An Ethical Literary Critical Approach to The Painted Veil从文学伦理学批评视角解读《面纱》文献综述

 2023-04-22 15:56:15

文献综述

1.Introduction1.1 Research backgroundAs a prolific British novelist, playwright and short story writer, William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) is hailed as the best storyteller of all time. During his lifetime, he wrote more than twelve novels, over one hundred short stories, thirty-two plays, and various prose and travelogues. His representative works include the novels Of human bondage (1915), The moon and sixpence (1919) and The razors edge (1944), the short story collections The trembling of a leaf (1921) and Ashenden (1928), and the play The circle (1919). For his humorous and witty novels, Maugham is known as the English Maupassant. In 1954, he was awarded by the Queen of Britain the title of Honor Attendant and became a member of the Royal Society.Maugham was born on January 25, 1874 in Paris. His parents died when he was a child, and he was sent back to the home of his uncle in Britain and began the life under the fence. When he studied in the Royal College of Canterbury, he was often bullied by other students because of his short stature and stuttering. His unfortunate childhood made him feel insecure and sensitive. In 1892, Maugham spent one year studying in Heidelberg, Germany, and returned to England the same year to spend six months as an intern in a London accountancy firm. After that, he entered St. Thomas, where he began a five-year medical practice. This experience offered him an insight into the living conditions of the underclass and the ability to see life and society with the cold sharp gaze of a scalpel. After five-year medical practice, Maugham decided to abandon medicine and indulged in literary creation. At that time Britain was experiencing a serious economic and political crisis so that there were profound changes in peoples thinking. The false optimism of the Victorian period disappeared and capitalist civilization brought mankind to spiritual extinction. The rapid development of science and technology during this period also impacted peoples beliefs. Influenced by such a social environment, literary creation advocated realistic criticism and attacked the evils and darkness of the real society, which influenced Maughams ethical thinking. His long novels such as Of human bondage and The moon and sixpence expose the society with a realist critical eye. As the Victorian era came to an end, England entered the Edwardian era, an era in which many prominent figures openly criticized the hypocrisy of the times and the double standards of moral and ethical treatment. This was a period when people only superficially adhered to certain traditional morals. Maugham, influenced by the times, reflected on the old ethics and morals of the past and The Painted Veil is an example of this shift.The Painted Veil (1925) tells the story of the heroine Kitty Garstin, who is caught up in the ethical predicaments related to her family and marriage. Under pressure from her mother and sister, Kitty Garstin quickly marries Bacteriologist Walter Fane. She puts herself in an ethical predicament because of the accidental exposure of her extra-marriage affair. After being abandoned by Charlie, she follows her husband to the plague-ridden Mei-tan-fu, where she embarks on a journey of ethical awakening. Ethical literary criticism is essentially literary criticism with Chinese characteristics, aimed to figure out ethical values in literary works, which is different from western ethical criticism. Nie Zhenzhao，a professor at the School of Foreign Languages and director of the Interdisciplinary Research Centre for World Literature at Zhejiang University, is the first scholar to comprehensively introduce ethical literary criticism in his monograph Introduction to ethical literary criticism (2014). In the past years, ethical literary criticism has gone through a long journey of development before reaching full maturity and broad recognition today. The International Association for Ethical Literary Criticism (IAELC) was set up in December, 2012, which symbolizes that ethical literary criticism integrates into the international academic communication. During the annual international conference in the past years, with the participation of a group of western scholars, ethical literary criticism has developed further and garnered an ever-growing international academic recognition and influence. The thesis is to interpret The Painted Veil from the perspective of ethical literary criticism.1.2 Literature reviewBritish and American critics first made comments on Maughams works in the 1920s, when the relevant research was not systematic, mostly focusing on his short stories. By 1946 Wilson, a major figure in British literary criticism, wrote an essay on Maugham. He considered him to be a shallow person and disparaged the vulgarity of Maughams work from the perspective of a serious writer, which largely affected Maughams literary reputation and made him ignored by the British literary world for a long time. In recent decades, as the English literary community intends to reconstruct Maughams literary status, a number of works devoted to Maugham have emerged, focusing on his life and works. Cordell tells the story of Maughams life, reviewing three autobiographical full-length novels of his, non-autobiographical full-length novels, short stories, etc. in Somerset Maugham, A Writer for All Seasons: A Biographical and Critical Study (1969). Morgan provides a detailed chronological account of Maughams life in The biography of Maugham (1980), one of the most authoritative biographies in the world. R. Maugham, Maughams nephew, wrote from the familys perspective and published the biography Conversations with Willy--Memories of Maugham in 1987, which reveals many untold details of Maughams life. In 2004, Meyers recreated the twists and turns of Maughams life in broad strokes in his Somerset Maugham: A life on the basis of the depiction from those people who kept close contacts with him. Hastings The secret lives of Somerset Maugham: A biography (2014) drew on a large number of Maughams private letters that he received the only official licence to quote. The biography focuses on the tensions of contradictions that coexisted in Maughams life, which therefore showcases him as a person, imperfect but life-affirming.Researchers have analyzed their unique artistic value of Maughams works in the context of his life and spiritual world. Adams (2016) explores the seriously profound themes of spiritual quest, believing that Maughams works support the individuals freedom of sexual expression and oppose the sexual oppression of women by marital property laws and ethics. Clement (2017) uses the subject matter of Malay stories to showcase the Western imagination of colonial space through Maughams colonial expeditions. Unfortunately, The Painted Veil has failed to attract foreign researchers attention. Nor have any systematic essays or monographs appeared. Domestically, precious studies have focused on Maughams short and long novels, including Of human bondage, Cakes and ale, The Moon and Sixpence and The razors edge, etc. However, there are not many studies on The Painted Veil and most of the scholars analyze this work from perspectives of feminism, family culture and orientalism. M. Peng (2014) unpacks the reasons for Kittys self-awakening in aspects of dystopian marriage spawned by her family of origin, disillusionment of love, and the journey of transformation in Mei-tan-fu. She believes that Maugham spends his life exploring the meaning of life and the value of human nature, pursuing the path to freedom from the chains of life and spiritual freedom, whose portrayal reflects the writers desire for freedom.Yu (2016) focuses on the English middle-class family culture, deconstructs the fates of several characters in the pathological family culture and explores its impact on the fates of individuals. After exploring several different families, she points out that a sick family culture brings misfortune while a healthy one brings spiritual freedom.Pi (2014) states that in Maughams novel, the Westerners are set up as positive selves while the Chinese are portrayed as ignorant others. These two are in stark contrast. Such characterization reflects Maughams deep-seated orientalism and sense of cultural superiority.In all, an overview of the research reveals that there is a large gap in the study of The Painted Veil. Little research has been done on The Painted Veil abroad. Nor has the study been domestically conducted from the perspective of ethical literary criticism. Also, most studies focus on the causes of Kittys ethical consciousness while providing no detailed interpretation of the process. Therefore, this thesis will study The Painted Veil from the perspective of ethical literary criticism, aimed to enrich the relevant research.1.3 Need of the studyThe need of the study can be seen as follows: First of all, with the emphasis on ethics in China today, an ethical literary criticism approach to The Painted Veil can shed light on the construction of an ethical discourse in China. Secondly, this thesis can well explore rich ethical connotations and provide a model for the study of The Painted Veil from the perspective of ethical literary criticism. Last, it can aid readers in appreciating the ethical charm of the work and enhance their ethical literacy. 2. The theory of ethical literary criticismEthical literary criticism is a type of literary critical method that analyzes literary works from the perspective of ethics to solve problems in literary works, obtain moral enlightenment in life, and provide experience and edification for mankinds civilization and society. This section will cover the origin and development, main terms and significance of ethical literary criticism. 2.1 Origin and developmentNie Zhenzhao proposed ethical literary criticism in 2004, which combines Chinese ethical traditions and moral criticism with Western ethical criticism, particularly American ethical criticism since the 1980s. Since then, the new approach has received widespread attention from scientific researchers. The development of ethical literary criticism is reflected in three stages. Stage One presents the theory and constructs the system. It first appeared in a lecture entitled Ethical Literary Criticism, New Exploration of Literary Criticism Method given by Professor Nie at the national conference held in Jiangxi in 2004. This presentation discussed the theoretical foundations of ethical literary criticism, the objects and content of criticism, its ideological and literary origins, and illustrated the importance of ethical literary criticism for literary criticism. In the following years, Professor Nie further clarified and refined the main framework of his theory by providing detailed explanations and practical advice. The next stage involves the dissemination and application of the theory. In the previous stage, the research and argumentation mainly rested on the theoretical level of ethical literary criticism. Once the theory has been thoroughly researched, it needs to be practised, so the second stage is more about the practical application of the theory. Scholars have thus begun to carry out the ethical analysis of a particular writers work, analyzing the characteristics, causes, context and process from which his ethical ideas arose. The last is the construction stage of completion and evaluation. Scientists attempt to research writers and literary works in an ethical-critical way, and are constantly researching and perfecting theories. The book, An Introduction to Ethical Literary Criticism (2014) by Nie Zhenzhao, offers a comprehensive and systematic exposition of ethical literary criticism in academia, and it marks the maturity of this field. 2.2 Main termsWhen using ethical literary criticism, we should go back to the ethical environment and examine the phenomena from the angle of history. Ethical literary criticism focuses on ethical identity, ethical predicament, ethical consciousness and ethical environment, etc. The following will introduce these terms in detail.The first one is ethical identity. The study of characters ethical identities is emphasized in ethical literary criticism. Ethical identity not only refers to a persons identification in a certain culture, but also means the responsibility and obligation that comes with it (Nie, 2014). There are two forms of identities, depending on the source of identification. One is an innate identity based on blood link, such as mother and son. The other is a socially acquired identity, such as that of a teacher or a priest. In a biological sense, natural selection aids humans in acquiring identity, and ethical selection genuinely separates humans from animals and distinguishes a person in terms of responsibility, obligation, and morality. Literature, in reality, strives to investigate and resolve the issue of human identity. Y. X. Zhang (2020) uses this theory to explain Ravelsteins ethical identity in Ravelstein. He states out that through the writing of Ravelsteins spiritual world, Bellow describes his alienation in terms of consumption and the way in which he escapes by virtue of good human relations and thus constructs his ethical identity.Ethical predicament refers to inconsistencies and conflicts that are difficult to resolve due to ethical confusion which is caused by a change in ethical identity and manifests itself for the lack of rationality and disregard for taboos. It is for this reason that characters make distinct ethical choices and hence face varied fates. Ethical choice involves two connotations: moral choices which refer to the process of achieving moral maturity and perfection by ones own choices; choices of two or more moral options. Diverse choices might lead to different outcomes. After human beings liberate themselves from animals by ethical choice, ethical consciousness emerges, and the concept of good and evil comes into beings. For example, Tan (2021) provides a detailed reading of ethical predicaments evoked by Zhis incest with her cousin, pointing out that A dark nights passing does not preach morality, but leads the reader through characters ethical choices in removing ethical predicaments to recognize good through evil and to become moral through immorality.The third term is ethical consciousness. The maturation of reason is widely seen as the beginning of an individuals ethical consciousness from the standpoint of ethical criticism. Humans begin to evolve from animals to humans and eventually mature into advanced species as a result of this indicator. According to one of the necessary requirements for distinguishing humans from animals, humans have rationality, the key to which is ethical consciousness (Nie, 2010). Those who lack ethical consciousness will be unable to discriminate between good and evil, thus denied the qualification of being true humans. Furthermore, ethical consciousness motivates people to document their own ethical experiences in a unique and specific way. Shang (2011) uses this theory to analyze Florence in A Mercy, believing the main reason for his persistence in writing about her life lies in her deep-seated ethical consciousness of searching for self and discovering herself.The last term is ethical environment. It is the historical place in which literary productions have existed. Although literary works might provide inspirations for the future, they usually describe what has already happened and can be viewed as a fictional history. As a result, ethical criticism necessitates the examination and criticism of literary works in a specific ethical environment, as well as the objective ethical interpretation of literary works, as opposed to a superficially abstract or morally subjective appraisal. Literary works of different historical periods have a specific ethical environment, and to avoid misinterpreting literary works, researchers need to consider it. L. Zhang emergence of a clearly rebellious family tendency in the family elegy, which runs counter to the mainstream family ethical order.These terms do not exist in isolation, but are interconnected with each other. A change in ethical identity leads to ethical confusion, which then leads to ethical predicament. Ethical predicament may promote the development of ethical consciousness, which in turn is influenced by the ethical environment. In short, these terms are all closely related, and our better study of literary works from the perspective of ethical literary criticism requires an understanding of these relationships.2.3 SignificanceThe significance of ethical literary criticism can be seen as follows: First of all, by drawing on Western ethical methods and fully integrating the current research in Chinas literary criticism, it provides a new perspective for the study of literary works. Secondly, it contributes to readers discovering ethical values of literature and urges them to undertake their moral responsibilities. Lastly, it enhances Chinese scholars discourse in international literary criticism and demonstrates academic confidence and innovative spirit to the full.ReferencesAdams, D. (2016). Somerset Maughams ethically earnest fiction. Cambridge quarterly, 45(1): 42-67.Clement, M. (2017). Queer colonial journeys: Alfred Russel Wallace and Somerset Maugham in the Malay Archipelago. Journal of the history of sexuality, 26(2):161.Connon, B. (1997). Somerset Maugham and the Maugham dynasty. London: Random House.Cordell, R. A. (1969). Somerset Maugham, a writer for all seasons: A biographical and critical study. Bloomington: Indiana University.Hastings, S. (2010). The secret lives of Somerset Maugham: A biography. New York: Random House.Jensen, S. A. (1957). William Somerset Maugham: Some aspects of the man and his work. Oslo: Oslo University.Maugham, R. (1987). Conversations with Willie. London: Pan books Ltd.Maugham, W. S. (2004). The painted veil. New York: Vintage International.Meyers, J. (1987). Somerset Maugham: A life. New York: Random house.Morgan, T. (1980). The biography of Maugham. Cambridge: Simon amp; Schuster Ltd.Yang, G. X. (2016). The revival of western ethical criticism and its developments in the 21st century. Foreign language studies, 3, 18-26.Yang, J. C. (2009). Striving for a new critical approach: Rereading English literature in the perspective of ethical literary criticism. Foreign language studies, 6, 149-151.Yang, J. C. (2016). Realms of ethical literary criticism in China: A review of Nie Zhenzhaos scholarship. Foreign language studies, 5, 33-40.景莉莉（2017），毛姆《面纱》的存在主义女性主义解读，《现代语文(学术综合版)》，9：54-55。

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