Lost And Regained:An Exploration Of Charles' Existential Essence In The Sea,The Sea

Irish Murdoch is a renowned female novelist after WWII as well as a distinguished philosopher.The Sea,The Sea is regarded as her greatest and most influential novel which won her the Booker Prize.This thesis explores the protagonist,Charles' essence of existence through analyzing the nothingness of his existence and his pursuit of goodness.Some existential concepts of Sartre,the representative figure of existentialism,are used for reference.This thesis is made up of an introduction,two chapters as the main body and a conclusion.In the first chapter,the background knowledge about Iris Murdoch and existentialism is introduced.The philosophical idea which can be explored in The Sea,the Sea has a close relationship with Sartre's concept of freedom.The protagonist Charles Arrowby,an established theatre director,intends to be a hermit who lives a peaceful life by the sea and does introspection about his self-regarding life after retirement.But beyond his expectation,he still lives in the world that is full of absurdity,egoism and loneliness.In the second chapter,this thesis analyzes the manifestations and reasons of his nothingness specifically from the perspective of existentialism.In the third chapter,this thesis explores Charles' pursuit of the essence of existence through analyzing his recognition of freedom,recovery of rationality and his rebirth in the sea.Sartre's idea that people should achieve the true freedom and create their existential meaning by transcending the absurd world is used for reference.After a series of contingent events happened to Charles,he begins to break the bondage of the jealousy in his heart and rethink the meaning of life and death.He gradually walked out of his self-centred world.Chapter Four is the conclusion in which,the major findings and limitations of this thesis are summarized briefly and some suggestions for the further studies are given to the later researchers of this field,which is significant for the study of Murdoch's novel as well as the philosophical ideas of existentialism.