The devil inside that won’t be caged or fixed by words: Fluidity and ethics in Ian McGuire’s The North Water
Abstract In Ian McGuire’s novel The North Water (2016), Patrick Sumner, a young medical doctor recently dismissedfrom the British Army with his reputation and professional prospects in ruins, accepts a poorly paid position as a surgeon on a whaling ship in his attempt to flee from his past and his t...
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crdegruyter:10.2478/aa-2019-0007 2023-05-15T15:09:10+02:00 The devil inside that won’t be caged or fixed by words: Fluidity and ethics in Ian McGuire’s The North Water Chalupský, Petr 2019 http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/aa-2019-0007 https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/aa/11/2/article-p1.xml https://www.sciendo.com/pdf/10.2478/aa-2019-0007 en eng Walter de Gruyter GmbH http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 CC-BY-NC-ND Ars Aeterna volume 11, issue 2, page 1-23 ISSN 2450-8497 1337-9291 Literature and Literary Theory Linguistics and Language Language and Linguistics Cultural Studies journal-article 2019 crdegruyter https://doi.org/10.2478/aa-2019-0007 2022-07-08T14:11:14Z Abstract In Ian McGuire’s novel The North Water (2016), Patrick Sumner, a young medical doctor recently dismissedfrom the British Army with his reputation and professional prospects in ruins, accepts a poorly paid position as a surgeon on a whaling ship in his attempt to flee from his past and his troubled conscience. However, contrary to his expectations, in the Arctic Circle he faces an ordeal far more demanding than anything he has hitherto endured in the form of the harpooner Henry Drax, a dangerous psychopath who is ready to abuse and murder anyone who is an obstacle to the satisfaction of his brutish physical needs. Confronted with violence and cruelty beyond understanding, within the fluid framework of the distorted ethical norms and values of the heterogeneous crew, the embittered Sumner is gradually forced to abandon his protective shell of resigned indifference and reassess the moral stances and responsibilities of a civilized person when faced with human wickedness. Though McGuire acknowledges primarily the inspiration of Herman Melville and Cormac McCarthy, this paper argues that in ethical terms the novel responds to Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim and Heart of Darkness , pushing the protagonist’s relationship to the other to an extreme by making the other an embodiment of pure evil. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic De Gruyter (via Crossref) Arctic McCarthy ENVELOPE(66.543,66.543,-70.404,-70.404) Sumner ENVELOPE(-63.727,-63.727,-74.499,-74.499) Ars Aeterna 11 2 1 23 |
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De Gruyter (via Crossref) |
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English |
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Literature and Literary Theory Linguistics and Language Language and Linguistics Cultural Studies |
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Literature and Literary Theory Linguistics and Language Language and Linguistics Cultural Studies Chalupský, Petr The devil inside that won’t be caged or fixed by words: Fluidity and ethics in Ian McGuire’s The North Water |
topic_facet |
Literature and Literary Theory Linguistics and Language Language and Linguistics Cultural Studies |
description |
Abstract In Ian McGuire’s novel The North Water (2016), Patrick Sumner, a young medical doctor recently dismissedfrom the British Army with his reputation and professional prospects in ruins, accepts a poorly paid position as a surgeon on a whaling ship in his attempt to flee from his past and his troubled conscience. However, contrary to his expectations, in the Arctic Circle he faces an ordeal far more demanding than anything he has hitherto endured in the form of the harpooner Henry Drax, a dangerous psychopath who is ready to abuse and murder anyone who is an obstacle to the satisfaction of his brutish physical needs. Confronted with violence and cruelty beyond understanding, within the fluid framework of the distorted ethical norms and values of the heterogeneous crew, the embittered Sumner is gradually forced to abandon his protective shell of resigned indifference and reassess the moral stances and responsibilities of a civilized person when faced with human wickedness. Though McGuire acknowledges primarily the inspiration of Herman Melville and Cormac McCarthy, this paper argues that in ethical terms the novel responds to Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim and Heart of Darkness , pushing the protagonist’s relationship to the other to an extreme by making the other an embodiment of pure evil. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Chalupský, Petr |
author_facet |
Chalupský, Petr |
author_sort |
Chalupský, Petr |
title |
The devil inside that won’t be caged or fixed by words: Fluidity and ethics in Ian McGuire’s The North Water |
title_short |
The devil inside that won’t be caged or fixed by words: Fluidity and ethics in Ian McGuire’s The North Water |
title_full |
The devil inside that won’t be caged or fixed by words: Fluidity and ethics in Ian McGuire’s The North Water |
title_fullStr |
The devil inside that won’t be caged or fixed by words: Fluidity and ethics in Ian McGuire’s The North Water |
title_full_unstemmed |
The devil inside that won’t be caged or fixed by words: Fluidity and ethics in Ian McGuire’s The North Water |
title_sort |
devil inside that won’t be caged or fixed by words: fluidity and ethics in ian mcguire’s the north water |
publisher |
Walter de Gruyter GmbH |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/aa-2019-0007 https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/aa/11/2/article-p1.xml https://www.sciendo.com/pdf/10.2478/aa-2019-0007 |
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ENVELOPE(66.543,66.543,-70.404,-70.404) ENVELOPE(-63.727,-63.727,-74.499,-74.499) |
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Arctic McCarthy Sumner |
geographic_facet |
Arctic McCarthy Sumner |
genre |
Arctic |
genre_facet |
Arctic |
op_source |
Ars Aeterna volume 11, issue 2, page 1-23 ISSN 2450-8497 1337-9291 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY-NC-ND |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.2478/aa-2019-0007 |
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Ars Aeterna |
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11 |
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2 |
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23 |
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