From Fantasy to the Reality and The Search for Human Goodness in “The Green Knight”

Abstract

The Green Knight is Iris Murdoch’s 25th novel, first published in 1993. It is a vast moral and intellectual masterwork, set in contemporary London, about an enclosed group of people, which is made up of characters from middle and upper class intellectuals. Murdoch through the novel evokes the story of Cain and Abel, as well as the medieval romance ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ in which the magical intruder tests the integrity of the gallant Sir Gawain. Therefore the elements of magical circumstances abound. Clement’s parents first could not have children and adopted Lucas, but then Clement was born. There is a strange relationship between them, which is compared to the relationship between Cain and Abel from the Biblical story.