ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

Dementia is an unexpected event that destroys the unity and consistency of life for aged characters. Also, the identity as a patient who needs someone's caring is given to them. Therefore, the identity of characters who are diagnosed with dementia is emphasized becomes a major issue for dementia narrative and the ethical issue is suggested between the characters who provide caring and others who receive it. This study discusses the ethics of narrative through the identity and consideration of characters in the dementia narrative based on dementia novel and dementia memoris. According to Ricoeur, a character's identity consists of the concordance discordante derived from a story's plot and it is revealed by the dialectic of identification(consistent personality) and selfhood(keeping promises through self-consistency). In a dementia narrative, a person who has a dementia divides the identification by the loss of memory. But the identification that was separated by the loss of memory was integrated dialectically to build up the identity of characters through the ethical deed of selfhood to keep promises for others. The characters who have dementia cannot be the narrator to tell their stories because of loss of memory and language skills. Therefore, their caregivers become the narrators to tell the stories of their lives. The narrators' identity is also revealed in the stories. The characters that give caring to those who have dementia in the dementia epic do not simply provide care. They emphasize with others' agony and realize the mortality of mankind from their helplessness. This manifests that pursuing a good life with others and for others is the ethics of consideration and self-respect is fully realized through consideration of others in agony. Also, the caregivers develop identity as separate characters in the dementia narrative while realizing selfhood through self-respect from consideration. The identity of these characters display the ethics of stories told through the dementia narrative. The ethics of the narrative in the dementia narrative will help the reader to develop moral imagination and moral judgment ability and to raise the ethical sense of the other.

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