“What We’re Made of”: Personhood in Graham Swift’s Last Orders

This article argues that Graham Swift’s novel Last Orders addresses profound moral questions about what constitutes a person. The article takes its lead from John Habgood’s question, “How complete does a human being have to be in order to qualify morally as a person?” and also draws on insights from other theologians to analyze the moral perspective of the novel. It shows how Last Orders looks for redemption in the face of broken relationships and radical crises of identity, and also shows how Swift defends the moral personhood of the disabled and the recently deceased.