Abstract: The Public Image, which was on the shortlist of the first Booker Prize in 1969, demonstrates Muriel Spark's attempts to deal with the heroine's ethical predicament and her exploration into the ethical problems in the world. Annabel, the heroine, achieves great success in the film world, thus bringing about unusual ethical environment for her family. In face of the subsequent ethical paradox and ethical selections, Annabel spares no efforts in the pursuit of a suitable ethical identity as well as her personal ideal and liberal spirit. Annabel's selections produce beneficial and wonderful ethical enlightenment, and to some extent reflect Muriel Spark's ethical viewpoints and values of life. Though Spark presents an extramarital affair of a public character with her typical impersonal narrative approach, the author's ethical viewpoints are revealed through Annabel's ethical selections. They are as follows: Human beings should be courageous in face of the collision between evil and goodness.; whenever there exist conflicts between freedom and restriction, people should bravely make their choices on the basis of right and proper ethical values. The Public Image becomes a model work in reference to ethics in contemporary British literary history.

Key words: Muriel Spark, The Public Image, approval of identities, ethical selections