decides that she no longer belongs to anyone. Meanwhile, her desire leads her to the culmination of existence, i.e., moments of ecstasy. Her passion for Robert Lebrun strengthens her subjectivity and endows her with both sweetness and anguish of existence, while her intimacy with Arobin declares her desire for bodily pleasure. Desire has enabled her to live an authentic, vivid and passionate life. In this sense, her death assumes a positive meaning for she chooses to die to avoid losing this authenticity and freedom of choice.The thesis thereby concludes that Edna's awakening, spiritually and physically, justifies the ethics of desire. Desire urges the individual to nail the authentic feelings of existence, to grasp clear notion of being, and to live in a passionate and autonomous way. Hence the transient life assumes meaning and richness.