" What Murdoch is essentially saying here is that only in our "illusioning fantasy" can we have a self or conceive "ourselves" to be fulfilled, perfected and complete. One of Murdoch's most celebrated novels, The Sea, The Sea, provides a fitting example of the nature of the blinding fantasy through which a person creates a Self. The protagonist, Charles Arrowby, moves from London to a small village where in search of his true identity he writes his autobiography. His quest eventually ends in disaster as he becomes obsessed with revising his life as he recounts it. Indeed, Arrowby's autobiographical quest is symbolic of how people tell stories not only to others but also to themselves about how their lives fit together, who they are, or what they should do, and who they should be. Murdoch abhors the tradition of autobiography, which she views as misguided and self absorbed. She portrays it as something almost satanic, which can only serve to disconnect people with reality and lead them to misery: "Happiness is a matter of one's most ordinary everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self. To be damned is for one's ordinary everyday mode of consciousness to be unremitting agonizing preoccupation with self". .
Exploring Iris Murdoch's concept of the self.
The concept of identity emerged from studies of the Self. According to Sarbin (in Theory and Psychology 7, 1997: 68), early twentieth - century conceptions of Self were based on the soul, which was a theological construction which had existed for centuries. However, with the influence of literary works which explored the self, theories emerged on the Self being more complex than previously assumed, and traditional beliefs regarding the nature of the Self came into question. .
According to Bruner (in Gay and Thompson, 1997: 45), "the notion of the "Self" is [still] an oddball one for philosophers and psychologists alike".