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Dignity of Agency in The Aftermath of Personal Apocalypse : Martha Nussbaum, Lionel Shriver, and the Ethics of the Particular

Dignity of Agency in The Aftermath of Personal Apocalypse : Martha Nussbaum, Lionel Shriver, and... abstract: This article tests Martha Nussbaum’s assertion that a novel can be “a paradigm of moral activity” (1990: 148) and expands that claim beyond the boundaries Nussbaum is likely to have originally conceived, through a study of Lionel Shriver’s controversial novel We Need to Talk About Kevin (2003). The article combines analysis of Shriver’s narrative techniques and unorthodox moral argument with current clinical research, discussions of accountability in post-postmodern society, and Nussbaum’s hopes for the place of fiction in such debates, particularly with regard to her distinction between the general and the particular in moral judgment. The article reveals how critical focus on violence in Shriver’s novel has so far obscured Shriver’s fierce and surprisingly optimistic ethical message. In addition to its astute anatomization of trauma, the novel offers readers a framework for envisioning rehabilitation from trauma that is both recuperative and generative. The process of mutual-reconstitution achieved by Shriver’s characters challenges readers to reconfigure their expectations and assumptions; to engage with characters that court antipathy; and yet, to emerge from the experience profoundly humbled. Shriver thereby sets forth an existential model of significant importance to contemporary reformulations of notions of authentic self-becoming and of love’s knowledge. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Interdisciplinary Literary Studies Penn State University Press

Dignity of Agency in The Aftermath of Personal Apocalypse : Martha Nussbaum, Lionel Shriver, and the Ethics of the Particular

Rokotnitz, Naomi
Interdisciplinary Literary Studies , Volume 19 (2) – Jun 16, 2017
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Penn State University Press
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Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University.
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2161-427X
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Abstract

abstract: This article tests Martha Nussbaum’s assertion that a novel can be “a paradigm of moral activity” (1990: 148) and expands that claim beyond the boundaries Nussbaum is likely to have originally conceived, through a study of Lionel Shriver’s controversial novel We Need to Talk About Kevin (2003). The article combines analysis of Shriver’s narrative techniques and unorthodox moral argument with current clinical research, discussions of accountability in post-postmodern society, and Nussbaum’s hopes for the place of fiction in such debates, particularly with regard to her distinction between the general and the particular in moral judgment. The article reveals how critical focus on violence in Shriver’s novel has so far obscured Shriver’s fierce and surprisingly optimistic ethical message. In addition to its astute anatomization of trauma, the novel offers readers a framework for envisioning rehabilitation from trauma that is both recuperative and generative. The process of mutual-reconstitution achieved by Shriver’s characters challenges readers to reconfigure their expectations and assumptions; to engage with characters that court antipathy; and yet, to emerge from the experience profoundly humbled. Shriver thereby sets forth an existential model of significant importance to contemporary reformulations of notions of authentic self-becoming and of love’s knowledge.

Journal

Interdisciplinary Literary Studies – Penn State University Press

Published: Jun 16, 2017

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