Art as immanent liberation : a Deleuzean study of the role of art in Iris Murdoch's The Unicorn

Abstract

Art has a critical place in Iris Murdoch's The Unicorn (1963) where it is closely intertwined with freedom. However, to date this aspect of the novel has been largely overlooked. The present study adopts a Deleuzean approach to examine the liberating role of art in this novel as Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's concept of "minor art" can shed new light on the novel's thematic structure. The present study shows the effects of (minor) literature and music on the protagonist, namely Hannah Crean-Smith. This study, then, offers a Deleuzean reading of the intertextual relations in The Unicorn to explore the potential of the other texts addressed in the novel and to investigate their impact on actualizing Hannah's will to power. The results show that the virtual powers of the novel Hannah reads, together with her interest in music, de-subjectify and liberate her from the bounds of familialism and organism.