A Study Of The Black Prince From The Perspective Of Feminist Care Ethics

Acknowledged as a prolific writer and influential philosopher,Iris Murdoch has won aworldwide reputation and renown.Owing to its remarkable narrative strategies as well as its compact plot,Murdoch’ s masterpiece The Black Prince has stirred a tremendous sensation since its first publication.And it was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction in the year of 1972.Numerous studies both at home and abroad spring up like mushrooms,and they mainly focus on the male narrative study,the theme study,the moral philosophy study as well as the psychological study.Murdoch devotes considerable energy to the male’ s pilgrimage to good.At the same time,the female as the other are endowed with characteristics of caring.This thesis seeks to analyze the vital role that the female play in male’ s pilgrimage to good,that is,how the female help the self-centered male to divert their attention from self to the other and the outside world,then to achieve the co-existence of self and the other.The thesis consists of introduction,four chapters together with conclusion.A brief introduction of Iris Murdoch and her excellent work The Black Prince is made in the introduction part.Besides,literature review both at home and abroad is included in this part as well.Chapter one makes a detailed exploration of the common features between female care ethics and Iris Murdoch’ s gender ethical ideas,which can be functioned as the theoretical foundation of this thesis.This chapter can be divided into three parts: definition of feminist care ethics,features of feminist care ethics as well as Iris Murdoch’ s gender ethical ideas respectively.By comparison,both feminist care ethics and Iris Murdoch emphasize the priority of human relations and attach considerable importance to the construction of the scene in which self and the other,male and female could co-existent.Chapter two deals with the obstacles in male’ s pilgrimage to good,including male’ s inattentiveness to the other,male’ s irresponsibility to the other,male’ s dislike for the other as well as male’ s disrespect for the other.Chapter three comes to female’ s significance in the male’ s pilgrimage to good.Priscilla’ s suicide makes Bradley realize that he should pay attention to the other,Racial’ s craze revenge reminds Bradley of the importance of responsibility to the other,Julian’ s breaking up with Bradley makes Bradley aware his love for the other,and Christian’ s self-improvement wins Bradley’ s epiphany of respecting for the other.Chapter four presents the co-existence of self and the other under the feminist care ethics.This part highlightsBradley’ s acceptance of the other’ s uniqueness and human relations,which is in accordance with Murdoch’ s attempt of constructing the co-existent situation of male and female.This thesis intends to understand female’ s significance in male’ s pilgrimage to good from the perspective of feminism care ethics.Then a conclusion can be drawn: Iris Murdoch intends to break the opposite mode that male as self and female as the other respectively,she is committed to build a world in which self and the other,male and female could be co-exist.