Dissertation
Beyond certainty: the hermeneutic ethics of false narratives in fiction from Elizabeth Gaskell to Ian McEwan
University of Iowa
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
Spring 2025
DOI: 10.25820/etd.007826
Abstract
Philosophers, psychologists, and literary scholars have long debated the possible pros and cons of narratives in human affairs but with the recent rise of what has been called “the storytelling boom” questions about the ethics of storytelling have gained acute urgency. This project is fundamentally about the ethical impact stories and storytelling have on the ways we develop both self-knowledge and understanding about others. I follow in the hermeneutic tradition established by scholars like Gadamer and Heidegger who view interpretation as a fundamental component of our engagement with the world. In response to the post-structuralist tradition, this branch of hermeneutics emphasizes experience and experientiality not as something ahistorical and immediately given but as something inextricably intertwined with interpretation. Most notably, Hanna Meretoja stresses the historicity of the interpretive act as something which always takes place at a certain moment and in a specific environment. My approach draws on Meretoja’s narrative hermeneutics ethics which theorizes morality not in an abstract way (as deontology and utilitarianism) but as an interpersonal and dialogical practice. Thus, I view literature as depicting moral agents who make decisions in a specific context from which they engage with other characters and the fictional world at large.
I have selected novels of British writers with a narrow focus on the role stories play in shaping characters’ experiences. My argument is that a character’s relation to oneself and others is mediated narratively through dominant cultural narratives and everyday stories, more specifically what I refer to as false narratives. Characters are in a dynamic engagement with such narratives and (re)interpret their meanings as prompted by their specific situatedness and temporality. In my dissertation, I explore the ethical and epistemological function of false narratives in four British novels spanning the Victorian to the contemporary period: Elizabeth Gaskell’s Ruth, E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India, Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day,and Ian McEwan’s Atonement. While the notion of the "false narrative" often carries negative connotations of deception or error, this study reframes it as an essential literary and ethical device which catalyzes moral reorientation, challenges cultural scripts, and trains both characters and readers in interpretive humility.
Drawing on Hanna Meretoja’s theory of narrative hermeneutics – particularly her concepts of the “space of the possible,” narrative reorientation, and subsumptive vs. non- subsumptive understanding – this dissertation investigates how false narratives function as ethical exercises. In each novel, characters are shown to misrecognize others or themselves through dominant cultural narratives: the fallen woman, the colonial subject, the dignified butler, or the predatory lover. Yet, the characters' misinterpretations do not merely obscure the truth but serve as narrative laboratories where the ethical imagination is tested and reconfigured.
The dissertation begins with Ruth, where a protective falsehood allows the eponymous protagonist to be morally reintegrated into a society that would otherwise exclude her. In A Passage to India, the ambiguity of a supposed assault in the Marabar Caves destabilizes the reader’s access to truth and dramatizes the role of cultural narratives in shaping justice and perception. The Remains of the Day moves further inward by presenting a first-person narrator who constructs a false narrative of professional dignity to shield himself from emotional vulnerability and moral failure. Finally, Atonement presents a metafictional case which examines itself as a consciously constructed false narrative, asking whether fiction can ever truly atone for ethical transgressions in real life. Through my explorations of these novels, I aim to demonstrate that false narratives are not merely a failure of storytelling but its ethical proving ground – an invitation to develop the capacity to hold ambiguity, revise understanding, and remain open to the singularity of the Other. Ultimately, my view of literature is that it teaches us that truth is never simply found but must be continually questioned and reimagined – in scholarship, in literature, and in life.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Beyond certainty: the hermeneutic ethics of false narratives in fiction from Elizabeth Gaskell to Ian McEwan
- Creators
- Ivo S Ivanoff
- Contributors
- Florence Boos (Advisor)Lori Branch (Committee Member)David Gooblar (Committee Member)John Moe (Committee Member)Carol Severino (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- English
- Date degree season
- Spring 2025
- DOI
- 10.25820/etd.007826
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- Number of pages
- xiii, 212 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright 2025 Ivo S Ivanoff
- Language
- English
- Date submitted
- 04/28/2025
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 207-212).
- Public Abstract (ETD)
- This dissertation explores the ethical and epistemological function of false narratives in four British novels spanning the Victorian to the contemporary period: Elizabeth Gaskell’s Ruth (1853), E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India (1922), Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day (1989), and Ian McEwan’s Atonement (2001). While the notion of the "false narrative" often carries negative connotations of deception or error, this study reframes it as an essential literary and ethical device which catalyzes moral reorientation, challenges cultural scripts, and trains both characters and readers in interpretive humility. Drawing on Hanna Meretoja’s theory of narrative hermeneutics – particularly her concepts of the “space of the possible,” narrative reorientation, and subsumptive vs. non- subsumptive understanding – this dissertation investigates how false narratives function as ethical exercises. In each novel, characters are shown to misrecognize others or themselves through dominant cultural narratives: the fallen woman, the colonial subject, the dignified butler, or the predatory lover. Yet, the characters' misinterpretations do not merely obscure the truth but serve as narrative laboratories where the ethical imagination is tested and reconfigured. Through my analysis of these novels, I aim to demonstrate that false narratives are not merely a failure of storytelling but its ethical proving ground – an invitation to develop the capacity to hold ambiguity, revise understanding, and remain open to the singularity of the Other. Ultimately, my view of literature is that it teaches us that truth is never simply found but must be continually questioned and reimagined – in scholarship, in literature, and in life.
- Academic Unit
- English
- Record Identifier
- 9984830922802771
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