Ethical Consumption in Teaching Fiction: A Reading of Morrison, Butler, and Le Guin

Abstract

It has long been common practice in the Secondary English classroom to use literature as a chance to teach students to empathize with one another. My research draws from the work of Saidiya Hartman on the complicated nature of consuming historical literature about Black suffering to consider what it might mean to consume literature about suffering and pain in the classroom in an ethical way. I build on her ideas to consider how centering ethical consumption, rather than empathy, in reading fiction in the Secondary English classroom creates better practices for preparing students to engage critically with the world around them. I also rely on framework from Toni Morrison’s theories of returning to the past for guidance in building the future to suggest that this method of reading literature is more effective in preparing students to confront a changing and challenging world. I show the effectiveness of ethical reading using three short stories: “Recitatif” by Toni Morrison, “Bloodchild” by Octavia Butler, and “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin.