Reading of The Guiltless from the Perspective of Ethical Literary Criticism

Abstract

The Guiltless is Hermann Broch’s last novel, and it is also a work that embodies Broch’s literary and artistic view. The novel takes place in a period of social and historical change, and the conflict between the old and the new ethical relations leads to the confusion of the ethical relations, which causes the relationship between the characters to become distorted. This paper tries to analyze the relationship between Baroness W and her family from the perspective of Ethical Literary Criticism in aspects of ethical environment, ethical selection and ethical identity. It reveals that in the period of social and historical change, in the environment of social ethics disorder, the distorted ethical selection of characters and the loss of ethical identity. Hermann Broch attempts to arouse readers’ ethical reflection by depicting such an era and such characters.