Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Culture, Education and Economic Development of Modern Society (ICCESE 2018)

Family Ethics in Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You

Authors
Yuan Shen, Ting Yang
Corresponding Author
Yuan Shen
Available Online March 2018.
DOI
10.2991/iccese-18.2018.105How to use a DOI?
Keywords
Celeste Ng; Everything I Never Told You; family ethics
Abstract

Chinese American writer Celeste Ng’s novel Everything I Never Told You penetrates into the educational crisis in a mixed-race family by highlighting the sense of alienation, frustration and depression resulting from distorted family ethics. This paper mainly analyzes the ethical issues in the novel from the perspectives of conjugal ethics, parent-child ethics and sibling ethics. According to Hegel, conjugal ethics requires both parties’ unification of personality, and their acknowledgement of the entitativity of a family, while James and Marilyn failed to do so. Apart from that, James’ estrangement from the children and Marilyn’s high expectations for Lydia made them suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, and gave rise to Lydia’s death. Moreover, the issues of excessive attachment, escapism and invisibility aroused by siblings obstruct a normal intersubjectivity. Celeste Ng thus underscores the significance of wholesome family ethics for children’s growth and cultivation.

Copyright
© 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.
Open Access
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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Volume Title
Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Culture, Education and Economic Development of Modern Society (ICCESE 2018)
Series
Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research
Publication Date
March 2018
ISBN
978-94-6252-495-8
ISSN
2352-5398
DOI
10.2991/iccese-18.2018.105How to use a DOI?
Copyright
© 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.
Open Access
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

Cite this article

TY  - CONF
AU  - Yuan Shen
AU  - Ting Yang
PY  - 2018/03
DA  - 2018/03
TI  - Family Ethics in Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You
BT  - Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Culture, Education and Economic Development of Modern Society (ICCESE 2018)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 453
EP  - 458
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/iccese-18.2018.105
DO  - 10.2991/iccese-18.2018.105
ID  - Shen2018/03
ER  -