Download or read book Contingency in Iris Murdoch s Under the Net written by Saskia Bachner and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2008-09 with total page 70 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Mannheim, course: British Literature of the 50's, 22 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: All human beings have a deep need for necessity in their lives. We want to know why we exist, we want to understand the world and its secrets, and we want to know our place in the world. Concepts like religion and philosophy are concerned with those questions and try to provide answers to them. Nevertheless, there are still no satisfying explanations. This is due to the fact that "our actual lived experience has no form or unity in itself, but is full of contingent rubble, accident, and unsystematized detail which may resist our attempts at unity" (Antonaccio & Schweiker, Human Goodness 111). As our world is contingent, it cannot be completely understood. Consequently, we should accept its contingency instead of denying it by trying to find an explanation to everything. The stress ratio between contingency and necessity is also the theme of Iris Murdoch's first novel Under the Net. Throughout the novel, the protagonist Jake Donaghue searches for his own identity and for a master theory which is able to explain the world (cf. Porter, Leitmotiv 379). In the end, he realizes that he has to change his attitude towards contingency. In the following, I will try to find reasons for the change of Jake's attitude, and I will describe the consequences of this change. In order to be able to do this, I will first provide a definition of the term 'contingency' and place it in the context of philosophy in chapter 2. Afterwards, I will explain some essential aspects of contingency in the novel in chapter 3. In chapter 4, I will have a look at Jake's changing attitude towards contingency in the course of the novel in order to, finally, be able to find reasons for the change and to describe its consequences in chapter 5 and 6.
Download or read book Under the Net written by Iris Murdoch and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1977-10-27 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Iris Murdoch's debut—a comic novel about work and love, wealth and fame Jake Donaghue, garrulous artist, meets Hugo Bellfounder, silent philosopher. Jake, hack writer and sponger, now penniless flat-hunter, seeks out an old girlfriend, Anna Quentin, and her glamorous actress sister, Sadie. He resumes acquaintance with the formidable Hugo, whose ‘philosophy’ he once presumptuously dared to interpret. These meetings involve Jake and his eccentric servant-companion, Finn, in a series of adventures that include the kidnapping of a film-star dog and a political riot on a film set of ancient Rome. Jake, fascinated, longs to learn Hugo’s secret. Perhaps Hugo’s secret is Hugo himself? Admonished, enlightened, Jake hopes at last to become a real writer.
Download or read book The Flight from the Enchanter written by Iris Murdoch and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2010-07-20 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A charismatic businessman casts a dark spell over others in this psychologically suspenseful novel by the Man Booker Prize–winning author of The Black Prince. Mischa Fox’s name is known throughout London, though he himself is rarely seen. Enigmatic and desired, vicious yet sympathetic, he is a model of success, wealth, and charisma. When Fox turns his entrepreneurial gaze on a small feminist magazine known as the Artemis, his intoxicating influence quickly begins to affect the lives of those involved with the paper: the fragile editor, Hunter; generous Rosa, who splits her time and affections between her brother and two other men; innocent Annette, whose journey from school to the real world ends up being more fraught than she could have foreseen; and their circle of friends and acquaintances, all of whom find themselves both drawn to and repulsed by Fox. Told with dark humor, keen wit, and intense insight into the seductive nature of power, The Flight from the Enchanter is an intricate and dazzling work of fiction from the author of The Sea, The Sea and Under the Net, “one of the most significant novelists of her generation” (The Guardian).
Download or read book The Sandcastle written by Iris Murdoch and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1978-03-30 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sparklingly profound novel about the conflict between love and loyalty The quiet life of schoolmaster Bill Mor and his wife Nan is disturbed when a young woman, Rain Carter, arrives at the school to paint the portrait of the headmaster. Mor, hoping to enter politics, becomes aware of new desires. A complex battle develops, involving love, guilt, magic, art, and political ambition. Mor’s teenage children and their mother fight discreetly and ruthlessly against the invader. The Head, himself disenchanted, advises Mor to seize the girl and run. The final decision rests with Rain. Can a “great love” be purchased at too high a price?
Download or read book The Philosopher s Pupil written by Iris Murdoch and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2010-07-20 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York TimesNotable Book: An “ingeniously plotted” tale of tragedy, comedy, and small-town gossip (The New York Times Book Review). The quiet English town of Ennistone is known for its peaceful, relaxing spa—a haven of restoration, rejuvenation, and calm. Until the night George McCaffrey’s car plunges into the cold waters of the canal, carrying with it his wife, Stella. And until the village’s most celebrated son, famed philosopher John Robert Rozanov, returns home, upending the lives of everyone with whom he comes in contact. Stirred up by talk of murder and morality, obsession and lust, religion and righteousness, the residents of Ennistone begin to spiral out of control, searching for answers and redemption for the sins of their peers—and discovering more about themselves than they ever wanted to know. With breakneck plotting and intricately flawed characters, The Philosopher’s Pupil is a darkly humorous novel from the Man Booker Prize–winning author of The Sea, The Sea, masterfully exploring the human condition and the inherent blend of comedy and tragedy therein.
Download or read book The Eccentric and Contingent a Study of Iris Murdoch s Metaphysical Fantasies written by Linda Victoria Lipnack and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Why Iris Murdoch Matters written by Gary Browning and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-08-23 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Why Iris Murdoch Matters Gary Browning draws on as yet unpublished archival material to present an unrivalled overview of Murdoch's work and thought. Browning argues for Murdoch's position amongst the key theorists of modern life, and discusses in detail her engagement with the notion of late modernity. Her multiple perspectives on art, philosophy, religion, politics and the self all relate to how she understands the nature of late modernity. Browning lucidly illustrates that through both her thought and fiction we can grasp the significance of issues that remain of paramount importance today: the possibilities of a moral life without foundations, the meaning of philosophy in a post-metaphysical age, the prospects of politics without ideological certainties and the significance of art after realism. A totally original work arguing persuasively that Iris Murdoch not only matters but is absolutely central to how we think through the contemporary age.
Download or read book Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals written by Iris Murdoch and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1994-03-01 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The decline of religion and ever increasing influence of science pose acute ethical issues for us all. Can we reject the literal truth of the Gospels yet still retain a Christian morality? Can we defend any 'moral values' against the constant encroachments of technology? Indeed, are we in danger of losing most of the qualities which make us truly human? Here, drawing on a novelist's insight into art, literature and abnormal psychology, Iris Murdoch conducts an ongoing debate with major writers, thinkers and theologians—from Augustine to Wittgenstein, Shakespeare to Sartre, Plato to Derrida—to provide fresh and compelling answers to these crucial questions.
Download or read book If Morning Ever Comes written by Anne Tyler and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-01-05 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the beloved bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author—a timeless portrait of a young man's homecoming, and his ensuing journey through youth, identity, family, and love. Here is the debut novel that set Tyler on the path to becoming an American classic. Ben Joe Hawkes is a worrier. Raised by his mother, grandmother, and a flock of busy sisters, he's always felt the outsider. When he learns that one of his sisters has left her husband, he heads for home and back into the confusion of childhood memories and unforseen love....
Download or read book Iris Murdoch Connected written by Mark Luprecht and published by Univ. of Tennessee Press. This book was released on 2014-11-26 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Iris Murdoch was one of the most interesting and wide-ranging philosophers in recent British history. In addition to her five works on moral philosophy and existentalism, including Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, she was the author of twenty-five works of fiction, including The Sea, the Sea, winner of the Booker Prize, and The Black Prince, winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. This collection reassesses her literary and philosophical output, focusing on her key literary works and the influence she had among contemporary philosophers" --
Download or read book Contingency Irony and Solidarity written by Richard Rorty and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1989-02-24 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this 1989 book Rorty argues that thinkers such as Nietzsche, Freud, and Wittgenstein have enabled societies to see themselves as historical contingencies, rather than as expressions of underlying, ahistorical human nature or as realizations of suprahistorical goals. This ironic perspective on the human condition is valuable on a private level, although it cannot advance the social or political goals of liberalism. In fact Rorty believes that it is literature not philosophy that can do this, by promoting a genuine sense of human solidarity. A truly liberal culture, acutely aware of its own historical contingency, would fuse the private, individual freedom of the ironic, philosophical perspective with the public project of human solidarity as it is engendered through the insights and sensibilities of great writers. The book has a characteristically wide range of reference from philosophy through social theory to literary criticism. It confirms Rorty's status as a uniquely subtle theorist, whose writing will prove absorbing to academic and nonacademic readers alike.
Download or read book Jackson s Dilemma written by Iris Murdoch and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1997-03-01 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the eve of their wedding, Edward Lannion and Marian Berran are led away onto dark and strange paths, while their friends and lovers are forced to make new and surprising choices. Watching over all of them is Jackson, a mysterious and charismatic manservant who, in guiding all the young lovers into the light, has to make his own agonizing decisions.
Download or read book Iris Murdoch and Her Work written by Mustafa and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-15 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores different aspects of Murdoch's work including her philosophy and fiction, focusing on a wide variety of issues ranging from reading "Murdoch as a fabulator" to the central role Murdoch plays in the "ethical turn." Approaching Murdoch's work from multiple perspectives, this book is of interest for Murdoch scholars, literature and philosophy students, as well as for general readers.
Download or read book The Green Knight written by Iris Murdoch and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Full of suspense, humor, and symbolism, this magnificently crafted and magical novel replays biblical and medieval themes in contemporary London. An attempt by the sharp, feral, and uncommonly intelligent Lucas Graffe to murder his sensual and charismatic half-brother Clement is interrupted by a stranger—whom Lucas strikes and leaves for dead. When the stranger mysteriously reappears, with specific demands for reparation, the Graffes’ circle of idiosyncratic family and friends is disrupted—for the demands are bizarre, intrusive, and ultimately fatal.
Download or read book Iris Murdoch s Comic Vision written by Angela Hague and published by Susquehanna University Press. This book was released on 1984 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study looks at the comic dimension and ironic tone of Iris Murdoch's work and argues that these elements are as important to an understanding of her novels as is her use of mythic patterns and philosophical ideas.
Download or read book Literature and Contingency written by Christina Lupton and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-05-21 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection features leading literary critics and explores the role of language in thinking about the ways in which the world might be otherwise, and the history of contingency as a longstanding literary concept. The defining feature of contingency lies in the suggestion that things that have already happened might have been otherwise. Central to late twentieth century European critical and sociological thinking, that argument is at the centre of this volume. The contributors to this volume explore subjects including how literature, philosophy and history all cope with contingency; the existence of contingency in genres as diverse as enlightenment fables, Aristotle, Hardy, Jane Austen, and post-war American literature; the contingency of old age and the poetics of contingency. As the chapters here illustrate, our efforts to understand each other involve a constant opening onto being otherwise; an enterprise in which the role of the literary critic remains key. Of interest to scholars across a range of literary genres, this volume would also have applications for philosophy researchers exploring the metaphysics of contingency. This book was originally published as a special issue of Textual Practice.
Download or read book The Comforters written by Muriel Spark and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 2014-05-27 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spark’s mind-bogglingly stunning 1957 debut With easy, sunny eeriness, Spark lights up the darkest things: blackmail, a drowning, nervous breakdowns, a ring of smugglers, a loathsome busybody, a diabolic bookseller, human evil.
