Date of Award

Spring 5-2-2025

Document Type

Honors Project

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

English and Linguistics

Department Chair or Program Director

Levin, Jonathan

First Advisor

Scanlon, Mara

Major or Concentration

English

Abstract

In my paper, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena: Exploring Post-War Ethics, I explore the embodiment of care ethics and informed altruism through the novel’s protagonists, Akhmed and Sonja, respectively, who each care for a local girl Havaa whose home has been destroyed and whose father has been disappeared by the Russian Feds from their small Chechen village. Akhmed immediately takes her on as his own while Sonja is hesitant. As the novel progresses, Sonja and Akhmed each provide an even amount of time and effort into her care, though they approach it differently. Akhmed—Havaa’s neighbor and family friend—works together with Sonja—the surgeon of the nearby hospital who returned to Chechnya during the First Chechen War to find her sister—to maintain a refuge for the girl. Through research on feminist theory regarding care ethics and informed altruism, I analyze the ways in which both characters respond to Havaa and their post-war society through those respective lenses. I further contrast their embodiments of care ethics and altruism to utilitarianism through another character, Ramzan—Akhmed and Havaa’s neighbor, former friend, and current informant to the Feds who, it is suggested, is indirectly responsible for Havaa’s father’s disappearance. This paper aims not to conclude what an appropriate response is to the trauma of wartime and its aftermath, but rather assess how these characters do respond and provide an understanding of why, and how it may reflect real world reactions.

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