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IRIS MURDOCH
( 1919-1999) 
Iris Murdoch was one of the most complex writers in modern English fiction. She was born in 
1919 in Dublin. The main theme of her novels is the fate of men and women in modern society, 
their belief and disbelief. Her heroes are lonely and suffering people. In all her novels we find love 
as great and mysterious force. It is the inner world of the character that interests Iris Murdoch. Her 
books arise out of the varied experiences of life. 
Iris Murdoch lectured in philosophy from 1948 to 1963 at the Oxford University in England. 
It influenced her literary career and she became an author of many books on philosophy and 
philosophical novels. She began her literary career with a critical work “Sartre, Romantic 
Rationalist” (1953). Her first novel “Under the Net” appeared in 1954 and since then she 
published a book almost every year. 
Her characters face difficult moral choices in their search for love and freedom and are often 
involved in complex networks of love affairs. Some of Murdoch’s novels expose the dangers of 
abstract system of behavior that cut out people off from spontaneous, loving relationships. “Under 
the Net” (1954) and “Fairly Honourable Defeat” (1970) are examples of it. “The Bells” (1958) 
describes the relationships among the members of a religious commune. In “A Several Head” 
(1961) Murdoch portrays three couples whose unfaithful sexual conduct illustrates their shallow, 
self-centered philosophies. Existentialistic characteristic features of loneliness, anxiety and fear 
prevail in “The Unicorn” (1963) and “The Italian Girl” (1964). The ninth novel, “The Red and the 
Green” (1965) is apparently a progressive point in Murdoch’s evolution to realism, but in her next 
novel, “The Time of Angels” (1966), the writer’s realistic vision is completely suppressed by the 
old pessimistic approach to the individual and society. The line of evolution of Iris Murdoch’s 
creative method was, thus, tremendously unstable and contradictory. By the time she began writing, 
she was a convinced defender of the existentialist trend in philosophy. Iris Murdoch was always 
looking for the mysterious in ordinary life. “The Sandcastle” and “The Bell” demonstrate her ability 
to make usual and even banal situations exciting. A lot of other novels, except “The Red and the 
Green”, brim with unaccountable horrors, senseless crimes and love affairs. The characters are 
hopelessly engulfed in the world of evil, their alienation is complete, and the author’s dependence 
on traditional schemes of existentialism is obvious. The picture of the Irish uprising in 1916 in the 
“The Red and the Green” is written with a certain sense of realism. Her other novels include an 
“Accidental Man” (1971), “The Black Prince” (1973)’’ , “ The Sea, The Sea” (1978), “The Good 
Apprentice” (1986), and “The Book and the Brotherhood” (1988) . Iris Murdoch tried to write in 
the spirit of realistic traditions in English literature. But her books are characterized by Romantic 
foundation .