POSTMODERNIST FACES OF TRUTH AND FICTION IN IRIS MURDOCH’S “THE SEA, THE SEA”

Authors

  • Elisabeta Simona CATANĂ Polytechnic University of Bucharest. West University of Timişoara. Email: catanasimona@yahoo.com

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24193/subbphilo.2021.2.01

Keywords:

truth, fiction, postmodernist faces, vision, the past, the present, the sea, the light, the world

Abstract

Postmodernist Faces of Truth and Fiction in Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, The Sea. This essay analyses Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, The Sea and argues that the concept of truth stands for multiple-faced fiction to be interpreted according to the readers’ vision, culture and education. One’s vision of the world represents one’s truth about the world. Emphasizing the fictionality of truth and inviting the readers to analyze the symbols of the sea and of the “various lights” (Murdoch 77), which stand for different views on the past and the world, Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, The Sea evinces its postmodernist and metafictional condition.

REZUMAT. Fețele postmoderniste ale adevărului și ficțiunii în romanul Marea, Marea de Iris Murdoch. Eseul argumentează faptul că în romanul Marea, Marea de Iris Murdoch conceptul de adevăr este asociat cu ficțiunea, având fețe multiple ce urmează a fi interpretate în funcție de viziunea, cultura și educația cititorilor. Propria viziune asupra lumii reprezintă propriul adevăr despre lume. Evidențiind caracterul ficțional al adevărului și invitând cititorii să analizeze simbolul mării și simbolul “luminilor variate” (Murdoch 77) ce scot în evidență puncte de vedere diferite despre trecut și despre conceptul de lume, romanul Marea, Marea de Iris Murdoch își dovedește condiția de roman postmodernist și metaficțional.

Cuvinte-cheie: adevăr, ficțiune, fețe postmoderniste, viziune, trecutul, prezentul, marea, lumina, lumea

Author Biography

Elisabeta Simona CATANĂ, Polytechnic University of Bucharest. West University of Timişoara. Email: catanasimona@yahoo.com

Elisabeta Simona CATANĂ teaches English at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest. Her publications focus on literary topics, methodological approaches to teaching English and Romanian for foreign students, and e-learning strategies. She has a PhD in Philology from the West University of Timişoara. Email: catanasimona@yahoo.com

References

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Holmes, Frederick. M. The Historical Imagination: Postmodernism and the Treatment of the Past in Contemporary British Fiction. University of Victoria Press, 1997.

Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism. History, Theory, Fiction. Routledge, 1988.

Murdoch, Iris. The Sea, The Sea. Penguin Books, 1978.

Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. Clarendon Press, 1994.

Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. In The Illustrated Stratford Shakespeare. Chancellor Press, 1982.

Waugh, Patricia. Metafiction. The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. Routledge, 1984.

Zeitlin, F.I. “Playing the Other: Theater, Theatricality, and the Feminine in Greek Drama”. Sexuality and Gender in the Classical World. Readings and Sources, edited by Laura K. McClure, Blackwell Publishers, 2002, pp. 120-134.

STUDIA UBB PHILOLOGIA, Volume 66 (LXVI), No. 2, June 2021

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Published

2021-06-20

How to Cite

CATANĂ, E. S. (2021). POSTMODERNIST FACES OF TRUTH AND FICTION IN IRIS MURDOCH’S “THE SEA, THE SEA”. Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Philologia, 66(2), 9–20. https://doi.org/10.24193/subbphilo.2021.2.01

Issue

Volume 66, No. 2, 2021

Section

Articles

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