Back To Rationality—An Interpretation Of The Passion From The Perspective Of Ethical Literary Criticism

As a famous writer in contemporary British literary circles,Jeanette Winterson(1959-)was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 2006 for her outstanding literary achievements.Her second novel The Passion is a magical realism work,which won the John Llewelyn Rhys Prize.Winterson puts the background of the novel in the broad historical period of the Napoleonic Wars,describing the bumpy experiences of two small figures—the bottom soldier Henri and the military prostitute Villanella,whose passions were transformed into peace in the end.This work focuses on the disadvantaged groups and shows great attention to topics such as identity,love,and war,which not only reflects social reality,but also expresses the author’s ethical demands.The thesis explores the ethical thoughts of the book from the perspective of ethical literary criticism,and analyzes the ethical environment of the characters,the ethical predicaments they faced during the process of seeking their ethical identities and the ethical choices they made,so as to demonstrate how to get out of the predicaments and determine their ethical identity and subjectivity.Besides the introduction and conclusion,the thesis consists of three chapters.The first chapter mainly expounds the ethical environment at that time.Irrational passion and the war made the ethical environment in a state of chaos,and the unfair ethical environment brought oppression to the disadvantaged.Chapter Two describes in detail the ethical predicaments that the characters encountered in the process of determining their ethical identities and pursuing their subjectivity under the ethical environment at that time,which had a lot to do with their irrational emotions,like passion and impulse.The male protagonist confronted the ethical predicaments as a soldier and a lover respectively.The female protagonist who was endowed with androgynous characteristic had ethical plights as a homosexual,a wife and a "sister".The last chapter reveals the ethical choices made by the two in their ethical predicaments.When realizing their predicaments were related to their own irrational emotions,they chose to apply rationality to solve them.But Henri chose to escape when using reason,which can only partially solve his dilemma,unable to finally determine his ethical identity and subjectivity;while the heroine used reason to face life gradually,and finally accepted her ethical identity and rebuilt her subjectivity.Through the analysis of the ethical choices made by the male and female protagonists in their respective ethical predicaments,this thesis demonstrates that only by facing the dilemma and making rational ethical choices can they determine the ethical identity and restore the subjectivity.At the same time,it reflects the ethical appeal of Winterson’s promotion of using rational emotions to guide a moral life.