Quest for the Female Self-awareness in Iris Murdoch’s A Fairly Honourable Defeat

Abstract

This paper is devoted to examine the reconstruction of female selfhood from the aspect of the growth of female self-consciousness in a changed and revised world through the quest for female self-awareness as an individual in Iris Murdoch's A Fairly Honourable Defeat. Through the analysis of Iris Murdoch's comparative characterization of the siblings Hilda and Morgan, the paper reveals that the social and economic changes in the modern world and all kinds of women's liberation movements will necessarily lead to the improved situation of women if they have no capacity for introspection and the ability to reconcile themselves as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals. Compared with Morgan's emotional perplexity, economic hardship, and male contempt, Hilda's affluent life, happy marriage and her popularity among the male indicate Murdoch's reluctant admission that women still live in the androcentric world where the women's self-improvement are not widely welcome.