A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Teenager: Ethical Literary Criticism and David Mitchell's Black Swan Green

• Main Author: Chen, Jiayi
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2024
• Subjects: Black Swan Green; character focalization; David Mitchell; ethical literary criticism; war writing
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/kk/vol1/iss39/11; https://archium.ateneo.edu/context/kk/article/1990/viewcontent/KK_2039_2C_202022_2010_20Forum_20Kritika_20on_20Ethical_20Literary_20Criticism_2C_20Brain_20Text_2C_20and_20New_20Readings_20of_20World_20Literature_20_28Part_20II_29_20__20Chen.pdf
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

Inspired by ethical literary criticism, this article1 attempts to bring to critical attention the ethical dimensions of Mitchell’s war writing in Black Swan Green. By analyzing the way in which Jason’s brain text in relation to war formulates and develops, this article tries to throw light on Mitchell’s strategy of approaching and reconsidering the causes and consequences of war from the perspective of a teenager. It is argued that Mitchell has exploited diverse expressive resources—the art of the fragmentary, for example—to break new ground for rethinking the wars that fade into history. Instead of portraying violent scenes where bloody battles occur, Mitchell directs readerly attention to the emotional and ethical responses provoked in an individual that remains far away from the battlefield. In this sense, the pyrotechnic storytelling in Black Swan Green bears witness to Mitchell’s ongoing efforts to introduce fresh perspectives with which to rethink war and peace and gives full expression to the ethical cosmopolitanism that he expects contemporary readership to embrace in the era of globalization.