The Levinasian Notion of Il-Y-A Applied to and Analysis of Iris Murdoch's The Bell

This paper considers some ways in which the Levinas' idea of il-y-a is represented in Iris Murdoch's novel, The bell It consists of three sections First, it looks at Dora, a Murdochian persona(as critics now widely agree) in the novel and how the idea of il-y-a can work out to give and angle to the reading of Doran in therms of resisting any form of categorisation imposed upon her by others, and gaining an enhanced self-understanding In the second section, this paper talks about a relationship malfunction caused by Michael, the main character in the story in catagloguing himself and others in view of self-seeking ideas The third section, the main argument of this paper, attempts to view critically Murdoch arguing that she has not made sure there is enough space provided to give a complete picture of an alternative view where the readers are allowed to see Michael as he is, without being defined of categorised by the way that he suffers due to his innate cause The central argument running through this paper is relying on some postmodern thoughts such as decentering, and ultimately other-seeking discourse