earticle

영어

This study explores Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These through the lens of Emmanuel Levinas’s ethics of the Other, arguing that the novella can be understood as a textual embodiment of Levinasian ethical philosophy. Chapter II, titled “The Narrative of Ethical Reflection,” examines the protagonist Bill Furlong’s reflective awareness of social responsibility toward the Other through the framework of Levinasian ethics. The narrative depicts everyday ethics embedded in his ordinary life. Gradually, Furlong’s awakening begins with a direct confrontation with the suffering women confined in the Magdalene Laundry as a site of systematic evil. The novella exposes the Magdalene Laundry as a breeding ground of institutionalized child abuse and moral corruption. Their Levinasian ‘face-to-face encounter’ between Furlong and a suffering girl exemplifies Levinas’s claim that responsibility precedes autonomy and rational deliberation. Chapter III, titled “The Narrative of Ethical Embodiment,” analyzes how the protagonist embodies Levinas’s ethics of responsibility and caring toward the Other by rescuing a suffering woman from the Magdalene Laundry. The protagonist accepts an infinite responsibility toward the Other. In conclusion, Small Things Like These can ultimately be read as a literary text that embodies Levinas’s ethics of the Other.