A Study On The Moral Theme Of Iris Murdoch’s Novels From The Perspective Of Mysticism

Iris Murdoch(1919-1999),a British woman writer,occupies a unique place in the English literary world in 20th Century.The dual identity of a philosopher and a novelist lays a profound moral foundation for Murdoch’s novels.In moral philosophy,she attacked the mainstream values of will and choice against the trend of the times,and advocated the revival of "virtue" as fundamental to personal moral life.In her opinion,real morality is an "unesoteric mysticism".The pursuit of transcendental values beyond individuals and the correspondent spiritual insight is a recurring theme in her novels.The ethical criticisms on Murdoch’s novels at home and abroad are not rare.However,few researchers have touched on the mysterious meaning of her moral topics.A small number of related researches are usually part of a more comprehensive study.And the analysis of literary texts is far from adequate.This study is to explore the mystical dimension of her moral concern at various levels and from different perspectives,dealing with the moral thoughts embodied in Murdoch’s novels.The research is carried out from four aspects:morality,religion,language and artistic conception.The introduction gives a general introduction to the present situation of researches on mysticism and Murdoch respectively.The body is divided into four parts.The first chapter discusses some of the moral concepts that Murdoch was most concerned about,and points out the mystical implications of these moral themes.Murdoch’s basic moral themes have a religious dimension,bridged by mysticism as a training of consciousness change."Good" is central at Murdoch’s moral discourse.She used Plato’s "eikasia" to describe the good,pointing out that good is kind of an ultimate reality,thus heightening the moral connotation of good up to an ontological position.She believed that the mystery of goodness lies in the acceptance of the chaos of reality and a proper sense of death.Death is the best proof of reality and contingency.The biggest obstacle to good is the self-centred mode of thinking in human nature,and it is also an important theme of Murdoch’s many novels.Real freedom does not mean the realization of one’s aspirations,but means crossing the barriers of self confinement.Some of the most important topics in her novels are the complex human nature,the innate selfishness,the appearance and reality of the good,as well as the concept of freedom and love governed by good.The interpretation of selflessness and freedom fully presents the mystical dimension of Murdoch’s moral concern.Mysticism means to her a mind training of an other-centred awareness and a willingness of being good.She then suggested a change of consciousness achieved through attention and love.Attention is like religious prayer,which can produce a psychological force by placing one’s whole mind on the subject attended to.Love is the most common theme in Murdoch’s novels.Love is multi-faced "libido",and true love is an aimless love.In the second chapter,several of Murdoch’s novels with an explicit religious theme are the research object aiming at her concerns about religious belief.She advocates a mystical religious faith:religion is not for self console,but is to go beyond the individual.Hence her religious consciousness is also a moral concern.Religion and morality are complementary and interact on each other.What combines the two is mysticism as an orientation to consciousness changes.The third chapter discusses the moral dimension of the view of language in Murdoch’s novels and mysticism as a feminine writing.In her view,language,as a way of thinking,has a certain role in shaping people’s moral vision.Metaphors lie in the thinking mode of human beings and are the most natural way of verbal expression,thus the literary language has become the best carrier of moral appeal.Using the male first person narrative voice and a self-deconstructive narrative framework,she talked about the moral theme via negative,which successfully displayed the complexity of real life and the difficulty of moral growth,thus fulfilled a mysterious writing of female narrative.The fourth chapter discusses the artistic topics in Murdoch’s novels,her moral expectations and the characteristics and embodiment of her poetic mysticism.I first analyze the similarities between art and morality in her novels,the contradiction between art and reality,and points out that Murdoch’s analogy of art and morality is based on the same mystic way of thinking.Then I discuss the concept of Murdoch’s "mystical novelist" and its reflection in her novels.Murdoch’s spiritual concern and the poetic mysticism behind her magic realism are also discussed.In the concluding part I draw the conclusion that "mysticism" for Murdoch represents human being’s instinctive desire to seek unity under the appearance and the competency for transcendental pursuit in the real world.With the moral subjects explained within a mystical dimension,her novels attempt to put humans in a bigger realistic background,to pursue ideal of religious spirituality in an increasingly secular era:the transcendence of individual,the boost of human spirit.