The Sublime-inspired Journey To Good In Iris Murdoch's Three Novels

As a highly acclaimed writer of the 20th century,Iris Murdoch is famous for her prodigious literary output that has covered a variety of hot topics,and for her comprehensive philosophical system.Therefore,the extensive penetration of Murdoch's philosophical ideas into her works becomes one of the heated topics among Mudochian scholars.And the much-talked-about topics,for example,are Murdoch's interpretation of freedom,form,goodness and morality.Murdoch has spent her whole life digging out the essence of Good and the way of progressing towards it.This thesis takes Murdoch's three novels as the objects of study,The Sandcastle,A Severed Head and A Fairly Honourable Defeat,intending to discover the characters' similar formula of pursuing Good in Murdoch's works under the framework of Kant's moral philosophy,especially his notion of the sublime.Kant is a philosopher that has exerted tremendous influence on Murdoch's ideological formation.Through thorough textual analysis,it's found that Kant's notion of the sublime is closely connected with Murdoch's molding of characters.This thesis suggests that it is under the inspiration of the sublime images that the evil or misbehaved characters find the way to Good.Furthermore,it expounds the whole process of their journey to Good starting from the confrontation with the sublime images,then the inspiration,and last their final choice of Good.