Murdoch's multifaceted novels have always enjoyed both popular success and high critical acclaim and have earned their author a permanent place in the mainstream of English literature. The work of Iris Murdoch reflects the battles and development of both novel writing and social attitudes to moral issues of the decades since the Second World War, which makes her as much a writer of our time as her broader moral concerns make her work timeless. The aim of the study is to trace the seemingly recurrent kinds of relationships in broad outlines and show how multifarious they really are. This is where the author's concept of contingency is best employed and illustrated and where her realism is at its most real.
