5 - In a New Light

Summary

In 1957 Iris Murdoch wrote, with perhaps too much concision, “Man is a creature who makes pictures of himself, and then comes to resemble the picture.” And in an earlier diary entry from June 14, 1952, she had written: “There is a lot which I don't put into the diary, because it would be too discreditable – and maybe even more painful.” Characteristically, she quickly turns to reflect upon, to refine, and to qualify what she has just written, adding parenthetically, “At least – no major item omitted but certain angles altered – and painful incidents omitted.” Still earlier, shortly after having listened to a lecture entitled “The Past” by Elizabeth Anscombe in October 1947, Murdoch, as her biographer Peter Conradi reports, was reflecting on “what she might feel if presented with documentary evidence – for example, journals – about her forgotten past.” She then writes a passage that both gives voice to a kind of guarded skepticism concerning self-knowledge and makes a strong claim concerning the active nature of our involvement with our past. She writes: “Suppose I were given evidence about what I thought at the time. My diaries, etc. I think I would not accept that evidence. I'd still feel I didn't know what my past really was.” Describing these diary pages – pages within a diary attempting to advance our understanding of the degree to which a diary is itself credible, authoritative, and revelatory – Conradi says, “Over many pages of reflection, she reaches towards a distinction between a ‘frozen’ and an ‘unfrozen’ past. So long as one lives, one's relationship with the past should keep shifting.”