Literary Influences Of Iris Murdoch, Murdoch And Other Literary Theories

The article on the fantasy within the novella reveals the debate of the governess’s mental state during her time with the children. The debacle that can be depicted within the work can be surrounded through the idea that her fantasies represent the point in which she is at her most anxious. When her anxiety reaches a certain peak, the ghost then appears. This can especially be seen just before the first sighting, when she says, “I was giving pleasure-if he ever thought of it! - to the person to whose pressure I had yielded” (38). The pressure she is experiencing allows her mental state to bring out the fantasy aspect of the apparition. Using Zacharias’s article, the audience can see the fantasy is a mechanism that is used by the governess and

The seclusion endured by the narrator causes a dramatic change in her mental state. Her surroundings are now coming alive within the walls around her. “I didn’t realize for a long time what the thing was that showed behind, that dim sub-pattern, but now I am quite sure it is a woman” (736). Initially, the figure witnessed around the walls was merely just the shadow projected from the narrator creeping around the paper. Now this shadow is taking on not just any life form but ironically the form of a woman. Just like the narrator is trapped within the barred windows of the mansion, the woman is trapped within the patterns of the paper. This parallel view is transforming the narrator’s identity within the walls of the paper. However, this obsession begins to heighten. She begins to see the woman through every window in the bedroom. She appears to be creeping not only around the walls but now outside in the garden and along the

The tale of “The Sisters” has dark images related to faith. Darkness is shown when the priest, Father Flynn, is lying in his deathbed: "When the family went up to the altar, there he lay solemn and copious” (6). This is a grave portrayal, in the look of his eyes and his face. The

An important part in every person’s life is the search for personal identity and self-knowledge. This struggle involves working out a concept of oneself as a unique individual and embracing an ideology or system of values that provide a sense of direction, as stated in Weiten’s Psychology: Themes and Variations. Similarly, in Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier, Griet grapples with her identity as a maid, and entertains the idea that she can choose a path not set out for her. Her journey of self-discovery leads to a deeper understanding of her role in Vermeer’s paintings, and what it means for her own life. The Vermeer’s influence on Griet affects her transition from adolescence into adulthood, thus affecting the choices she makes. These choices define Griet as a person even when she feels she no longer has any trace of her old self left. Although Griet does not completely sever her ties to her old life, Griet does fit the archetype of a hero on a hero’s quest because of the challenges crucial to her journey and through the redemption of her personal values.

Susan Beth Pfeffer decided that she wanted to be a writer when her father dedicated the law book he was writing to his daughter. Right then and there she wrote her first little story about the love between a pair of scissors and an Oreo cookie. Her childhood experiences form the basis of her writing, seeing that she grew up in the suburbs in New York. This explains why most of her books focus on young people growing up in the suburbs. Pfeffer went on to New York University. After getting her degree in radio, television, and motion pictures she started a writing course and her first novel Just Morgan was published. Throughout her life she has published more than 75 books and some of them include: A Year without Michael, Devils Den, Life as We Knew it and Family of Strangers. The themes of her books usually include emotional problems, divorce, historical fiction, and people having fantasies of modeling/acting. Her science fiction stories contain apocalyptic futuristic events like her novel Life as We Knew it.

Daniel Ridgway Knight was an odd American artist who loved to paint relaxed French peasants in luscious landscapes. Ironically, he lived during a stressful time when the Industrial Revolution displaced numerous farmers and polluted the environment. He seemed to ignore the harsh truth and shut himself in his imaginary serene world. For instance, In the Premier Chagrin, translated as The First Grief, Knight paints two healthy girls conversing on a stone wall in front of gorgeous fields. At first, it appears as merely a pretty painting that is nicely contrasted to show depth and realism. Yet, with a closer look, this contrast in the colors and lines of the landscape and the figures creates tension to suggest the painter’s conflict between longing for serene freedom and feeling trapped within the stiff society.

Perhaps he had come to Arles for the sun and for him, it was an immense joy to live in such bright bedroom, bursting with colors. What is also fascinating about this piece of art is how the painter highlights the simplicity of his bedroom through the medium of color: « the pale lilac walls, the floor of an old brown, the chairs and bed chrome yellow, the blood red cover, the orange little table and the blue basin”, as the painter describes it. Van Gogh asserted that he wanted to express a complete rest by handling all these different shades2. The color black, which could be evocating a certain form of anguish, is almost nonexistent in this painting. Only the frame of the mirror and windows is black. We wonder if this could mean that Van Gogh was afraid of his future and afraid to face up to reality.

Before Anne Fadiman became a writer she was a student at Harvard University. After graduating, she became a worker as a wilderness instructor in Wyoming before returning to New York to pursue he career as a writer. She has been a staff writer at Life and editor of The American Scholar and reading. She is also the author of Ex Libris and At Large and At Small. Now she has a family and is living in western Massachusetts and serves as the Francis Writer- in- Residence at Yale.

Young, beautiful, and doomed; In several, if not all, works of Edgar Allan Poe, there is a not so subtle theme that is found. One of the death and beauty. How is the death of a young woman romanticized within selected works of Edgar Allan Poe? In such works as “Lenore”, “Ulalume”, popular “Annabel Lee”, “The Raven”, and short story “The Oval Painter” ,the “death of a beautiful woman” theme is prevalent and strongly noted within context, word choice, and imagery. In the eyes of Edgar Allan poe, death, especially that of a woman, to be lamented and mourned by a “bereaved lover”, is the most valued tool to have and utilize when writing. In his own life, Poe was able to relate to the subject matter, as many of his heroins are believed to be based upon his wife Virginia, who had died at a young age. Unraveling the methods to how Poe romanticized death of young women in his literature might give insight to not only Poe’s life, but humanity in general..

Charlotte Gilman, through the first person narrator, speaks to the reader of the stages of psychic disintegration by sharing the narrator's heightened perceptions: "That spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid, but I don't care--there is something strange about the house--I can feel it" (304). The conflicting

Elizabeth Gaskell’s The Old Nurses Story was published in (1852), it has been defined as “the epitome of the traditional ghost story of the Victorian period (1837-1901), perfect to read on Christmas Eve and containing numerous Gothic motifs; a haunted mansion, a female protagonist who encounters a series of mysterious, unsettling events, a ghost child, and a dark family secret.” (Giakaniki. 2010). It was first published as part of Charles Dickens’s (1812-1870) English magazine in the Christmas edition of Household Words (1850-1859). (Gaskell & Kranzler. 2000: viii). The story is a retrospective account told by the nurse ‘Hester’ and the title itself represents a form and expression of female identity that of the role of the nurse maid situated in Victorian society.

Margaret Atwood was born on the 18th of November 1939 in Ottawa, Canada. She is a writer and a poet, and has written more than 40 books, poems and critical essays. She studied at Victoria College, University of Toronto, Radcliff college and Harvard university. She has been an English teacher at different universities and has won countless of writing prizes throughout her career (Biography, Margaret Atwood). One of her most known writing piece is The Penelopiad. The Penelopiad novella was published in 2005, it is a book on the Canongate myth series. The Canongate myth series is a series of short novels in which ancient myths are reimagined and rewritten by contemporary authors (“The Canongate Myth Series”). The Penelopiad is based on Homer’s “The Odyssey” Penelope, the wife of Odysseus, tells her story when Odysseus was away at war. She explains how her life was in Ithaca and the story of the twelve maids. Although Margaret Atwood has not stated she is a feminist, her work speaks for itself. Throughout the novella there is a sense of feminism. Margaret Atwood’s work has been known for being feminist, Penelope’s life and personality give a powerful view on the feminist aspect of this novella.

The critics from psychanalytic perspective claim that the existence of ghosts is the governess’s hysterical delusion. The ghost is the projection of governess's own sexual hysteria, which resulted from the conflict between native romantic impulses and idealistic innocence required by Victorian society (Renner). The inexperienced governess encounters the "handsome," "bold," young gentleman with "charming ways with women" (James, 4) and she

These and other comments, nevertheless, Byatt offers about her work should be stood by means of the common proverb grain of salt-there is without a doubt a decent deal of art in Possession, and every so often the life becomes confined within the art, on the other hand, in its examination of love and loss, the novel trinkets true and deep. Even though authors are not always the

The very setting of the fireside at which Griffin's guests swap stories establishes an atmosphere with which many of us are familiar. We can all relate to sitting around a fire exchanging ghost stories. By employing this particular narrative frame James encourages the reader to abandon their scepticism and give themselves over to a belief in the ghosts. The reader shares in the eagerness of the guests to be frightened; to be delighted by horror. Upon seeing Douglas' distress at the thought of the tale he must tell, and its "dreadful - dreadfulness", one of the female guests actually cries, "Oh how delicious!"5