Victims and the postmodern narrative, or, doing violence to the body
Subtitle: an ethic of reading and writing
By: Mark Ledbetter.
Publisher: Macmillan Press; St. Martin's Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Houndsmill, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 159
Subjects: Morrison, Toni -- Criticism and interpretation; English fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism; Body, Human, in literature; Experimental fiction, English -- History and criticism; Religion and literature -- History -- 20th century; Politics and literature -- History -- 20th century; Postmodernism (Literature); Violence in literature; Victims in literature; Ethics in literature; Narration (Rhetoric)
Description: Victims and the Postmodern Narrative suggests that reading and writing about literature are ways to gain an ethical understanding of how we live in the world. Narrative is, in fact, the most creatively challenging place to locate ethical discourse. Furthermore, postmodern narrative is an important way to reveal and discuss who are society's victims, inviting the reader to become one with them.

A close reading of fiction by Toni Morrison, Patrick Suskind, D. M. Thomas, Ian McEwan and J. M. Coetzee reveals a violence imposed on gender, race and the body-politic, suggesting that violence is the critical issue for exploring ethics in a postmodern context. Such violence is not new to the postmodern world, but merely reflects Western culture's religious traditions, as the author demonstrates through a reading of stories from the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament.

Finally, Mark Ledbetter suggests that narrative can reverse the course of victimisation against those who suffer merely because they are of an other gender, race, religion or political persuasion from those who have power in our society. Narrative has the ability to call those of us who read and write it to confession, and in confession there is hope for change.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 152-157) and index.