The main character, who also appears in Coetzee's novel "Elizabeth Costello", is concerned with the moral status of animals, a subject Midgley addressed in "Animals and Why They Matter", and discusses at length the idea of sympathy as an ethical concept, a subject Midgley wrote about in "Beast and Man". Andy Lamey wrote that the result of these and other similarities is that Coetzee's work "evokea particular conception of ethics, one very similar to that of the philosopher Mary Midgley. Such a view affords a central role to sympathy and is fundamentally opposed to a long-standing rival view, most clearly exemplified by the social contract tradition, which prioritizes an instrumental conception of rationality."