Introduction chapter I. The Philosophy of Existentialism in the Early Novels of Iris Murdoch

Chapter I. The Philosophy of Existentialism in the Early Novels of Iris Murdoch
1.1 Tragicomedy, irony and the image of death in the novels of the 60s and 70s
It is generally accepted in our science that existential theory, naturally, to a large extent transformed, became the basis of Murdoch's novels of the 60s and 70s. According to a number of scientists, the writer's passion for existentialism went through several phases and was replaced by the construction of her own ethical and aesthetic system based on Platonism. With the general validity of this statement, it requires some explanation.
The first novel was published by Murdoch in 1954. But Murdoch's work is difficult to separate from the philosophical essays of the previous few years. Her definite stage was the essay “Sartre. The Romantic Rationalist, written in 1953. This work can be considered the starting point in the progressive development of Murdoch, an outstanding English artist and thinker. Thirty years later, the work on Sartre remains a program for Murdoch, a key to understanding her work. It deals with modern literature, reflecting the various ways in which philosophical thought developed in the 20th century. First of all, the works of Sartre are analyzed, but, in fact, the entire artistic culture of our time is covered. Murdoch writes not only about what the modern prose writer and the modern novel are like, but also about what she thinks they should be, and, in a subtext, about what her own prose is supposed to be.¹
Murdoch demonstrates in his book a deep understanding of Sartre's work and a brilliant analysis of his ideas, and also characterizes the ideological essence of existentialism. And already here, in the very prologue to her work, we are faced with an interesting and very intractable problem. This is a question of how much Murdoch's ideas, embodied in her novels, are genetically connected with existentialism, how "existential" Murdoch's novels are, how the philosophical postulates of this movement were transformed on English literary soil.
The attitude of Iris Murdoch, philosopher and writer, towards existentialism has always been ambivalent. Already from the first works analyzing this problem, it is clear that Murdoch, enthusiastically investigating existentialism, giving it due tribute, criticized it.
Murdoch's novels of the 1950s are philosophical and psychological at the same time. Philosophical in the sense that the problems of the meaning of life initially predetermined the essence of the central collision, the construction of the plot. In 1961, Murdoch wrote that literature had taken over some of the tasks that philosophy used to perform, defining the direction of its own creativity in these words. This type of prose can be attributed to the tradition of fiction, which formulates the search for truth as one of its tasks. The novel appears as a kind of testing ground for the development of speculative ideas, an intellectual discussion. And his hero is always faced with the need to resolve a complex moral dilemma. In addition, he is necessarily the bearer of a certain life philosophy. It is she who sometimes does not allow him to make the right decision. Make the right and wise choice.²
Murdoch's novels are not psychological in the classical sense of the term. The writer was so immersed in the inner world of a person that the reality in her novels sometimes slipped out of the author's field of vision, did not exist outside the hero's consciousness, was dissolved in his experiences. This formulation of the question concealed a crisis trend. Even at the very beginning of her work, in search of some special inner, spiritual, psychological, and therefore universal truth, Murdoch was carried away by the study of dark, destructive principles and forces in the human psyche, concentrated on the analysis of painful aspirations and feelings. She did not unconditionally accept the foundations of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis, but not without their influence she became interested in neuroses and their causes, and plunged the heroes of some novels into a neurotic state. The complex of moral problems identified in the second novel - the clash of good and evil, the magic of evil, the fall of morality and the urgent need for it, the uniqueness of the individual, which in its extreme manifestation can degenerate into pathology - was further developed in a number of works of the following years - " The Bell (1958), Severed Head (1961), Unicorn (1963), Angel Time (1966). They logically completed the line on the exclusion of man from social reality.
In the works of Murdoch of these years, another trend was also emerging, testifying to the desire to avoid the total solipsism characteristic of the modernist novel, the search for a positive ethical platform and a more optimistic view of the world. She was reflected in the novels Wild Rose (1962), Scarlet and Green (1965), Lovely and Good (1968). This trend eventually turned out to be the leading one.
Murdoch's first novels posed questions that are still the most important in her work. In the center is the problem of choice and responsibility, and sometimes guilt for deeds, decisions made. Another important problem is connected with it - freedom and non-freedom. The main conflict of the novels can be defined as follows - is there free choice, is there freedom of action at all, or is it just a fatal delusion of the human mind, a fantastic illusion? And if it exists, what is its essence?
The situations in which Murdoch's heroes find themselves, the seemingly chaotic intricacies of novel life, repeatedly make us think that the author generally deprives his heroes of the right to choose, and an incomprehensible higher power commands the complex upheavals of their destinies. It can be called differently - fate, fate, fate, a kind of logic or a model of behavior dictated by some philosophical or religious beliefs of the hero. One way or another, even Murdoch's latest novels show that the problem of determinism in her work has not been finally resolved.³
Gradually, the problems that interested Murdoch acquired many additional aspects and nuances. The writer, who is inclined to think about the meaning of being, has matured a desire to put the philosophical question in its purest form, making the situation and the characters only carriers of ideas. To do this, it was necessary that the minimum number of signs of time, any random, non-existent attributes of modern life, remain in the novel. So, for example, a complex, obscure for understanding work "Unicorn" appeared.
The reader will find it difficult to answer the question of when the strange events took place in the house of Hanna Crean-Smith and where this house is located. It is surrounded by an artificially symbolic landscape. On the one hand - an ominous cold sea, on the other - a desert plain without a single tree, behind it - impenetrable swamps, radiating a green glow at night. There are few people in the vicinity, but they resemble the heroes of romantic, even gothic prose. The text contains allusions to various classical works of the 19th century. Here the influence of Jane Austen (especially Northanger Abbey) is palpable, and Thomas Hardy, but most of all Emily Bronte, author of Terrible Pass.⁴
"The Unicorn" belongs to those Murdoch novels in which demonic passions rage, and the imagery is defined by dark symbolism. Marian Taylor comes to Hanna Crean-Smith's home to teach her French and Italian. She is struck by the strange atmosphere of the house, the mystery of its few inhabitants. Gradually, she begins to comprehend his mysteries. It turns out that Hanna cheated on her husband seven years ago and tried to kill him. He left, imprisoning her in the house. But this is only the first discovery of Marian, which turned out to be false. Later, she learns that none of the "jailers" - namely, they surround the mistress of the house - do not actually condemn her. Everyone knows that Hannah's husband is a rude, perverted man, a monster that tormented Hannah, a woman of high culture and spirituality. But this is also a lie. Still later, Marian will reveal that Hanna is not afraid of her husband. Reveling in her own guilt and suffering, she imprisoned herself in the house, turned her life into voluntary torture. But the latest discovery shocks Marian - Hannah does not suffer at all, her life and imprisonment are a kind of game in which guilt and pangs of conscience are only imitated, this is a theater of one actress for an ignorant environment. Hanna cultivates suffering, being the likeness of a deceitful deity. The action reaches its climax when Hannah kills her "guard" Gerald, who replaced her husband, in order to start counting the real suffering from that moment. Who is Hannah - a lonely woman with an elevated soul, who abandoned the world, or a depraved creature, consumed by a dark, manic passion for destruction? Everything in this novel is ambiguous and ambiguous, every idea is paradoxical, the course of development of the action is unpredictable. The central motif is a sad thought about the impossibility of freedom, about the mysterious programming of being. “In the field of morality, we are all prisoners,” says the philosopher who studies Plato, Max Lejour, “but freedom cannot heal us ...” All attempts to save Hannah, return to reality, to normal life, are unsuccessful. When the game is over and Hannah's secret is revealed, she has only one thing left to do - to die. She refuses to enter the normal, real world.
“... The egoistic consciousness of most people is blind to the perception of the true essence of the world, the rights and demands of other people, even the very existence of the “Other”, - this is how Murdoch explained her concept of illusion, which formed the basis of Bruno's Dreams (1969). It was this concept that determined somewhat later the idea of the book "M ore, sea. Directed by Charles Arrowby, the hero of the novel "Sea, Sea" is blinded by the image of purity and innocence, the loss of which allegedly ruined his life, which appeared from his distant youth. In the power of the obsessive image, he acts like a madman and does not notice, simply is not able to notice the obvious failure of the illusion and the truth that strikes the eye. Such an incredible story of the life of a blinded and seeing consciousness is invented by Murdoch, trying to open a person's eyes, make him see the real world, free him from egocentrism, and his soul from arrogant hermeticism.
The novel "Dreams of Bruno" was still more of an artistic and intellectual experiment. But here in the books written after him, which, despite the differences, constitute a certain integrity, a new trend has emerged.⁵ This is a clear desire of the author to expand the content of his work, reflected in the deepening of interest in reality, in the assertion of the primary role of reality in human life.