Existential Redemption in Iris Murdoch’s The Good Apprentice

Abstract

This research work on Iris Murdoch’s The Good Apprentice explores the choices that all the human beings make and the effects these choices make on their way of life. It tries to study that in an uncaring world where contingency rules, if it is possible in any way to redeem oneself without the agency of God, if one is guilt stricken because of one’s own choice, a silly mistake done just for fun. Taking into context the narrative, Edward the protagonist feeds drug induced sandwich to his best friend, Mark who has never used drugs before. In the hallucinatory fit caused by the drug, Mark jumps down the window and dies leaving his soul guilt stricken, suddenly crippled. In the course of his journey towards redemption and thereby understanding his existence, he experiences the world around, full of paradoxes of love and hate, hope and despair, anger and joy, disgust and pleasure. However he ultimately learns to be hard working and responsible for his actions; he learns to forgive and to forget and to care about others thereby finding meaning in his life. Was this his existential redemption?