Navigating ethical dilemmas and embracing emotional responses: Noria’s agonising moral choices in Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta

The contemporary era’s climate fluctuations have wrought profound consequences on both the planet and its inhabitants, prompting a surge in climate literature that underscores the societal and environmental implications of climate change while instilling a sense of accountability. This study conducts a textual analysis of Memory of Water (2014), a novel by the Finnish author Emmi Itäranta (b. 1976), to examine how the protagonist, Noria, faces ethical dilemmas and makes ethical choices during a climate crisis. Utilising the framework of ethical choices conceptualised by the American philosopher Martha Nussbaum, the study explores the ethical dilemmas faced by Noria and the subsequent ethical decisions she makes following emotional turmoil. As Nussbaum points out, emotional responses generate compassionate and just ethical choices while facing ethical dilemmas. While discovering the ethical dilemmas triggered by climate change, this study also found that Nora’s emotional responses have indeed helped her make ethical decisions, upholding goodness and morality in balancing the needs of the ecosystem and the well-being of humankind.

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