The Ethical Identity And Ethical Choice Of The Haunted:Tales Of The Grotesque

Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most productive and able writers of contemporary America. Some of her literary works were the most controversial ones. Several of her works were nominated by the US National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In addition to that, she herself has made to the last round of nomination in Nobel Prize of Literature twice. Oates’s work involved in all aspects of American life, which further touched the future and destiny of the whole of American society. Take the creation of the gothic novel for example, Oates devoted herself to the absurd and horrible part of human nature, and molded the violence and mental depression as main components of contemporary social life.Haunted:Tales of The Grotesque won the World’s Best Fantasy Collections Award in 1995. This novel contained sixteen stories, and among which thirteen of the stories were horror ones that had exposed the mental activities of human, except for Haunted, The White Cat and Accursed Inhabitants of the House of Bly. This paper will explain how people increase the doubt of ethical identities selection under the complex ethical environment, the test of alienation from the family and the morbid society people confronting. There is a fierce war between human factors which represents the moral attributes and animal factor which symbolizes the free will. The war turns some people into beast completely and the social order is gradually moving towards the cliffs. Oates explained that people who are in unusual circumstances and relationships will always twisted minds. She created an atmosphere of terror, and aimed to educate children how to protect themselves. What’s more, she intended to alter the parents that only under the rational guidance and ambiance of harmony and love can children grow up healthily.The thesis contains five segments:The first part is the introduction which is based the significance of the topic. It will also discuss the development and drawbacks of Oates’works study, which is the basis of this paper.The second part will be the first chapter. A number of short stories in the novel as a starting point discusses the human who lived in the alienation family circumstances, morbid social circumstances and the confusion ethical identity in the survival of the true state of survival, distorted description in the strange and absurd ethical environment, the human in dealing with the relationship of people and families, people and society and the relationship between themselves.The third part will be the second chapter. It focuses on the study of Haunted, The Premonition and The Guilty Party. Depend on the human who through the natural selection that lived in the harmonious society and family circumstance, and the relationship which is difficult to pressure, are doubted whether they can obtain the ethical consciousness through the ethical selection, and built the complete ethical order. In the suspense and open ending, Oates giving the character two kinds of ethical selections between compromise and break the ethical taboo. And she not clearly explained the character’s ultimate ethical selection or consequence in the end.The forth part will be the third chapter and it focus on the study of Phase Change, The White Cat and Martyrdom. By taking advantage of theory of the Sphinx factor which explains the trade off and co-existence between the human factor and animal factor, it will reach to a conclusion that free wills can gradually get rid of the shackles and rational will under the stimulation from desire and instinct. Therefore, human choose to break the ethical taboo when they are in an ethical dilemma and loss the humanity gradually. In the end, there is no difference between human and beast in terms of ethics.The last part is the conclusion which will discuss the aim of Oates’ writing. With the ethical teaching value from ethical literary criticism, combining the definition of Oates’ terrorist and grotesque from Oates, the aim of creating terror and eerie environmental is to teach them how to protect themselves and to stay away from danger.