Indian culture is quite far from me. Although I have tried to write a lot about itin my novels, I have never lived in India for a long time... All I have tomaintain with Indian culture ties are simply regular visits and the traditionalIndian habits that my family, parents and their friends have persistentlymaintained since I was a child. (Yu 1)
Chapter Five Conclusion
Narrative ethics put forward by Phelan includes the ethics of the told, the ethics of thetelling, the ethics of the reading as well as the ethics of writing, which provides us a boarderway to analyze the novel. Specifically, narrative ethics not only pays attention to the moralvalues represented in the story text, but also the special forms of narrative techniques. In thisthesis, the ethical values on the level of story, discourse and actual author have been exploredrespectively to uncover the ethical implications of The Lowland.
In constructing and exploring narrative ethics on the level of story, the characters’ ethicalvalues and ethical positions get disclosed in the novel. This thesis firstly shows the ethicaldilemmas faced by different characters in the novel, then comes to their own ethical positions.Turbulent political background has been set in this novel. Interrupted by this, the lives ofthese characters get changed. Wondering what responsibilities they should take, they maketheir ethical decisions and show their tendency of ethical positions or values. When theshadow of Partition still remains, a revolution of peasants Naxalbari is sweeping the wholecountry. At this time, Udayan chooses to be loyal to his country, yet neglecting the familyresponsibility. However, his brother Subhash takes on the responsibility of his family andhimself, not letting himself get into danger. For Udayan, it is not so hard to see that nationalresponsibility is weightier than personal and family happiness that he leaves his familybehind. Different ethical choices and positions often lead to different ethical consequences.Udayan dies, Subhash and Gauri get married, and their lives get twisted for the later severaldecades. At the end of it, it seems that Udayan has been sacrificed for nothing, or we can say,at the expense of his family. Lahiri discloses the tragedy and sympathy for the subalternpeople. In exploring their ethical positions, we see what Lahiri has conveyed to us on thelevel of story.
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