The titular heroine in red attire is sent to visit her female ancestor. The heroine ignores the parental instructions to stay to a safe path. She encounters a predator, which convinces her to leave the path to gather colorful vegetation for her older relative. While she is happily diverted, the named Canis lupus sprints to the heroine´s neglected relative´s dwelling, gains entry and then ingests that elderly female character in her entirety. When the protagonist arrives at last at her relative´s quarters, she discovers a suspiciously furry individual in her elderly relation's clothes who promptly disposes of her. When the fiend is in deep slumber, an idling forest laborer materializes and slays him. The heroine and her elderly relation emerge unharmed and undigested. Everyone is relieved and pleased except for the female impersonator, who is deceased. The heroine repents of her actions, a changed individual. The survivors and their savior consume the victuals, which the heroine had transported to the dwelling upon the initial request of her close relative. |
Listen to the story "Bullet in the Brain" on Itunes (the link is to the New Yorker Fiction Podcasts)
Write a short summary of one the stories you have read and discussed during the semester and choose one of the moral questions below and write a full answer. Do that in the form below (scroll down to the bottom of the page). The form can contain more lines than you can see now.
The following is a list of some moral dilemmas, mostly adapted from Moral Reasoning, by Victor Grassian (Prentice Hall, 1981, 1992), with a couple additions. The question to consider with all of these is why they are dilemmas. Some, however, may not seem to be dilemmas at all. Discussion of the dilemmas can be found at The Generalized Structure of Ethical Dilemmas.
In 1842, a ship struck an iceberg and more than 30 survivors were crowded into a lifeboat intended to hold 7. As a storm threatened, it became obvious that the lifeboat would have to be lightened if anyone were to survive. The captain reasoned that the right thing to do in this situation was to force some individuals to go over the side and drown. Such an action, he reasoned, was not unjust to those thrown overboard, for they would have drowned anyway. If he did nothing, however, he would be responsible for the deaths of those whom he could have saved. Some people opposed the captain's decision. They claimed that if nothing were done and everyone died as a result, no one would be responsible for these deaths. On the other hand, if the captain attempted to save some, he could do so only by killing others and their deaths would be his responsibility; this would be worse than doing nothing and letting all die. The captain rejected this reasoning. Since the only possibility for rescue required great efforts of rowing, the captain decided that the weakest would have to be sacrificed. In this situation it would be absurd, he thought, to decide by drawing lots who should be thrown overboard. As it turned out, after days of hard rowing, the survivors were rescued and the captain was tried for his action. If you had been on the jury, how would you have decided?
You are an inmate in a concentration camp. A sadistic guard is about to hang your son who tried to escape and wants you to pull the chair from underneath him. He says that if you don't he will not only kill your son but some other innocent inmate as well. You don't have any doubt that he means what he says. What should you do?
In the novel Sophie's Choice, by William Styron (Vintage Books, 1976 -- the 1982 movie starred Meryl Streep & Kevin Kline), a Polish woman, Sophie Zawistowska, is arrested by the Nazis and sent to the Auschwitz death camp. On arrival, she is "honored" for not being a Jew by being allowed a choice: One of her children will be spared the gas chamber if she chooses which one. In an agony of indecision, as both children are being taken away, she suddenly does choose. They can take her daughter, who is younger and smaller. Sophie hopes that her older and stronger son will be better able to survive, but she loses track of him and never does learn of his fate. Did she do the right thing? Years later, haunted by the guilt of having chosen between her children, Sophie commits suicide. Should she have felt guilty?
