Abstract

Drawing from Mikhaïl Bakhtin's dialogism and Martha Nussbaum's moral particularism, we propose to understand the ways in which literature can express and support moral resistance. The argument is the following: when a literary work is written with an attention to particulars (comprising the elements of contextuality, incommensurability and surprise, following Nussbaum's analysis in "Love's Knowledge"), it is capable of showing what is denied by oppressive representations of human beings: namely, that each person constitutes a unique point of view and a unique voice, resisting the identity assignations necessary for political and social oppression. Within this theoretical background, we propose an analysis of Jean Rhys' literary works, especially "Good Morning, Midnight" (1939).