Coumba Diawara’s Essay Outline

Throughout this essay we will take a look into the short story “An Arranged Marriage” by Nell Freudenberger published in 2010 and evaluate the main character’s ethical decisions and behaviors while using “A Short Introduction to Five Types of Ethics”. The main types of ethics we discover throughout this story are deontology ethics, and virtue ethics. “A Short Introduction to Five Types of Ethics” describes to us that “deontology is one of those kinds of normative theories regarding which choices are required, forbidden, or permitted. In other words, deontology falls within the domain of rules that guide and assess our choices of what we ought to do. Any system that involves a clear set of rules is a form of deontology; it is often referred to as a rule-based ethic.” After reading this text we see that Amina’s mother strongly falls under this category because of how much she relies on Amina following specific rules and restrictions on marriage. “A Short Introduction to Five Types of Ethics” also tells us that, “what sort of person should I be? Virtue ethics focuses on ideas such as: the virtues themselves, motives and moral character, moral education, moral wisdom, friendship and family relationships, a deep concept of happiness, and the role of the emotions in our moral life.” Amina herself strongly falls under this category because we can see that throughout the text one of her main focuses is doing what her parents desire, on supporting her parents. Therefore, after acquiring useful information from both text it is certain that Amina’s mother is strict on her daughter following certain guidelines, while Amina is completely focused on her relationships not only with her parents but with George and supporting her parents. 

Paragraph 2- Introducing Amina, Explaining her role in her parents life, relationship with George, and showing how falling under virtue ethics affects her decision making and behavior.

Paragraph 3- Introducing Amina’s mother, Explaining her relationship and role in Amina’s life, and showing how falling under deontology ethics affects her decision making and what she expects of Amina.

Paragraph 4-

Paragraph 5- Wrapping up the previous paragraphs, discussing how ethics can affect a person’s decision.