Iris Murdoch's Structuralism: Disbelief in Language

Abstract

Iris Murdoch published Under the Net among the structuralist discussions about meaning and language. As Murdoch was a philosopher, she published philosophical writings as well as literary works. Murdoch distrusted language, her main characters in Under the Net thus attend to the same concept. While her protagonist James Donaghue plagiarises from Hugo Belfounder in order to compose his book The Silencer, Hugo believes that it is silence instead of language where meaning is conveyed. James silences Hugo for he erases Hugo’s identity during the process of the composition of The Silencer as the speaker of the text. However, it is at the same time because of his approach to language that Hugo keeps silent in order to be meaningful. Besides being silenced by James, Hugo intentionally silences himself. This study, therefore, explores the traces of Murdoch’s involvement in the structuralist questions of meaning and language in her debut novel.