The Dramatic in Murdoch's Fiction

ISBN-13: 9783846543290 / Angielski / Miękka / 2011 / 140 str.

Farzaneh Naseri-Sis

Opis

Murdochs fiction has been influenced by dramatic elements, particularly comic elements. This influence has been revealed as parody. Murdoch parodies the comic character types of the eiron, alazon, buffoon and agroikos by exaggerating and mixing their functions and themes of love, separated lovers and metamorphosis in her novels, The Nice and the Good, The Black Prince, and The Sea, The Sea. In addition, she makes parodic uses of Shakespearean plays, As You Like It and Loves Labours Lost, Hamlet, and The Tempest, in her novels in question. Her use of parody as a weapon against the genre of romantic comedy, its character types and main themes is the result of her philosophical view of drama and the dramatic. She argues that comedy and tragedy deal with appearance whereas drama and the dramatic ought to involve reality. In her novels in question, she shows that the dramatic is the conflict of selfish self with itself to reach self-knowledge Murdochian self- knowledge is the knowledge of what lies beyond self. This kind of knowledge is achieved by unselfing, a process through which a solipsistic self recognizes its solipsism and challenges it by means of love and art.

O autorze

Farzaneh Naseri-Sis has got her BA, MA, and PhD in English Literature. She has worked as an English teacher, an academic member and adjunct teacher from 1993-2008 in Iran. She has worked as an interpreter for Farsi, Azerbaijani and Turkish Languages from 2009-2010 in Minnesota. From 2010-2011 she has taught Expository writing at KSU, Kansas, USA.