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Ethics of the real : Michael Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost and the touch of the world
Thesis (MA (English))--Stellenbosch University, 2008.
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
2008
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| _version_ | 1867613800840036352 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Rosochacki, Elke |
| author2 | Roux, Daniel |
| author_browse | Rosochacki, Elke Roux, Daniel |
| author_facet | Roux, Daniel Rosochacki, Elke |
| author_sort | Rosochacki, Elke |
| collection | Thesis |
| dc_rights_str_mv | Stellenbosch University |
| description | Thesis (MA (English))--Stellenbosch University, 2008. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/2776 |
| institution | Stellenbosch University (South Africa) |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:41:54.752Z |
| license_str | Other — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from SUNScholar — Stellenbosch University Repository |
| publishDate | 2008 |
| publishDateRange | 2008 |
| publishDateSort | 2008 |
| publisher | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| publisherStr | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | SUNScholar — Stellenbosch University Repository |
| spelling | oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/2776 Ethics of the real : Michael Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost and the touch of the world Rosochacki, Elke Roux, Daniel Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of English. Dissertations -- English literature Theses -- English literature Ethics in literature Ondaatje, Michael,1943- -- Anil's ghost Thesis (MA (English))--Stellenbosch University, 2008. This dissertation rests on the assumption that the literary text is fundamentally part of the world from which it emerges. Following Heidegger's understanding of the work of art as a form of unconcealment, it argues that Michael Ondaatje's fictional work Anil's Ghost discloses the particular, historically contingent conditions that determine the ethical relations people are cast into during a time of war in the present era of globalization. The novel interrogates the idea of truth in its meta-fictional discourse and stakes out the grounds of its own fictional truth in contra-distinction to truth as fact offered by Western empiricism. Alongside the implicit criticism of Western epistemology, the novel mounts a critique of the universal human rights discourse and suggests that an ethical approach to the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka is preferable to a political solution imposed from the outside. War is presented as a radically embodying event in which the body is made vulnerable to death and injury: and the ethical imperative to alleviate physical suffering is identified as the most immediate and appropriate response to the crisis of war. Following Levinas, ethics is understood to transpire in the corporeal relation between individuals. By attending in detail to the embodied experience of being in the world, the novel prepares the ground for an ethics of the body that is closely aligned to the ethics as first philosophy espoused by Levinas. The dissertation argues throughout that the novel discloses the nature of ethical relations between people in the world by means of its aesthetic forms of language. The domain of the ethical and aesthetics are thus commensurate. Masters 2008-11-20T12:55:53Z 2010-06-01T08:57:59Z 2008-11-20T12:55:53Z 2010-06-01T08:57:59Z 2008-12 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/2776 en Stellenbosch University application/pdf Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| spellingShingle | Dissertations -- English literature Theses -- English literature Ethics in literature Ondaatje, Michael,1943- -- Anil's ghost Rosochacki, Elke Ethics of the real : Michael Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost and the touch of the world |
| title | Ethics of the real : Michael Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost and the touch of the world |
| title_full | Ethics of the real : Michael Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost and the touch of the world |
| title_fullStr | Ethics of the real : Michael Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost and the touch of the world |
| title_full_unstemmed | Ethics of the real : Michael Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost and the touch of the world |
| title_short | Ethics of the real : Michael Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost and the touch of the world |
| title_sort | ethics of the real michael ondaatje s anil s ghost and the touch of the world |
| topic | Dissertations -- English literature Theses -- English literature Ethics in literature Ondaatje, Michael,1943- -- Anil's ghost |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/2776 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT rosochackielke ethicsoftherealmichaelondaatjesanilsghostandthetouchoftheworld |