THE ENCHANTER FIGURE IN THE NOVELS OF IRIS MURDOCH by Elizabeth Annette Woo B.A., University of British Columbia, 1957 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS In the Department of English We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA March, 1974 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of < C'W The University of British Columbia Vancouver 8, Canada DateJSVo^d^ , lQQq- ii ABSTRACT The novels of Iris Murdoch examined in this thesis fall into two categories, defined by herself as "open" and "closed." The "open" novels are The Sandcastle. The Nice and the Good. An Unofficial Rose. The Red and the Green. The Bell and Under the Net. The "closed" novels are The Italian Girl, The Unicorn, The Time of the Angels. The Flight from the Enchanter. A Severed Head. Bruno's Dream and A Fairly Honourable Defeat. The terms "open";and "closed" are de• fined, as well as other terms important in the study of Iris. Murdoch's novels, such as "journalistic" and "crystalline" novels, "ordinary language man," "totalitarian man," "enchantment," "fantasy," "form," "contingency," "myth," "love," "normal reality," and "symbolic reality." In each novel there is an enchanter who is a figure of power and an object of fantasy to other characters. This figure is de• scribed in terms of references to myths, fairy tales, fables, folklore, or philosophical concepts. The enchanter figure Is of two kinds, "ordinary," or "exotic," and is seen by the reader as existing on two levels of reality in the novels, the "normal" and the "symbolic." On the normal level, the enchanter figure is seen as a person in a set of iii circumstances. On the symbolic level, he or she is seen as an allegorical figure. The techniques Iris Murdoch employs in presenting this figure on both levels of reality are the chief concern of this thesis, although the enchanter figure's Importance in terms of the main themes of the novels are also discussed. These themes are primarily concerned with love as the highest good and as a process through which fantasy is overcome and a perception of reality is achieved. Through the enchanter figure, Iris Murdoch's ethical views, her literary skill, and the wide range of her sources of knowledge are revealed. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER ONE, INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER TWO, THE ENCHANTER FIGURE IN "OPEN" NOVELS ... 25 CHAPTER THREE, THE ENCHANTER FIGURE IN "CLOSED" NOVELS 92 CHAPTER FOUR, CONCLUSION ... ... ._ '. 174 BIBLIOGRAPHY 180 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION A logical starting point for a discussion of Iris Murdoch's novels is her theory of personality, for it is the pivot from which swing both her literary criticism and. her ethics. Her theory, in all probability, is the result of her dissatisfaction with the modern concept of personality, a dissatisfaction she expresses in two articles in particular, "Against Dryness" and "The Sublime and the Beautiful Revis• ited.."1 The present idea of personality, she says in these essays, is too shallow and flimsy, for it presents man as either "ordinary language man" or "totalitarian man." "Ordinary language man" is developed from materialistic be• haviourism, modified by linguistic philosophy, and may be explained thus s My inner life, for me just as for others, is identifiable as existing only through the application to it of public concepts, con• cepts which can only be constructed on the basis of overt behaviour.^ "Ordinary language man" is not overwhelmed by any structure larger than himself, he is "too abstract, too conventional! he incarnates the commonest and vaguest network of conven• 3 tional moral thought." _inls concept of man, she saysj 2 represents "the surrender to convention." "Totalitarian man," on the other hand, is solitary, "monarch of all he surveys and totally responsible for all his actions. Nothing transcends him."^ He is like "a neurotic who seeks to cure himself by unfolding a myth about himself."^ In his solip• sism, "totalitarian man" is "too concrete, too neurotic."^ Not surprisingly, she calls this concept of man "the surrender to neurosis." Neither the conventional nor the neurotic view of man, in her opinion, describes accurately the human personality. What is needed, in the present, is a "satisfactory Liberal theory of personality"^ which will provide "a standpoint for considering real human beings in their variety."1^ This idea of "real human beings in their variety" is at the core of her own idea of personality. Man, in her view, cannot be.classified and defined, because he is unique, "unutterably particular,rtl1 "substantlal, impenetrable, individual, indefinable and val• uable. "^ He is above all "opaque," that is, mysterious, un• knowable, unpredictable, or "contingent," a term that is important in the consideration of her ideas and her fiction, for it is a term which she uses often in her critical dis• cussions. Not only is contingency an important element in the human personality, but it is, in fact, "the essence of personality."13 Her concept, then, sees man as "free and 3 separate and related to a rich and complicated world." The modern conventional and neurotic ideas of person• ality, in her view, have unfortunate effects on modern novels, which also tend to be either conventional or neurotic. "Or• dinary language man" is associated with "journalistic" novels, which are large, shapeless and documentary, "offering a commentary on current institutions or on some matter out of history. "^-5 In these novels, man is seen in his social aspect only, ("my inner life ... Is identifiable as existing only through the application to it of public concepts"), not also as an individual who is "contingent." "Totalitarian man" is associated with "crystalline" novels which are small and allegorical, "a tight metaphysical object which wishes it were a poem and which attempts to convey, often in mythical form, some central truth about the human condition. "1°" in these novels, man is seen as completely, alone, alienated from his social environment. He suffers from angst. a lack of belief in universal reason. He mistrusts, on the one hand, his inner life, finding it insubstantial, or on the other, 17 he dramatizes his situation into a myth. Thus, though he presents "an interesting and touching symbol of the plight of modern man,he is not a unique individual, for he, like the fictional world he inhabits, is "too transparent," a world "without magic or terror" or "the enticing mystery of the unknown.He and his world,.in other words, are not contingent, and therefore, in her opinion, not satisfactor• ily rendered. Neither the "journalistic'* nor the "crystalline" novel fulfills her ideal of fiction, which is most fully realized in the Nineteenth-century novels of the realistic tradition. These novels of characters, which are victims of neither con• vention nor neurosis, are concerned with "real various in- 20 dividuals struggling in society." There is, in them, a plurality of real persons more or less naturalistically presented in a large social scene, and representing mutually independent centers of significance which are those of real individuals.21 The social scene itself is "a life-giving framework and not a set of dead conventions or stereotyped* settings inhabited by stock characters."22 These novels reveal their authors* "display of tolerance"^3 which is "a god-like capacity for so respecting and loving their characters to make them exist as free and separate beings. "^ This is a display of a real apprehension of persons other than the author as having a right to exist and to have a separate mode of being which is Important and interesting to themselves.25 These characters thus, are not just social beings, or solitary and solipsistlc neurotics, or merely "puppets in the 5 exteriorization of some closely locked psychological conflict of .. (.the authors 0 own."2^ They are "real various individuals" because of their authors* respect, tolerance or love, for them. This "love" of an author for his char• acters is explained by John Bayley, Iris Murdoch's husband, whose view she obviously shares: What I understand by an author's love for his characters is a delight in their inde• pendent existence as other people, an atti• tude towards them which is anagolous to our feelings towards those we love in life; an intense interest in their.personalities com• bined with a sort of detached solicitude, a respect for their freedom.27 In Iris Murdoch's opinion, modern novelists lack this "dis• play of tolerance," this love for their characters. This is the main reason why their novels do not conform to her ideal of fiction. She does not exempt her own works from this criticism. She says in an interview in 19^3 that her novels oscillate rather between attempts to portray a lot of people and giving in to a powerful plot or story ... between achieving a kind of intensity through having a very powerful story and sacrificing characters and having the characters and losing the intensity.28 This "oscillation," she explains In a later Interview in 1968, a kind of alternation between a sort of closed novel, where my own obsessional feeling about 6 the novel is very strong and draws it closely together, and an open novel, where there are more accidental and separate and free char• acters .29 "Open" novels, she explains further, start with experience.