Transcendence Of Traditional Dualism

Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) is the most influential British female novelist afterWorld War II as well as a distinguished moral philosopher. While inheriting the greattraditions of Western literature, Murdoch’s novels are remarkably ingenious andexperimental. Therefore, her novels have not only gained great popularity amongreaders but also attracted extensive attention of critics. Among her masterpieces areUnder the Net, The Bell, The Black Prince and The Sea, the Sea. The Sea, the Sea(1978) is regarded as Murdoch’s greatest and most influential novel which won herthe Booker Prize. With first-person male narration, The Sea, the Sea is the mostrepresentative of Murdochian literary style and her ideas concerning morality and art.This thesis attempts to make a thorough study of the relationships between threebinary oppositions in The Sea, the Sea, namely the self and the other, consciousnessand unconsciousness, and art and life, by means of close reading, so as to present howMurdoch transcends the traditional mode of thinking on duality, and furthermore, toreveal Murdoch’s idea of indeterminacy of meaning which coincides with thepostmodern way of thinking as well as the idea of deconstruction. In this novel,Murdoch successfully achieves the deconstruction and reconstruction of differentlevels of binary oppositions.This thesis is composed of an introduction, three chapters as the main body anda conclusion. Introduction provides a brief introduction to Iris Murdoch and her novelThe Sea, the Sea and the literature review of Western and Chinese literary criticismson the novel, and then follow the argument and the layout of this thesis. Chapter Oneexamines the opposition between the self and the other in this novel so as to revealMurdoch’s profound thinking on the relationship between the self and the other andher rational thought on power. Chapter Two analyzes the dynamic interaction betweenconsciousness and unconsciousness, especially the interactive relationship betweenreason and emotion in the novel with the help of Freud’s theory on unconsciousness inorder to bring to light Murdoch’s philosophical view on unconsciousness. ChapterThree explores the relationship between art and life, particularly the relationship between Murdoch, the author, and Charles, the narrator and protagonist, based onAristotle’s notion of art and reality so as to reveal Murdoch’s aesthetic viewpointabout art and life. Finally comes the conclusion: in The Sea, the Sea, Murdochtranscends the traditional thinking pattern of duality, deconstructs and reconstructsself-other, consciousness-unconsciousness, and art-life relationships, and eventuallyattains indeterminacy of meaning. Murdoch’s reconsideration of traditional mode ofthinking concerning duality and her idea of indeterminacy of meaning not only furtherenhance our understanding of contemporary British literature but also greatlyenlighten us on knowledge of ourselves and real life in the postmodern context.