RICHARD WASSON
continuities,
to
suggest through a reconciling metaphor a link be–
tween things. The process of metaphor involved them in the crea–
tion of a supramundane link between different things. They used
words not to present a thing, but a totality to which the thing be–
longed; they tried to find some inner meaning or trandescental sig–
nificance for objects and people, a process that could only be accom–
plished by incorporating the Contingent and the Other as symbols
within one's own consciousness.
Poets then projected their inner drama into works of art. Ralph
Freedman, in
The Lyrical Novel,
describes the kind of artistic pro–
cess which Murdoch and Robbe-Grillet reject. The artist represents
himself as an object and transmutes that object into a visible work
of art. "The perceived object becomes part of the poet's experience
while rendering his private sensiblity public, but, mirroring the poet's
inner state, it loses its separate, independent character. In this way
perceived objects become manifestations of the poet's spirit - fea–
tures of his self portrait - as they are portrayed symbolically in the
form of
art."
Ths kind of art work then relies on the technique of
mirroring and doubling. Since the self, Freedman continues "is the
point at which inner and outer worlds are joined, the hero's mental
picture reflects the universe of sensible encounters as an image, the
world is part of the hero's inner world." Just as the outer world
becomes the hero's inner world, so the work becomes a projection
of the artist's subjectivity. The artist by projecting himself into
his
work of art, makes himself a total universe.
Murdoch uses the label Totalitarian Man to describe such
characters and writers. In these men, the self is "locked in struggle
with the self" and others are significant only in as much as they can
play a role in an internal drama; any center of existence other than
self is either ignored or considered as menacing. Totalitarian Man
rules out of existence everything which cannot be given symbolic
significance in his consciousness. Though he may reach ever more
inclusive symbolic structures, he can never encounter a reality which
is significant simply in being other than himself. In fact, he can
never be content with his own nature, he can never allow himself
merely to be an individual experiencing other individuals; he thus
becomes "a clear-cut piece of drama," a work of art, rather than a
living man.
