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The Ethical Exploration of Human Nature in Iris Murdoch’s a Fairly Honorable Defeat

Author: LiYan
Tutor: ZhangShuNing
School: Guangxi Normal University
Course: English Language and Literature
Keywords: Iris Murdoch ethics feminist ethics of care A Fairly Honorable Defeat
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Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2009
Downloads: 38
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Abstract


Iris Murdoch(1919-1999)is one of the dominant figures of postwar British literature. She is prolific and versatile as the writer of twenty-six novels, five philosophical works, five plays and one collection of poems. As a moral philosopher as well as a novelist, she has her own views on ethics. She believes that the final goal which human beings are pursuing is to gain the“real truth of goodness”, and the road to the goodness is a long and hard process. Murdoch’s novels present a darker picture of human reality with humors, in which seeking the goodness and living the good life is almost impossible for most of her illusion-ridden, egotistical characters. The researches at home are mostly the analyses of Murdoch’s philosophical thoughts and her novels’meanings from the views of existentialism, realism, psychological analysis and feminism. Moreover, the research on Murdoch from the perspective of feminism is mostly the probe into Murdoch’s feminist thoughts. The analyses of Murdoch’s novels are rare from the point of view of feminist ethics of care, especially on the ethical thoughts and women’s self-value in A Fairly Honorable Defeat. Therefore, the thesis attempts to explore Iris Murdoch’s ethical ideas in her A Fairly Honorable Defeat from an ethical perspective, adopting the method of feminist ethics of care.The thesis is made up of four chapters.Chapter One is the introduction to the thesis. Firstly it introduces briefly about Iris Murdoch’s biography, main works and awards, then it reviews the previous studies on Murdoch and on A Fairly Honorable Defeat, finally it proposes that the thesis is to explore the human ethical thoughts in A Fairly Honorable Defeat.Chapter Two gives an introduction to the main ideas of feminist ethics of care advocated by Professor Xiao Wei and some other foreign scholars and Murdoch’s ethical ideas in her works.Chapter Three is the main body of the thesis. It tries to analyze Murdoch’s ethical ideas in A Fairly Honorable Defeat from the perspective of feminist ethics of care. Firstly it discusses the struggle between evil and good. Julius is the representative of evil, and he fools almost everyone in his life except for Tallis. Tallis is the incarnation of good, he cares about everyone and he is immune to Julius, but his life is in a mess and his power is so small that it cannot control the whole situation. Therefore, the good is defeated by evil in an honorable way. Secondly, it demonstrates the characters’different understanding of love to reflect their different ethical standards of life. Finally, it illustrates Murdoch’s attitude towards women’s self-value by analyzing Morgan’s and Hilda’s self-value.Chapter Four is the conclusion of the thesis. In the novel, Iris Murdoch demonstrates the ideas of good and evil, and her understanding of love, and points out that the goodness is the ultimate goal which human beings are pursuing although the pursuing process is long and rough.

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