Married Women And The Good In Iris Murdoch’s The Black Prince

Iris Murdoch explores the marginal predicament of married women’s survival in society with an experimental narrative structure in her novel The Black Prince (1973). On the basis of close reading, this thesis, considering Murdoch’s philosophical ideas and the historical background, aims at interpreting married women’s pilgrimage to the good from the perspective of ethical literary criticism, illustrating the progress from the reconstruction of their ethical identities to their ethical selection influenced by the Sphinx factor and figuring out how married women achieve their self-actualization in the pursuit of the good in the textual ethical environment.There are three parts in this thesis-introduction, body and conclusion. The body of this thesis is composed by three chapters. The introductory part firstly presents Murdoch’s major literary works, main philosophical views and The Black Prince. Then, studies abroad and at home concerning The Black Prince are analyzed in detail, on the basis of which, three research questions are presented, namely, from the perspective of ethical literary criticism, how do married women reconstruct their ethical identities? What is the inner life of married women in ethical selection under the guidance of the Sphinx Factor? How do married women achieve self-actualization on the pilgrimage to the good?Chapter one, emphasizing on the "self of married women, explores the progressive tendency of married women’s to reconstruct their ethical identities through detailed analyzing Priscilla’s suicide, Rachel’s Revenge and Christian’s success. Besides, much importance has been attached to factors including economy independence, education, courage as well as self-consciousness in the process of identity reconstruction. Chapter two analyzes the inner life of married women in ethical selection from the perspective of the Sphinx factor. It is explored that human factor, with the assistance of rational will, guides, restricts and dominates the free will that belongs to animal factor. Human factor guides human beings far away from the evil and close to the good. Chapter three, in the frame of Murdoch’s philosophy, discusses that married women achieve self-actualization on the pilgrimage to the good by unselfing, a way of breaking the egoism and paying attention to the external world of self.This thesis concludes that concerning about married women’s ethical plight of being marginalized, Murdoch depicts married women’s efforts to reconstruct their ethical identities and the complex inner life in face of ethical selections and figures out that married women can achieve self-actualization on the pilgrimage to the good. In the characterization of married women, Murdoch implants her main philosophical views, such as self, the good and love. Murdoch comes up with a reserved attitude towards fierce feminism and the women’s liberation movements with the statement of her willingness to help women join in the human race but not in a superior sense.