Finding Happiness against Meaninglessness inMurdoch'sUnder the Net
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Department of English
Abstract
The research is about the feeling of absurdity by the characters in Irish
Murdoch’sUnder 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 takeher treatment to themas 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.Infact, the characters represent the author’s struggle to be a successful
writer.
Thenarrator 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 butmoves forward with his
mustered power. Hence, the researcher’s hypothesis of taking absurdity as a way of
becoming assertive and adventurous.