Iris Murdoch

by Hilda D. Spear

Iris Murdoch published her twenty-fifth novel in 1993. She has been continuously producing and publishing novels since the appearance of Under the Net in 1954. Her interest in moral problems has inclined her towards what could be seen as an unusual view of human character and human life, and has led her to developing situations which are often bizarre and offering solutions which are unsettling. The present study guides the reader through the novels, tracing basic patterns which run throughout the work and showing how the novels help to elucidate one another. Her philosophical works are referred to in order to illustrate how Murdoch uses the ingenuity and intricacy of her plots to reinforce the subtlety and anxiety of the human response to such problems as the nature of reality and of Good and Evil. At the same time, the book suggests the interconnections between the early, middle and late novels, and looks at the progressive moral discourse which the novels propose.