The Time Traveler's Morality: Analyzing the Collision of Time and Ethics in Literature
Open Access
Author:
Powers, Matthew Hunt
Area of Honors:
English
Degree:
Bachelor of Arts
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
Dr. Richard Matthew Doyle, Thesis Supervisor Dr. Richard Matthew Doyle, Thesis Supervisor Janet Wynne Lyon, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
time ethics subjectivity Vonnegut Bachelder Kierkegaard Husserl
Abstract:
Time and ethics, although at first glance have little to do with each other, are actually
incredibly intertwined and complex. While the idea of a so called "objective" time might
be comforting, compelling and even romantic, the search or desire for this concept of
"real" or "actual" time is misguided and undesirable. By combining Edmund Husserl‘s
"Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness" and Søren Kierkegaard‘s "Fear and
Trembling", this paper seeks to create a literary lens that will help uncover this interesting
collision of time and ethics in Kurt Vonnegut‘s "Slaughterhouse-Five" and Chris
Bachelder‘s "U.S.!" From there, the paper will see what this literature has to add to the
discourse before concluding that subjective time is superior to objective time in allowing
for a more interesting and dynamic view on human morality.
