Exploration Of Indeterminacy In Postmodernist Fiction Via The Black Prince

Against traditional mode of fictional writing, the postmodernist writers are interested in experiments of writing techniques. They held the banner of "Anything goes" to deconstruct determinacy of traditional fiction. To some extent, it is no exaggeration to argue that postmodernist fiction is the carnivalization of indeterminacy. Taking Iris Murdoch’s The Black Prince as an example, the thesis will illustrate indeterminacy from four aspects, that it is theme, character images, plot development and symbols.Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) became a favorite in the history of British literature after the Second World War. She is not only a remarkable novelist, philosopher and fictional theoretician, but also a most productive writer; meanwhile, she is regarded as one of the most prolific writers after the Second World War. During her more than forty years’creation, she has written twenty-six novels, and her works has won many prizes. Since the1990s, especially from the year of1996, Iris Murdoch’novels have aroused more and more attention from domestic scholars. Studies on Murdoch at home can mainly be summarized as the following aspects:views of fiction, artistic features of Murdoch’s fiction, views of philosophy of Murdoch, feminism and Murdoch’s religious view, etc.The Black Prince published in1973is highly praised by critics and considered as Murdoch’s representative works. The story is narrated by the hero Bradley Pearson in prison with his memories in the form of first-person narrative. The story is developed by three clues, and at the end of the story Bradley is unjustly charged to death for murdering his best friend Arnold.Previous studies on The Black Prince mainly focus on its artistic views, fictional views etc. However, as a distinctive feature of postmodernism, indeterminacy, which is manifested in various interpretations, embodied in this novel deserves an in-depth study. In the light of postmodernism, the study aims at discussing indeterminacy in The Black Prince from four aspects:theme, character images, the development of plots and symbols and its creation signification. The thesis consists of six chapters. The first chapter mainly gives an introduction to Iris Murdoch and her literary achievements, literature review on The Black Prince and postmodernism defining of indeterminacy. The second chapter to the fifth chapter is the body of the thesis. It discusses indeterminacy in The Black Prince from four aspects: thematic indeterminacy through ironically imitating different genres; indeterminacy in character images through analyzing multi-folded personalities of main character Bradley and minor character Marloe; indeterminacy in the development of plots through an open ending and the intrusive author as the first-person narrative; language indeterminacy presented in the various symbolic meanings of the symbols such as the flat, the street, the sea, and the prison etc. The sixth chapter makes a conclusion on the whole thesis, pointing out that through analyzing indeterminacy in The Black Prince the novel is embodied with Murdoch’s wishes to get rid of constraints of traditional writing and her pursuit of freedom and innovation. Meanwhile, as a theory of literary criticism, indeterminacy provides us with another angle of vision to appreciate the profoundness of the novel as a product of postmodernism, shedding light on further studies of other literature works.