Lost And Back: The Essence In Iris Murdoch's Novels

Iris Murdoch is a well-known English woman writer in the 20th century.Her works cover poetry, drama; novel and philosophy, but all are closely around the central theme of searching for the way back to the essence of man so as to go,out of the homeless state of man's wandering of the spirit after the death of God for the modern western people. Murdoch's novels touch the agony and struggle of man,and their effort of having them coped with after the loss of the essence. Revolving round the theme, my thesis consists of the introduction, five chapters of the main body and the conclusion.Iris Murdoch is still relatively strange to the ordinary Chinese readers and even the academic field. Therefore, the introduction first describes the life, works and Murdoch's thought, and then makes comments on Murdoch's literature survey, and finally leads to the theme of the dissertation by explaining the key word "essence.'The main body includes five chapters:Chapter One is "Home Left and Returned:The Essence of Man According to Murdoch". The chapter tries to differentiate the special features of Murdoch's works by comparing them with other writers'of her times so as to make clear of Murdoch's focus of concern. Murdoch lives nearly through the whole 20th century,with many schools of thought arising and fading away, but she herself sticks to her own pursuit. The essence of man is Murdoch's central concern from her first novel in 1950s to her last novel in 1990s. For those who believe in religion,God represents the esserice of man which integrates the world with man. But in Murdoch's time God has been pronounced dead, which cut the tie between people, and man lost the essence, becoming individuals without link, a contingency. Man in Murdoch's works is the deputy of modern western people. The people are wanderers of spirit without the essence, enduring home-left pain and hesitation, but they never give up their efforts to find the essence. Home-left and back in reality is often a metaphor for the essence of lost and found.Chapter Two is "'I' is 'non-he':The Essence on Self".When the order of God is broken, man has to remake the order himself. Some try to use power to transfer the suffering in reality and master the order, others depend on their imagination and self-narration to distort others'reality and reconstruct the essence of self, which is a more secret and more extensive way of violence. The two patterns are the manifestation of the loss of essence and that of the attempt to create the essence for self and others. They have one common premise, that is, "I" am opposite to "him" and "his" reality blocks or deprives "my" reality, which is the reflection of arrogance of modern egoism, and they fail in the attempt to gain essence because of their paradox.Chapter Three is "'I' is'he':The Essence Left with the Other". Besides the essence constructed arrogantly on self, some people seek for the essence on the basis of the idea that 'I' is 'he', that is, they sort the way back to essence from the other which reflects people's yearning for the traditional way of gaining the essence from God before. The similarly traditional pattern is actually the modern god-creating movement. Out of the horror of the loss of essence and the longing for essence, people purposely deify and worship somebody, wishing he could fill the vacancy of God. When God is dead, the hope of bringing change by the modern god-creating movement will be disappointing. They will find the one they have worshiped is just a false god. Another pattern which is trickier and more easily practiced is imitating the people around. Man tends to identify what is the best from those around, not only with admiration but also with the intention of taking it as his own, and tragic is always the end. The two patterns are man's expedients after the death of God. With the death of God, there could hardly be a way to replace God out of the modern variants to taking its place.Chapter Four is "The Utopia of Ethics:Moral Efforts Leading Back to the Essence". Murdoch's novels display not only people's tragic plight with the loss of the essence and their efforts to reconstruct the essence on self or the other and the paradox of such efforts, but also her own search for the means of getting the problem tackled. It is the idea of the Utopia of ethics represented in her novels and philosophy. In this Utopia of ethics she hopes to reach a balance between the arrogant "I" and the godlike "he". The basis of the Utopia is Murdoch's knowledge of contingency, in which one should give up one's fear out of the loss of essence and take it as the consequence of modernity for a way out. The contingency of man, according to Murdoch, is the independence and individuality. Everyone is unique. A harmonious relationship based on the mutual respect and dialogues is the way for getting back the essence in the modern society.Chapter Five is "Mysticism Poetics:Artistic Efforts Leading Back to the Essence". Murdoch thinks art is the same as morality in the essence, so she believes in the saving-function of art. She thinks art can take people back to the essence too. The special mysticism poetry displays her idea. It is based on realism, and it usually adds mystic elements into its realistic narration. It is different from the popular mysticism which is content with self-elevating; on the contrary, it degrades self and elevates others. Mysticism poetry is the central representation of Murdoch's idea about reality, language, individuality and ethics, which in the end points to the artistic efforts to gain the essence.The conclusion is a summary of the thesis. It includes Murdoch's influence and prospect, the premise of understanding Murdoch, the significance of her moral philosophy and the unity of literature and ethics.