El dinero del diablo by Pedro Ángel Palou: A New Moral Dialogue

Abstract

The devil’s money (El dinero del diablo) by Pedro Ángel Palou revolves around a moral conflict. Reading it requires of the reader an attitude of involvement in the moral reflection and creates an ethical experience. How come this novel has this effect on the reader? Houvenaghel argues that the novel functions as a moral dialogue, a major genre in antiquity. The moral dialogue represents the confrontation between different, often opposite, ethical positions: it presents the way in which moral consciousness is developed through competition among different ethical positions and in this way provides moral instruction to the reader. She concludes by showing how the novel provides a locus of tension from which moral reflection is to be prompted by the act of reading.