An Interpretation Of The Known World From The Perspective Of Ethical Literary Criticism

Edward P.Jones is one of the most prominent African American writers in contemporary American literary world.Up to now,he only publishes three novels,among which the second one — The Known World has achieved a great success because of its unique theme.This novel disclosed an unknown fact that some blacks have become slaveholders and own the people of their race in the American South before the civil war.Revolving around the black slaveholder Henry,The Known World describes the life of the white slaveholder,poor white,free black,black slave,and Indians.By doing so,it represents the panorama of American South in the complex slavery.Since it was published in 2003,The Known World has received much attention from the scholars and critics.Although some critics have analyzed this novel from various perspectives such as narrative techniques and text characteristics,there are few researches on this novel based on ethical literary criticism.Therefore,this thesis intends to apply the theory of ethical literary criticism to interpret The Known World.Furthermore,it attempts to explore the influence of complex ethical mechanism in slavery on human nature and probe into Jones' ethical pursuit by analyzing ethical environment,ethical identity,ethical consciousness respectively in The Known World.This thesis consists of the following six chapters:Chapter One briefly introduces Edward Paul Jones and The Known World,the literature review of the novel,the significance of the thesis,and the structure of the thesis.Chapter Two puts forward the theoretical basis of the research.This chapter gives an introduction to the theoretical source of ethical literary criticism and the main contents of the methods of ethical literary criticism.Chapter three analyzes the ethical environment in The Known World from three main aspects: social ethical environment,family ethical environment,and religious ethical environment.This chapter shows that the ethical mechanism based on the slavery has been established in the American South before the civil war.Some blacks are deeply influenced by both social ethical environment and family ethical environment.They choose to become the black slaveholders and take advantage of Christian doctrine to control their black compatriots.But at the same time,the ethical ideas of Christian love gives black slaves the faith to break the ethical mechanism and instructs some whites to help them.Chapter four analyzes the ethical identity in The Known World from three main aspects: social ethical identity,family ethical identity,and bisexual ethical identity.This chapter reveals the complex humanity under the ethical mechanism: some blacks have a strong desire to break the ethical mechanism,but they are assimilated by the white-dominated society eventually;while the domestic affection and the true love exist between some whites and blacks in the slave society.Chapter five makes contrast on the ethical consciousness of the different characters in The Known World:humanity and brutality,the desire for freedom and the desire for power,rebellion and submission.The conflicts of the ethical consciousness reflect the complicated humanity underneath the inhumane society of black slavery.Chapter six is the conclusion.This thesis manifests the influence of complex ethical mechanism in slavery on human nature.Some blacks have gained an ethical consciousness to break the bondage of the ethical mechanism to achieve freedom;some are more inclined to pursue the power and become parts of slavery to enslave their black compatriots.As for whites,some of them are the defender of the ethical mechanism to persecute blacks;some violate the ethical mechanism and establish a harmonious relationship with blacks.The author of this thesis believes The Known World expresses Jones' ethical pursuit of establishing a harmonious relationship between blacks and whites.