O’Rourke begins with Rousseau’s inability to reconcile his intuitive belief that he is a good person with the effects that his actions have on others, and he goes on to show how this same ethical impasse recurs in the five aforementioned texts. The ethical crises these texts describe, such as when Jane Eyre’s happiness can be purchased only at the cost of Bertha Mason’s suicide, or when Humbert Humbert’s artistry demands the sacrifice of Dolores Haze, are not instances of authorial ethical blindness, O’Rourke says, but rather are ethical challenges that force us as readers to consider our own lives. In each of these works, a narrator attempts to justify his or her behavior and fails; in each case, the rigorous narrative of self-examination demands a similar effort from the reader, whose own sense of moral rectitude is put into question.
Confronting the long-held philosophical construction that links ethical principles and life choices, thereby reassuring us of the ethical coherence of everyday life, the narrators of these literary autobiographies come to a very different conclusion; by looking back on their lives, they cannot understand how their most benevolent desires led to such damaging life stories. By leaving meaning inexplicit, O’Rourke argues, these texts are able to recover traumatic material that is ordinarily repressed and then bring that repressed knowledge to bear on self-justifying narratives.
For readers interested in autobiographical studies, ethical criticism, and trauma and literary studies, Sex, Lies, and Autobiography provides a groundbreaking analysis of the role of ethics in literature.
O’Rourke begins with Rousseau’s inability to reconcile his intuitive belief that he is a good person with the effects that his actions have on others, and he goes on to show how this same ethical impasse recurs in the five aforementioned texts. The ethical crises these texts describe, such as when Jane Eyre’s happiness can be purchased only at the cost of Bertha Mason’s suicide, or when Humbert Humbert’s artistry demands the sacrifice of Dolores Haze, are not instances of authorial ethical blindness, O’Rourke says, but rather are ethical challenges that force us as readers to consider our own lives. In each of these works, a narrator attempts to justify his or her behavior and fails; in each case, the rigorous narrative of self-examination demands a similar effort from the reader, whose own sense of moral rectitude is put into question.
Confronting the long-held philosophical construction that links ethical principles and life choices, thereby reassuring us of the ethical coherence of everyday life, the narrators of these literary autobiographies come to a very different conclusion; by looking back on their lives, they cannot understand how their most benevolent desires led to such damaging life stories. By leaving meaning inexplicit, O’Rourke argues, these texts are able to recover traumatic material that is ordinarily repressed and then bring that repressed knowledge to bear on self-justifying narratives.
For readers interested in autobiographical studies, ethical criticism, and trauma and literary studies, Sex, Lies, and Autobiography provides a groundbreaking analysis of the role of ethics in literature.
Sex, Lies, and Autobiography: The Ethics of Confession
208Sex, Lies, and Autobiography: The Ethics of Confession
208Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780813925127 |
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Publisher: | University of Virginia Press |
Publication date: | 02/16/2006 |
Edition description: | New Edition |
Pages: | 208 |
Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.25(d) |
Age Range: | 18 Years |