"Only Connect": Logical Aesthetic of Fragmentation in A Word Child

Abstract

Both Iris Murdoch's A Word Child, despite her claims to the contrary, and E. M. Forster's Howards End deal in philosophical ideas. addition, their goals remain the same, the attainment of a state of appreciation for the value of hope and love, even though the emphasis in Howards End is on connecting and in A Word Child on disconnecting. Murdoch states in a 1977 interview, can't be sure, of course, but I don't feel any wave of influence there. I don't think philosophy influences my work as a novelist.' Yet she recognizes the philosophical function of literature, since In morals and politics we have stripped ourselves of concepts. Literature, in curing its own ills, can give us a new vocabulary of experience and a truer picture of freedom.2 Claiming that We need a new vocabulary of attention, she states in 1961, It is here that literature is so important, especially since it has taken over some of the tasks formerly performed by philosophy.3 this way in the early sixties, Murdoch recognizes and takes on the chore Richard Rorty assigns to the philosopher in the 1980s.4 No longer can philosophical questions be addressed solely by the dry philosophical essay. Frederick J. Hoffman concurs: Philosophy and art never exactly touch or converge in Miss Murdoch's work. This is partly because the two disciplines remain adamantly apart, and have quite different tones. But she is also responsible for a feminine view of philosophy. She says, in many ways, to her masculine colleagues: let's have done with this abstracting nonsense and see how human beings do, after all, torture one another; perhaps if we do, we can see eventually how they may come to love one another. (20)