| Popis: |
In Iris Murdoch’s novel The Philosopher’s Pupil, the author writes a postmodern allegory of the creative process. In this work, Iris Murdoch teaches her reader how to read allegorically in an age dominated by realism. She teases us—as critic Robert Scholes wrote of an earlier Murdoch novel—into re-learning a “lost way of reading by almost imperceptibly moving from conventional mysteries of motivation and responsibility to the ideational mysteries of philosophy” (Scholes, p. 60). Murdoch carries out the allegory by way of “The Institute,” a hot-spring spa in the town. The behind-the-scenes “machinery” of The Institute relates allegorically to the operation of the publishing apparatus controlling narrative for the public as the product of innate creativity surges through it. The allegory is clearly tied to a view of sexuality as a powerful natural force which some feel must be suppressed or at least channelled. The allegory is carried out as follows: A philosopher attempts to arrange the marriage of his granddaughter to a young writer who descends into the works of The Institute and then realizes he should marry the granddaughter. This allegorically represents the merger of narrative art and philosophy. |
