Ethics and recognition in postcolonial literature: reading Amitav Ghosh, Caryl Phillips, Chimamanda Adichie and Kazuo Ishiguro
This thesis undertakes a critical study of ethics in the postcolonial novel. Focusing on four authors, namely Amitav Ghosh, Chimamanda Adichie, Caryl Phillips, and Kazuo Ishiguro, I conduct a comparative analysis of the ethical engagement offered in a selection of their novels. I argue that the reco...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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2012
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| _version_ | 1797062605048643584 |
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| author | van Bever Donker, V |
| author2 | Boehmer, E |
| author_facet | Boehmer, E van Bever Donker, V |
| author_sort | van Bever Donker, V |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | This thesis undertakes a critical study of ethics in the postcolonial novel. Focusing on four authors, namely Amitav Ghosh, Chimamanda Adichie, Caryl Phillips, and Kazuo Ishiguro, I conduct a comparative analysis of the ethical engagement offered in a selection of their novels. I argue that the recognitions and related emotional responses of characters are integral to the unfolding of these novels’ ethical concerns. The ethics thus explored are often marked by the complexity and impurity characteristic of the tragic – an impurity which is productively thought together with Jacques Derrida’s understanding of “radical evil”. I arrive at this through deploying an approach to ethics in the postcolonial novel that is largely drawn from the work of Martha Nussbaum, David Scott, and Terence Cave. This approach is attentive to both the particular contexts in which the novels’ ethical concerns unfold, as well as the general ethical questions in relation to which these can be understood. Crucial to this is the concept of <em>anagnorisis</em>, that is, the recognition scene. Functioning as both a structural and a thematic element, it serves as a hinge between the general and the specific ethical considerations in a novel. There are three ethical themes that I consider across the thesis: the ethics of remembrance, the human, and religion. The works of these four authors cluster around these concerns to differing degrees and with differing perspectives. What emerges is that while each engagement is focused on the particular details that the novel represents, the range of perspectives can nevertheless be productively read alongside one another as interventions into these general concerns. Following from this I also conclude that as a suitable, if not privileged, form in which to engage questions of the ethical, the postcolonial novel hosts the ethical difficulty that I name as the tragic, and which is characterised by the term radical evil. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-06T20:47:55Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oxford-uuid:368d90cc-f186-4e26-a749-64b717758320 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-06T20:47:55Z |
| publishDate | 2012 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:368d90cc-f186-4e26-a749-64b7177583202022-03-26T13:38:53ZEthics and recognition in postcolonial literature: reading Amitav Ghosh, Caryl Phillips, Chimamanda Adichie and Kazuo IshiguroThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:368d90cc-f186-4e26-a749-64b717758320English Language and LiteratureEthics (Moral philosophy)EnglishOxford University Research Archive - Valet2012van Bever Donker, VBoehmer, EThis thesis undertakes a critical study of ethics in the postcolonial novel. Focusing on four authors, namely Amitav Ghosh, Chimamanda Adichie, Caryl Phillips, and Kazuo Ishiguro, I conduct a comparative analysis of the ethical engagement offered in a selection of their novels. I argue that the recognitions and related emotional responses of characters are integral to the unfolding of these novels’ ethical concerns. The ethics thus explored are often marked by the complexity and impurity characteristic of the tragic – an impurity which is productively thought together with Jacques Derrida’s understanding of “radical evil”. I arrive at this through deploying an approach to ethics in the postcolonial novel that is largely drawn from the work of Martha Nussbaum, David Scott, and Terence Cave. This approach is attentive to both the particular contexts in which the novels’ ethical concerns unfold, as well as the general ethical questions in relation to which these can be understood. Crucial to this is the concept of <em>anagnorisis</em>, that is, the recognition scene. Functioning as both a structural and a thematic element, it serves as a hinge between the general and the specific ethical considerations in a novel. There are three ethical themes that I consider across the thesis: the ethics of remembrance, the human, and religion. The works of these four authors cluster around these concerns to differing degrees and with differing perspectives. What emerges is that while each engagement is focused on the particular details that the novel represents, the range of perspectives can nevertheless be productively read alongside one another as interventions into these general concerns. Following from this I also conclude that as a suitable, if not privileged, form in which to engage questions of the ethical, the postcolonial novel hosts the ethical difficulty that I name as the tragic, and which is characterised by the term radical evil. |
| spellingShingle | English Language and Literature Ethics (Moral philosophy) van Bever Donker, V Ethics and recognition in postcolonial literature: reading Amitav Ghosh, Caryl Phillips, Chimamanda Adichie and Kazuo Ishiguro |
| title | Ethics and recognition in postcolonial literature: reading Amitav Ghosh, Caryl Phillips, Chimamanda Adichie and Kazuo Ishiguro |
| title_full | Ethics and recognition in postcolonial literature: reading Amitav Ghosh, Caryl Phillips, Chimamanda Adichie and Kazuo Ishiguro |
| title_fullStr | Ethics and recognition in postcolonial literature: reading Amitav Ghosh, Caryl Phillips, Chimamanda Adichie and Kazuo Ishiguro |
| title_full_unstemmed | Ethics and recognition in postcolonial literature: reading Amitav Ghosh, Caryl Phillips, Chimamanda Adichie and Kazuo Ishiguro |
| title_short | Ethics and recognition in postcolonial literature: reading Amitav Ghosh, Caryl Phillips, Chimamanda Adichie and Kazuo Ishiguro |
| title_sort | ethics and recognition in postcolonial literature reading amitav ghosh caryl phillips chimamanda adichie and kazuo ishiguro |
| topic | English Language and Literature Ethics (Moral philosophy) |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT vanbeverdonkerv ethicsandrecognitioninpostcolonialliteraturereadingamitavghoshcarylphillipschimamandaadichieandkazuoishiguro |