Language as Moral Action and the Ethical Dimensions of Teaching and Texts: Reflections on the 25th Year of Teaching

In the 1970s, women's literature had not yet arrived in the high school classroom, nor in graduate studies. Only some 20 years later was attention turned to women's literature through the publication of the "Norton Anthology of Literature by Women." Contemporary works by women writers that speak powerfully to the issue of women's voicelessness are Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, "The Color Purple" and Jane Campion's acclaimed film, "The Piano." Both works begin with an imposition of silence and end with each protagonist finding her voice. There is an ethical dimension involved in choosing texts which does not have to do with censorship and control but rather with the liberation of thought. Texts such as these not only encourage the move from silence towards language, especially for those marginalized students who might need encouragement the most, but also offer alternate values and moralities from those of a dominant culture which may suppress certain segments of society. Teaching such texts, in all their complexity, far from diminishing the literary canon, illustrates how the acquisition of voice and language is so central to speaking autonomously, thinking independently, and becoming capable of genuinely moral action which can only issue from an authentic individual. (Contains 21 notes and 6 references.) (CR)