When Narrative Fails

This essay examines the ways narratives succeed or fail to provide a life with structure and direction, as exemplified in Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women" and George Eliot's "Middlemarch". Whether a narrative can be a moral compass depends on the presence of what Elio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of religious ethics
Main Author: Allen, Richard C. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Wiley-Blackwell 1993
In: Journal of religious ethics
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Parallel Edition:Non-electronic
Description
Summary:This essay examines the ways narratives succeed or fail to provide a life with structure and direction, as exemplified in Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women" and George Eliot's "Middlemarch". Whether a narrative can be a moral compass depends on the presence of what Eliot calls "a coherent social faith." The debate between Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine provides a framework for my analysis of the problematic status of such a social faith in the modern world. This analysis in turn sheds light on contemporary work on narrative, community, and ethics by Hans Frei, Stanley Hauerwas, George Lindbeck, and Alasdair MacIntyre.
ISSN:1467-9795
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of religious ethics