A Thinker Of Women's Problems

Research on Iris Murdoch's novels is mainly focused on her ethical philosophy and artistic skills, while few efforts have been made on the exploration of her feminist thoughts. The reason for this is Murdoch's own low profile on the feminist movement. In addition, quite different from many modern feminist writers, she prefers more serious themes like art, morality, goodness, and life as the major themes of her novels. For the use of male narrative perspective, she is usually regarded as being expert in male characterization and in describing men's psyche. However, it is too abrupt a conclusion to say that Murdoch is "a writer happening to be a woman rather than a woman writer", which means she has absolutely no feminist concerns. Actually, as a humanist thinker who aims to reflect "the human condition", Murdoch also creates a large number of women characters, gives a truthful picture of women's life at her time, and conveys in her novels her contemplation on women's problems. This thesis aims to make an effort to probe into Murdoch's feminist thoughts through analyses of her representative novels, in the hope to be of contribution to a better appreciation of Murdoch's writing and thoughts as a whole.Chapter One makes an analysis of Murdoch's male characterizations and the use of male narrative in her novels. Male characters occupying the central stage and the seemingly anti-feminist use of male narrative are always seen as the main obstacles for interpreting Murdoch's novels from feminist perspective. This thesis argues that the two points can not show Murdoch's preference to the male. On the contrary, they indicate her dissatisfaction with and critical view of the patriarchal world. First, Murdoch's male characters represent negative values and are opposite to "goodness", the philosophical concept she believes in. The men in her novels are stereotyped as eccentric, extremely self-centered persons showing morbid personalities and a pessimistic vision of life. They fear true life and have lost the ability to get along with others. Living in fantasies and self-delusion, they cannot find their positions in true life and are doomed to be losers. Such negative characterization reflects Murdoch's doubt about and disappointment with men's ability. Second, Murdoch's male narratives can be interpreted as a subversive form of woman writing. They are not only a result of Murdoch's artistic idea of "unself' but also show her doubt about men's control of discourse power. She imitates and mimics the men's sense of superiority in writing where women figures are either ignored or distorted. She exposes the unreliability of male discourse and thus enlightens people's thinking about it.Chapter Two examines Murdoch's concerns about women and the reflection of their sufferings in her novels. The modern western society depicted by Iris Murdoch is still dominated by men's rules which deny women equality in many aspects. Murdoch shows women's suffering in the following three aspects. First, women are maltreated by men in families. As the social authorities, men possess a natural sense of superiority and their misogynic attitude is still universal. In marriage, the female can never share an equal position with the male. Husbands lack respect for their wives, and family violence still exists. Seen as the appendages to men, women can not get enough attention and genuine understanding from men. Second, Murdoch's women characters are usually confined to families even though they are as intelligent as men. She shows the saddening reality in her time that women could not get equal chances to join in social life with stable and favorable jobs. The worst is the fact that their roles of "angels in the family" are not valued by men. Furthermore, spiritually, women are influenced and fettered by traditional gender views. Unconsciously they tend to depend on and comply with men in their psyches. That becomes another reason for their tragic lives. With a deep sympathy, Murdoch shows modern women's problems in her novels.Chapter Three discusses Murdoch's exploration to find ways to solve women's problems. First, Murdoch is against the imbalance of power between men and women. On the one hand, she criticizes traditional women's complete dependence on men and their treating themselves as the weaker sex. Murdoch believes this can only lead to the women's loss of self and it is the root for women's tragedy for thousands of years. On the other hand, she is doubtful about radical feminism which enhances the female's absolute power. She takes this as women's revenge on men and thinks it may result in another kind of binary opposition and in balance of power. So the feminist women in her novels can gain neither final relief nor happiness. The first part of this chapter will analyze the typical women characters in Murdoch' novelsthrough which her negative attitude towards the two ways to confront men is shown. The second part discusses Murdoch's viewpoint on the issue of women's liberty. She holds a moderate position which emphasizes the importance of education in the women's self development. She believes education can help women to enhance their social status, gain equal chances with men to realize social values and an equal stance in discourse with men. The last part of the chapter probes into Murdoch's idea of androgyny. She believes there is no essential difference between men and women and pursues the ideal state of androgynous writing. That is a deep reason for her moderate policy for women's liberty and negative attitude on feminist movements, and to some extent, reflects her ideal relationship between men and women.From above we can see Murdoch's feminist thoughts are both realistic and philosophical. Compared with many radical feminist writers she is more likely a feminist thinker than a feminist warrior. On the one hand, she noticed the sufferings of women especially those of middle class, in family, society and psyche during the declining period of the feminist movement after World War II; while on the other hand, she does not support the fight for political authority and is against the construction of absolute power no matter whether it is men or women who hold the dominant position. This is consistent with her philosophical idea which aims to pursue the ultimate good, reject the fascination with power and emphasize the sense of otherness. What Murdoch hopes for is the disappearance of contradiction and the emergence of real harmony between men and women. Her thoughts have progressive meanings for her time when feminist theory did not get adequate development and are worth considering by current feminists.