Reading and Ethical Understanding

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The question of a link between narrative analysis and ethics is a central concern of narrative theory. Drawing mainly from the works of John Dewey, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Paul Ricoeur, this book argues that ethical understanding can be developed through a reader's discovery of the ultimate intelligibility of sub-narratives and settings that function within a narrative work. It describes four narrative strategies (tenets) that characterize the content of an ethically complex narrative: character identity, choice, will, and setting. These tenets exist and operate within an ethically complex narrative in a fashion that provides the broad context required for a realization of narrative intelligibility that can lead to ethical understanding. To demonstrate a concrete example of an ethically complex narrative, this book analyzes David Simon and Edward Burns' The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood, exploring how the tenets of ethical complexity function within its pages. This analysis should aid those seeking to forge clear links between the act of engaging with narrative structure and the development of a reader's understanding of ethics.