A Study Of Repetition In Iris Murcdoch's Novel The Black Prince

Iris Murdoch was an important literary theorist and philosopher in English literature in the twentieth century.As a philosopher,her novels are often regarded as tools for explaining her philosophical thinking,but Murdoch does not agree with this.She opposed the "philosophic"of the novel,and refused some literary critics to take her as a philosophical novelist.But undeniably,Iris Murdoch's novels often contain the philosophical thinking of the author herself,and that doesn't contradict the superb attainments of Iris Murdoch in literary skills.The novel The Black Prince was published in 1973,this novel is regarded as a representative work of Iris Murdoch's later period.At the beginning of its publication,she won the extensive praise of the literary critics and also won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize of the year.J.Hillis Miller used seven novels as examples in Fiction and Repetition,and divided repetition into three parts.It helps to understand the repetitions of The Black Prince,besides,there are narrative repetitions in this fiction.By analyzing the repetitions in The Black Prince,we can see the effect on the deconstruction and construction of the novel.Apart from the introduction and the conclusion,the thesis is divided into four parts,based on analysis of The Black Prince's repetitions,to explore the influence of deconstruction and construction in the novel.The first chapter analyzes the repetition of the paroles of The Black Prince.Starting from repetition of words and sentences,by analyzing the meaning of the same word or sentence in different contexts,it shows the hypocrisy and contradiction of the characters in the novel,and also coincides with the different stages of the development of the plot.The second chapter analyzes the repetition of the plots and narrative.This part divides the plot repetitions into two categories,one plot's self-repetition and the different person's plot repetition,and analyzes the ironic effect produced by repeated plot and the hints of the novel's structure.The repetition of narrative is based on autobiography and the repetitions in the postscript.On the one hand,it reveals the unreliability of autobiography itself as a kind of repetition,and on the other hand,it analyzes the duplication of the postscript to the narrative of the text to explore the resolution of the authenticity of the novel in the process.The third chapter analyzes the repetition to other texts.From the perspective of characters,plots and themes,it shows the novel's repetition of Greek mythology,Hamlet,and Don Quixote,and by contrasting the similar characters and plots in different texts to understand the characters in a different way.And it can explore new themes in the novel.The forth chapter,on the basis of the first three parts,analyzes the function produced by the repetition phenomenon in the novel.From the functions of repetition that Hillis Miller talks about,it focuses on the deconstruction and construction of the text.In conjunction with Carnival Poetics Theory and unreliable narration,it focuses on the deconstruction and construction of repeated themes,plots,and narratives.It shows a carnival lifestyle in the novel,it also constructs new plots,and in the repeated narration,it constructs the parallel structure of the novel.