The aim of the following master’s thesis is to analyze moral difficulties in and in relation to the French novel Grey Soulsby Philippe Claudel. Situated in the philosophic and literary tradition of Ordinary Language Criticism, the thesis applies and takes support from reasoning, ideas, and procedures from Niklas Forsberg, Stanley Cavell, Toril Moi and Nora Hämäläinen. A starting point is that the reader is vital for the novel’s moral impact. Through the analysis, sectioned into two parts, I study events, themes, and characters in the novel, before focusing on the anonymous narrator. By using the distinction between subjective and objective knowledge (Forsberg) and “best case of acknowledgement” (Cavell) I reach the conclusion that the narrator’s quest for objective knowledge is a diversion: it is subjective knowledge that he really seeks and needs to acknowledge. By applying Hämäläinen’s open-ended use and Forsberg’s mirroring, the thesis continuously puts emphasis on the role the reader holds in relation to the novel’s moral difficulties, arguing that the reader, too, needs to be subjectively engaged to grasp the novel’s difficulties and do it justice. / L’objectif du mémoire de master suivant est d’analyser les difficultés morales dedans et par rapport au roman français Les Âmes grises de Philippe Claudel. Situé dans la tradition philosophique et littéraire d’Ordinary Language Criticism, le mémoire applique et prend appui sur des raisonnements, des idées et des procédures de Niklas Forsberg, Stanley Cavell, Toril Moi et Nora Hämäläinen. Un point de départ est que le lecteur est essentiel pour l’impact moral du roman. À travers l’analyse, divisée en deux parties, j’étudie des événements, des thèmes et des personnages du roman, avant de me focaliser sur le narrateur anonyme. En utilisant la distinction entre connaissance subjective et objective (Forsberg) et le « best case of acknowledgement » (Cavell), j’arrive à la conclusion que la quête de connaissance objective du narrateur est une diversion : c’est la connaissance subjective qu’il recherche réellement et qu’il doit reconnaître. En appliquant la lecture ouverte de Hämäläinen et la mise en miroir de Forsberg, le mémoire met continuellement l’accent sur le rôle que joue le lecteur par rapport aux difficultés morales du roman, arguant que le lecteur aussi doit être engagé subjectivement pour saisir les difficultés du roman et le faire justice.

The aim of this Master’s thesis is to achieve philosophical clarity on an interpretative problem I have been struggle with in Euripides’ Medea: That Medea murders her own children, while claimingto love them. Situated within the philosophical and literary tradition of ordinary language philosophy and ordinary language criticism, the thesis draws on ideas, theoretical discussions, and concepts from Ludwig Wittgenstein, Toril Moi, Stanley Cavell, Cora Diamond, and Niklas Forsberg – but also Søren Kierkegaard. The analysis is divided in two parts. The first is anarticulation of the grammar of my problem through Cora Diamond’s conception of the phenomenon “a difficulty of reality”, and an emulation of a hermeneutical strategy to deal with such problems, which I identify in Søren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling. I reach the conclusion that the co-existence of Medea’s murder och love is a paradox, which cannot be thought. The second part of the analysis is an attempt to step out of this paradox. Here, I compare Medea to Stanley Cavell’s readings on the Shakespearean tragedies Othello and King Lear, and Cavell’s ideas on “lived scepticism”, “avoidance of love” and “best case of acknowledgment”. By doing this, I am able to form the hypothesis that Medea’s understanding of “love” has been severely damagedafter Jason’s betrayal, and that she actually fails to sensically mean that she loves her children. In its use of my own confusion as a starting point and in employing Toril Moi’s views on reading, this thesis continuously stresses the individual reader’s responsibility in literary interpretation, as well as the importance of daring to voice or personal struggles, questions, and interests – even (or especially) when reading great classics.