“Try to Be Loved & Not-Admired”: Lily Bart’s Moral Struggle

Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216275%3A25210%2F22%3A39919535" target="_blank" >RIV/00216275:25210/22:39919535 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
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DOI - Digital Object Identifier
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Result language
angličtina
Original language name
“Try to Be Loved & Not-Admired”: Lily Bart’s Moral Struggle
Original language description
This chapter examines the tension between admiration and love in the domain of personal relationships from the perspective of the person who is admired or loved. I show that it is possible for a person to affect which of these responses she evokes, and that, for some people, admiration presents a powerful temptation that can become a life strategy of avoiding love, compassion and full recognition. Building on Stanley Cavell’s study of the opening scene of King Lear, I claim that shame about one’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities can lead to trading love for admiration and to the danger of disastrous consequences not only for one’s relationships but for one’s life as a whole. My interpretation of Lily Bart’s story from Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth furthers Cavell’s point in that it elaborates on the moral aspects of such a life strategy. Lily’s moral struggle ends with a profound transformation in which she accepts love, thereby accepting her more genuine moral self. I thus interpret Wittgenstein’s “Try to be loved & not-admired” as a moral warning.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Project
<a href="/en/project/EF15_003%2F0000425" target="_blank" >EF15_003/0000425: Centre for Ethics</a><br>
Continuities
P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year
2022
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

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