Abstract: Graham Swift is well known for exploring traditional themes in narrative representation. In Last Orders, Swift employs various postmodern narrative techniques to address the questions of ethics and politics. By denying the closure and linear nature of traditional narrative, and weaving the complex narration with ethical threads interacting explicitly and implicitly, Swift leaves room for discussion of ethical issues. From the perspective of literary ethical criticism, this paper, through analyzing the characters’ identity crisis as embodied in ethical confusion, aims to reflect on the rupture and revision of the ethical structure in contemporary British society, and to comprehend Swift’s anticipation of ethical value and edification function in literature.

Key words: Last Orders, narrative techniques, ethical confusion, reconstruction of ethical order