Jennifer Frey discusses Iris Murdoch and Flannery O’Connor at a recent Faith and Imagination Lecture.
Humanity’s views on morality span a broad spectrum. Where do you find yourself landing on it? How do your morals affect your view of the world? At the fall 2022 Faith and Imagination Lecture, University of South Carolina philosophy professor Jennifer Frey argued that, despite Flannery O’Connor’s and Iris Murdoch’s differing ideas on morality, imagination, and truth, these two authors viewed their writing and literature in a similar way.
Her lecture, “Iris Murdoch and Flannery O’Connor: The Necessity of Vision in Life and Literature,” highlighted the intersection of morality, imagination, and truth in the lives and works of the two authors. Frey began by outlining the authors’ personal lives in order to highlight how the religious values—or lack thereof—shaped their moral visions.
Murdoch was a classically educated, communist, atheist woman who advocated for sexual exploration. Her personal life was reflected in her novels, which focus on morality, virtue, and sexual relationships. Frey argued that Murdoch viewed imagination not as something fantastical but as a freedom and an ability to perceive and express the truth. “She asks us to notice how much truth a Shakespeare play contains or a great novel,” Frey said. “When we find literature sentimental, pretentious, self-indulgent, or trivial, Murdoch insists that we’re saying it distorts reality.” She explained that unlike fantasy literature, imaginative literature based on real life allows the readers to perceive and express the truth in the everyday world, even if it is difficult.
On the other extreme was O’Connor, a first-generation American and devout Catholic who cherished her daily readings of Thomas Aquinas and incorporated his ideas of Christianity into her works. She valued chastity and sexual purity, never marrying and instead living with her mother. Her difficult and humble upbringing in Savannah, Georgia, shaped themes of grace and morality in her literature. O’Connor believed that one must confront religion through literature because it inspires thought and reveals truth.
From an outside perspective, Murdoch’s and O’Connor’s personal lives and philosophical beliefs couldn’t seem more different. However, Frey offered a different interpretation, explaining that they both saw literature as a cognitive, truth-seeking, and truth-revealing enterprise. “Both [women] put a kind of moral vision at the center of their understanding,” she said. A moral vision, Frey asserted, that both authors agreed could not be separated from their artistic vision.
Frey’s lecture reminds us to be conscious consumers of art, deliberately searching for the creator’s moral vision. Both Murdoch and O’Connor encourage readers to embrace truth through literature or other creative means, even if it is difficult. “Literature tells us and teaches us things,” Frey said. “In portraying characters, the author displays, most clearly, his discernment, his truthfulness, his justice, or his lack of these qualities.”
