Narrative Empathy, Vulnerability and Ethics of Care in William Trevor’s Fiction

Autori

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13130/2037-2426/11869

Parole chiave:

William Trevor; Narrative Empathy; Vulnerability; Ethics of Care; Metafiction

Abstract

This essay engages with the relationship between ethics and literature. To this end, it addresses the theoretical framework of narrative empathy as illustrative of the supposed ethical power of literary writing. Using a corpus of William Trevor’s fiction, Reading Turgenev (1991) and Love and Summer (2009) as case study, the essay suggests that Trevor’ use of metafictional devices (metalepses and the disnarrated), temporal disarray and multifocal perspectives tends to complicate the general assumption of empathy as necessarily easy and spontaneous. These formal strategies of literary representation manifest the underlying manipulative nature of narrative empathy, confronting readers with the ethical effects of empathy. In so doing, Trevor’s fiction edges towards the aesthetics of vulnerability in that it entails an ethics of reading and writing that reminds the reader of the darkest sides of human existence.

Biografia autore

Angelo Monaco, Indipendente

Angelo Monaco si è laureato in Lingue e Letterature Straniere presso l’Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale” (2001) e ha conseguito il titolo di Dottore di Ricerca in Filologia, Letteratura e Linguistica presso l’Università di Pisa (2017). I suoi ambiti privilegiati di ricerca sono il romanzo contemporaneo in lingua inglese, in particolare
in area indiana, la condizione postcoloniale e l’ecocritica, e il  rapporto tra narrativa e psicoanalisi, con particolare riguardo alla relazione tra trauma studies e letteratura. È autore della monografia Jhumpa Lahiri. Vulnerabilità e resilienza (2019, Edizioni ETS).

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Pubblicato

08-04-2020

Come citare

Monaco, A. (2020). Narrative Empathy, Vulnerability and Ethics of Care in William Trevor’s Fiction. ENTHYMEMA, (25), 280–294. https://doi.org/10.13130/2037-2426/11869

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Sezione

Saggi
Ricevuto 2019-06-30
Accettato 2020-04-08
Pubblicato 2020-04-08