Dwelling with Humans and Nonhumans: Neighboring Ethics in The Franklin's Tale

In this article I propose a merger of neighbor theory with insights drawn from the clustered fields of ecocriticism, posthumanism, and new materialism to analyze Chaucer's representation of the ethical dilemmas appending the interrelation of humans and nonhumans. Theorists of the neighbor insist upon the productive potential of the ethical process to which the neighbor invites us: to acknowledge the transgressive alienation shared by self and neighbor, and then to love the neighbor by being willing to dwell in that uncomfortable space as we make ethical choices. Yet the basis for making ethical choices has become radically unstable in light of the ontological leveling that ecocriticism, posthumanism, and new materialism often insist upon, to say nothing of other constraints that limit human agency. Chaucer's Franklin's Tale elucidates the vexed nature of these dilemmas. I argue that Dorigen's troubled relationships with her husband, her would-be lover, and the sea-rocks together constitute an imbricated cluster of neighboring relationships in the tale. These neighbors confront Dorigen with a series of difficult and socially charged ethical demands to which she struggles to respond. Through Dorigen's intense affective expression, Chaucer interrogates the problems and potentialities of loving troublesome neighbors, whether those neighbors are human or nonhuman. Reading across these interrelations through the ethical framework of neighboring allows us to probe the possibilities and challenges for ethical human action in light of our new ontological frameworks.