The Appeal For Harmonious Spiritual Civilization Of Human

Everything I Never Told You,published in 2014,defeating literary works of nearly a hundred renowned authors,became the Amazon best seller of that year,and its Chinese-American female author Celeste Ng has become famous overnight in the literary circle.Due to its exquisite style,delicate conception and extensive themes,her debut has been widely praised by readers around the world.It depicts a tragedy of an American family in the latter half of the 20 th century.The Chinese-American father has fully been suffering from bitter racial discrimination since his childhood.The native mother has been pursuing to be outstanding but stuck with being ordinary.The second elder daughter imposed on parents' heavy anticipations ends her young life at last and another two children have been neglected for a long time.Previous scholars and experts have interpreted this novel from the point of feminism,narratology and post-colonialism,etc.However,no one has analyzed it from the perspective of ethical literary criticism.In fact,this novel involves many ethical elements,for instance,racism and sexism in society,love and forgiveness in the process of getting along with others and the awakening of self-consciousness,etc.Ethical literary criticism,proposed by Professor Nie Zhenzhao in 2004,is a critical method to elucidate,analyze and research literary works,authors and related literary issues from the point of ethics.Therefore,this thesis tries to apply the critical method of ethical literary criticism to profoundly analyze Everything I Never Told You.From the man-society relationship,man-other relationship and man-oneself relationship,this thesis aims to reveal how to construct a harmonious spiritual civilization of human.This thesis is composed of six chapters.The first chapter mainly introduces Celeste Ng and the main story of Everything I Never Told You,states the current domestic and overseas researches on this novel and explains the significance of this thesis.The second chapter chiefly presents ethical literary criticism,the theoretical foundation of this thesis,its definition,critical content and development process.Besides,as the theoretical frame,the three appeals of ethical literary criticism are also expounded in this chapter.The third chapter analyzes the appeal for truth of it from the man-society relationship.By elucidating the sufferings of James and Marilyn,it reflects the authentic situation of society at that time and expresses the ethicalpursuit of equality in this novel.The fourth chapter explores the appeal for good from the man-other relationship,which includes the selfless love of Lydia for her parents and the forgiveness in marital life.Containing the awakening of self-consciousness of Lydia as well as the introspection and reconciliation of family members,the fifth chapter probes into the appeal for sublimation in the man-oneself relationship.The sixth chapter is the conclusion of this thesis.By utilizing ethical literary criticism,it analyzes the novel Everything I Never Told You and makes a conclusion from the three relationships between man and society,man and others as well as man and oneself respectively.It can be concluded that Celeste Ng,aiming at implying big issues in society through small problems in family,expresses her ethical thoughts and pursuit: only if social civilization constantly steps forward,there is full of love and forgiveness among people and the healthy,independent and complete self-consciousness has been established,can the spiritual civilization of human develop harmoniously.