Narrative Ethics

The ethics of literature, formalists argue, resides in the moral quality of a character, a story, perhaps the relation between author and reader. But in the wake of deconstruction, the ethical question has been freshly engaged by literary studies, and on this approach Adam Newton focuses. His book makes a case for understanding narrative as ethics. Assuming an intrinsic and necessary connection between the two, Newton explores the ethical consequences of telling stories and fictionalizing character, and the reciprocal claims binding teller, listener, witness, and reader in the process.