The Black Prince論 : 虚構を彷徨う作家ブラッドリー・ピアソン

• Main Authors: 中窪 靖, Yasushi NAKAKUBO, 京都文教大学人間学部・臨床心理学科, KYOTO BUNKYO UNIVERSITY Department of Clinical Psychology
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Japanese
• Published: 2008
• Subjects: Murdoch; Black Prince; Baffin
• Online Access: https://kbu.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_uri&item_id=1594; http://id.nii.ac.jp/1431/00001581/; https://kbu.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_action_common_download&item_id=1594&item_no=1&attribute_id=21&file_no=1

This paper examines Iris Murdoch's The Black Prince(1973). The author challenges some new experiments throughout this work of art. In an interview with W. K. Rose in 1968, she interestingly hints that her forthcoming work will be differently written. Generally speaking, her quick responses to her interviewer are especially common. She mentions that the way she will compose her fiction in the future is really nineteenth century-canonized and her target is that of a realist writer. However, she says "I don't at the moment see any big break with the way in which I have been writing." If we put some weight on the phrase, "at the moment", we can easily assume that Ms. Murdoch might challenge some new styles in her fictional composition. The Black Prince is quite a challenging novel. There is another remarkable story within the main plot. The hero, Bradley Pearson is a professional writer, and is writing a love story titled "A Celebration of Love." Why we should pay great attention to this is that both the outside and the inside story have almost the same fictional characters. In particular, Bradley, as a creator of both the stories at times plays his narrative role in the inside story and at other times becomes a fictional writer in the outside story. In the view of the way the narrator shows us how complicated the inside story is, we find one similarity between Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire and The Black Prince. And there is another similarity in Murdoch's novel to Nabokov's Lolita, when we read those two stories as confessions of an older man hooked by a young girl. Our wandering creator has several acquaintances in those two worlds. They have some indispensable effects upon him. There are several fictional characters here in the story we are imperatively side by side with in addition to Bradley Pearson. They are mentioned as Arnold Baffin, Rachel Baffin, Julian Baffin, Priscilla, and others. First of all, Part I focuses on Rachel Baffin as a valuable fictional character created by our hero. She seems to have the ...