The Interdependence of the Ethical Component and Narration in Camus’ The Stranger and Zupan’s Klement

Abstract

This article discusses the way narrative elements (primarily the narrator and different types of discourse) influence the ethical potential of a literary work. Beside presenting three of the most important components of the ethical potential—the sense of the possible, development and consolidation of the identity as well as the sense of understanding and tolerance—it explores the reader’s ethical criticism that may occur on the external (regarding the author), intermediate (regarding the narrator), or internal (regarding the literary characters) level of the storytelling process. The Stranger by Albert Camus and Klement by Vitomil Zupan are ethically analyzed with regard to all three levels of the process of narration on the one hand and to the relations between the author, narrator, reader, and literary work on the other. Special focus is placed on the intermediate level of the storytelling process. Based on the chosen works that differ in narrators and types of discourse, the article explains different possibilities to impact the components of the ethical potential by introducing a model of the open, guiding, and propositional ethical component. Finally, it emphasizes the role of the reader or each individual reading and the subjective nature of how the analyzed possibilities of the ethical impacts can be realized.