A Study Of Iris Murdoch’s Gothic Writings

Iris Murdoch is one of the most prolific post-war British writers in the 20th century.Her literary creation includes various types of novels,dramas,and poems,and she is especially good at novels.Murdoch,who is also a philosopher,is deeply influenced by her own philosophy concepts when she composed her novels.The theme of her novels is all about her reflection on Subjectivity philosophy,and that is the reason why her novels always confused readers with all those complicated thoughts.Her philosophy thoughts naturally bring convenience to novel criticism.Interpreting her novels based on her philosophical viewpoints has formed a critical paradigm.However,this criticism method can easily ignore the overall aesthetic effect of her novels and reduce a brilliant image world in the novel to a simple and dull concept.Murdoch always use a peaceful tone to describe a daily life in her novels,but there are also lots of abrupt,unearthly and absurd plots and characters in those stories.Her novels usually constructed a complex and quirky network of interpersonal relationships,in order to show the complex circumstances of human existence and urge people to think about the intersubjectivity philosophy.A mysterious,weird,dreamlike atmosphere always haunting all over her stories.As to how to define the taste and style of her novels,academic circles have produced different opinions.Some classify them as realism,while others believe that her novels show romantic interest.Some scholars also believe that her novels are influenced by postmodernism.This essay focuses on Gothic style in some of Murdoch’s novels which can be called typically gothic writings,including "The Unicorn","The Time of the Angels","The Bell"," "The Sea,The Sea".In the introduction,this essay clarifies the development of the meaning of the word “Gothic” and the history of its application in the field of aesthetics,points out the influence of Murdoch’s humanistic philosophy and literary views on her novel style,and specifically presents the core of gothic literature is to stress the dualopposition,the typical aesthetic characteristics of gothic novels in plots,settings,characters and atmosphere designs,according which could explain why it is feasible to read Murdoch’s novels from a gothic perspective.The main body of this essay analyzes the text from three perspectives: plot,character and narrative skills.The first chapter explains how Murdoch’s Gothic novel presents the theme of death.The novel uses the death or death threat of the character as the main clue,spatializes the character’s psychology,and uses supernatural imagery and enclosed space to express the near-death experience,which creates a scary and mysterious atmosphere,meanwhile presents the theme about power of subjectivity and its limitation.The second chapter analyzes the three types of Gothic characters: the tyrant image,the wizard image,and the wizard image.It explains the symbolic role of the characters and points out how the novel uses the relationship between the characters to create conflict and climax,express the duality of Eros and the self-reflection of the ego subject.The third chapter focuses on the Gothic style displayed by Murdoch’s narrative techniques from the novel structure and narrative perspective.Through the text interpreting,the author thinks that this type of novels inherited the interest of the Anglo-American Gothic literature tradition.The self-fantasy created by the characters is the main clue of those novels,the death threat faced by the characters is the core plot,and the closed space is the background of the story.It creates surreal characters in daily life and weaves a network of conflicting between them.Murdoch’s gothic writings present the contradiction between Eros and divinity,order and conflict,finite and infinite.This essay attempts to interpret the text itself,describing the Gothic aesthetics in Murdoch’s novels from three perspectives: the death theme and plot of Murdoch’s novels,the Gothic characters and the narrative techniques.It also points out the concrete presentation of Murdoch’s de-self-oriented humanistic philosophy in her gothic writings,and to illustrate Murdoch’s development and transformation of the Gothic tradition and her unique style in her gothic writing.