Finding Happiness against Meaninglessness in Murdoch's Under the Net

Abstract

The research is about the feeling of absurdity by the characters in Irish Murdoch’s Under the Net. The study revolves around the experiences of the main characters like Jake, the narrator, his friend Finn, Madge, Sadie and so on. In contrast to their previous thought, the narrator and his friend find the people selfish. In the beginning, they take her treatment to them as difficulty and feel disappointed. Later on, such bad experiences become foundation for them to perceive the world differently. The author’s personal childhood experiences play great role to shape the characters. In fact, the characters represent the author’s struggle to be a successful writer. The narrator of the novel gradually perceives the world in subjective way. He undergoes lots of adventures in his life. His illusion of thinking his friends and relatives to be his lifelong companions is broken when the narrator along with his friend is thrown out of the rental house by Madge. He takes it as threat in the beginning but later it becomes opportunity to understand the world in his own ways. The feeling of absurdity comes from his loneliness and ends with a great lesson at the end. The narrator makes his feeling of absurdity as a weapon to fight against adversity. In short, he does not surrender to the situation but moves forward with his mustered power. Hence, the researcher’s hypothesis of taking absurdity as a way of becoming assertive and adventurous.