THE MORAL(E)/MORALS OF LATE-BLOOMING, SMALL-TOWN LOVE IN KENT HARUF’S OUR SOULS AT NIGHT
THE MORAL(E)/MORALS OF LATE-BLOOMING, SMALL-TOWN LOVE IN KENT HARUF’S OUR SOULS AT NIGHT

Summary/Abstract: This research looks into the fictional world of Kent Haruf’s novel Our Souls at Night, to analyze a late-blooming love between two seniors, against the background of a prejudiced small-town community. The introduction explains the notions present in the title, making the relevant distinctions between the terms used – moral(s), morale – announcing the focus on what is implied by their meanings, namely personal and collective outlooks that have to do with morality and the protagonists’ individual attitudes and emotions, in order to understand thoroughly their life choices. To this end, we start from the elements that point to the contractual approach to their agreement at the very start, work out the reactions of the community and what triggers them, reach, with the analysis, the mature portion of their relationship and self-fulfillment, and then plunge into family histories to see under what sign they have made their decisions – as there is an initial decision and then a subsequent contrasting one that baffles our expectations and contradicts what they have managed to show and build until then. The approach is identity studies and the lens of psychology, with resort to concepts from intercultural studies (developed by Hofstede, Minkov, Trompenaars, Hampden-Turner and Schein).

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