The Element of Contingency in Human Relationships: A Study of Iris Murdoch's Early Novels Dr. Verma Rashmi Assistant Professor, Department of English, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, India Online published on 18 June, 2014. Abstract The critics have classified Iris Murdoch's novels as Philosophical, symbolist, moralist, didactic, novels of ideas, realistic, fantastic, Gothic and allegorical. Criticism of her novels has mostly focused on the characters, the form and the emerging patterns, her elusive symbolism and, in broader terms, her moral concerns and realism. The present paper takes up the study of human relationships, which I consider central to Murdoch's novels, have received comparatively little critical attention apart from by-the way references in character analysis. Top Keywords Existentialism, Realistic tradition in Novel, Moral philosophy, Contingency, Freud's psycho-analysis, Platonism. Top |