ABSTRACT

This essay aims at exploring, from a Deleuzean perspective, the issue of ethics in Iris Murdoch’s The Sandcastle (1957) and how it is related to the central character’s struggles for making his life meaningful. The event that disrupts the subjectivity of the major characters of this novel (Mor and Rain) and poses serious ethical problems for them is an extra-marital love affair. The major concern of the “resistant” ethical analysis provided is the manner in which these characters strive to deterritorialize themselves through schizophrenizing love and actively create their own ethical values rather than passively surrendering to what the dominant slave morality imposes on them. Contrary to traditional, “dominant” readings of the novel, which are built upon Murdoch’s own philosophy, here it is discussed that Mor, the protagonist of The Sandcastle, is a weak character who is eventually defeated by his reactive dilemmas and resumes his subjective role of the good husband and affectionate father prescribed for him by the capitalist institution of the nuclear family and its Oedipal conception of desire. This reveals the forces of becoming underlying such minoritarian texts and how they could be liberated from the shackles of “being” imposed on them from without.

摘要

本文旨在从德勒兹的角度探讨艾里斯·默多克（Iris Murdoch）的《沙堡》中的道德问题（1957）及其与中央人物为使他的生活有意义而进行的斗争有关。这一事件破坏了这部小说（《摩尔与雨》）的主要人物的主观性，并给他们带来了严重的道德问题，这是一场婚外恋。所提供的“抗拒”伦理分析的主要关注点在于，这些角色如何通过精神分裂爱来使自己具有地域化特征，并积极创造自己的道德价值观，而不是被动地屈服于奴隶制主导性道德观念。与基于默多克自己的哲学的小说的传统“主流”读本相反，这里讨论的是《沙堡》的主人公莫尔，是个虚弱的人物，最终被他的反应性困境所击败，并恢复了核心家庭的资本主义制度及其俄狄浦斯式的欲望观念所规定的好丈夫和深情父亲的主观角色。这揭示了成为这种少数派文本基础的力量，以及如何将其从不受限制的“存在”的束缚中解放出来。