Writing as Traumatic Awakening and Transmission
in Iris Murdoch's The Black Prince
Il-Yeong Kim and
SeungBoo Kim
“The Black Prince,” Peter Conradi remarks, “concerns the jealous, implicitly murderous hostility that underlies
the friendship between a facile artist-protégé and his serious-minded discoverer-patron. Both parties, Arnold Baffin
and Bradley Pearson, are aspects of Iris herself.”(519) Such a view which regards the novel as a manifestation of the
author’s autobiographical aspects forms the critical mainstream of The Black Prince, leading many critics to see
Bradley Pearson the protagonist of the novel as a mouthpiece for Murdoch herself as well as examine how Murdoch’s
moral philosophy is embodied in Bradley’s writing.
Such viewpoints, however, are incompatible with Murdoch’s attitude toward her literary work:
A literary presence if it is too bossy, like Lawrence’s, may be damaging; when for instance one favored character is the
author’s spokesman. Bad writing is almost always full of the fumes of personality. . . . I do not mind owning a personal
style, but I do not want to be obviously present in my work. (EM 9, underlines added)
Murdoch's suggestion that any particular character should not represent author's voice implies that we try not to read
Bradley's writing in terms of Murdoch's voice, particularly her philosophical ideas. That is, when we read The Black
Prince, Murdoch maintains, we must investigate his narrative without relying on any extrinsic idea, since the story is
not about Murdoch, but about Bradley himself, who is at the center of this story as well as the center of the
consciousness dominating the story.1
This fact naturally leads us to pay close attention to Bradley's consciousness as well as his psychological
aspects2 itself. It is Nicol who first notices the necessity of psychoanalytic reading of the book. He tries to connect
"the implications of masquerade in masochism" with Bradley's authorship in the first person, tracing Bradley's
1 Bradley's narrative is wholly concerned with Bradley himself as well as his love, whose meaning and nature he tries to
investigate and define through this writing. Besides, postscripts written by other major characters are solely concerned with
Bradley and his statements.
2 It is not by chance that one of characters, Francis Marloe, in his postscript analyzes Bradley’s story in the light of Freudian ideas.
Although Bradley treats him as “a subsidiary, a sidesman” or “an excellent fifth wheel” (40), Francis should not be considered as
such. He not only opens Bradley’s story as “the mascot of the tale” (40), but also, and more importantly, reveals Bradley’s
repressed memories.
masochistic aspects whose image is represented by the "flayed" artist in this novel. But it is trauma that exerts the
greatest influences on the life of Bradley who writes his memoir after being imprisoned because of his supposed
murder of Arnold, his rival writer.
Throughout the novel Bradley is not only haunted by “a nightmare” (222), a recurring dream 3 whose meaning
he does not understand, but also so much obsessed by it that his writing is pregnant with its repeated presence.
Therefore, when we consider the fact that the trauma, "the wound of the mind", cannot "be fully known and is
therefore not available to consciousness until it imposes itself again, repeatedly, in the nightmares and repetitive
actions of the survivor"4, Bradley's writing seems to be dominated by his trauma which also provides a clue to his
dilemma. The aim of this paper is closely related to this fact, since it will handle some questions like where Bradley’s
trauma originates from, how it functions in his life and writing, and how he can/may survive it.
These particular questions are instrumental in understanding the nature of Bradley's trauma as well as his
writing, since they are concerned with Bradley's future as well as his past. Like his writing, Bradley's trauma is not
just concerned with his past, that is, a repetition of catastrophic past, but also with the future, that is, an endless
confrontation with the future, which may enable Bradley to overcome his traumatic past. In this respect, Freudian
“traumatic neurosis” and Caruth’s idea of trauma are helpful, because while Freud's theory of trauma explains the
origin of Bradley's trauma and its repetitive nature, Caruth finds future aspect inherent in trauma by reading trauma as
“a call to survival through new forms of contact with others.”5
I. Origin and "screen memory" of Bradley’s Trauma
Bradley’s writing is the place where his present self attempts to narrate his past in retrospect, that is, where his
two selves meet and communicate with each other. Thus, we sometimes hear Bradley's two different yet
interconnected voices which reveal his innermost feelings. His explanation of the psychological reason for his
reflective writing is meaningful in this respect: “The psyche, desperate for its survival, discovers deep things”(537).
This statement indicates that Bradley's writing is for his psychic survival, emphasizing the necessity of finding
unknown or repressed psychological aspect which is hidden deep in Bradley's heart for his survival. Thus, Bradley's
writing may be regarded as the attempt to overcome his trauma which composes the core of his writing.
To locate one's trauma, one needs to trace his life back to his past, because trauma which affects the present is
3 When we consider the fact that the term trauma is derived from the German word ‘traum' which means dream, Bradley's dream
or nightmare can be regarded as the result or embodiment of his trauma.
4 Caruth 1996, 4. In this paper, Caruth’s Unclaimed Experience will be hereafter abbreviated as UE and also parenthetically
referenced with page numbers.
5 Marder 2.
essentially a psychical wound that stems from the past. Here lies the reason why Bradley’s narrative begins with his
memory of his own childhood, especially that of a paper shop which his parents once ran in Bradley's childhood.
Bradley describes it as follows:
My parents kept a shop, a sort of paper shop, down in Croydon. . . . the shop was the house and the mythical domain of our
childhood. We had the shop: its drawers, its shelves, its smells, its endless empty cardboard boxes, its particular dirt. It was
a shabby unsuccessful shop. . . . I will not go on about the shop. I still dream about it at least once a week. (Italic is mine,
41)
Bradley confesses that he repeatedly dreams about “the paper shop", regarding it as “the mythical domain”,
even though he does not want to talk about it. In this sense, the paper shop is closely related to his trauma which
frequently represents itself in the shape of dream in his unconscious world. However, it is not easy to understand the
nature of Bradley's trauma as well as to know what it is, because he does not mention any particular accident which
caused him any kind of wounds.
Freud explained trauma as "experiences which occurred in very early childhood and were not understood at the
time but which were subsequently understood and intercepted”. Bradley himself did not know specifically what his
trauma was, though he is now dimly aware of its terrible influence upon his life. In connection with this, we need to
examine the nature of “screen memories” which are, as Richard expounds, unconsciously used to repress recollection
of an associated but distressing event. In Bradley’s case, the screen memory is the paper shop of which Bradley so
frequently dreams. Hence we need to examine what the paper shop represents before we find what traumatic
experience the paper shop screens.
As shown in the above quotations, the paper shop with its “smells” and “particular dirt” is associated with
shabbiness or something "shabby" which evoke “disgust” from Bradley. Bradley's attitude to his mother is similar to
that toward the paper shop because he, disapproving of her "worldliness", associates his mother with the image of
shabbiness which causes Bradley a sense of pain and "disgust". In this respect, the paper shop, a symbol of
shabbiness, is a screen memory of his "shabby" mother, which fact is penetrated by Francis, the psychiatrist, who
regards the paper shop as the symbol of “that stale interior, symbolic of the rejected womb of a socially inferior
mother” (549).
The connection between Bradley's trauma and his mother is more reinforced by a kind of his foreword to this
work full of enigmatic statements:
My life, until the drama which brought it so significantly to a climax, had been an uneventful one. . . . I was married, then
ceased to be married, as I shall tell. I am childless. I suffer from intermittent stomach troubles and insomnia. I have usually
lived alone. After my wife, and also before her, there were women about whom I shall not speak since they are irrelevant
and unimportant. Sometimes I saw myself as an ageing Don Juan, but the majority of my conquests belonged to the world
of fantasy. (42-43)
A close scrutiny of this statement reveals Bradley’s negative attitude to women. But it is not due to the failure of his
marriage with Christian, but to his own distorted attitude to women which is suggested by his own description of
himself as “an ageing Don Juan,” because his identification of himself with Don Juan shows his superficial
relationship with women, while implying something which obstructs his normal relationship with women.
That "something" is Bradley's trauma, that is, his "shabby mother", who causes traumatic phobia as well as
insomnia by repeatedly penetrating Bradley's unconscious in the form of nightmare.
II. Traumatic Repetition: Endless Suffering of the Haunting Memory
Another feature of trauma is its repetitiveness. Lacan points out this fact: "the trauma reappears, in effect,
frequently unveiled. How can the dream, the bearer of the subject's desire, produce that which makes the trauma
emerge repeatedly—if not its very face, at least the screen that shows us that it is still behind?"6 (Italic is mine).
Taking notice of the relationship between a screen memory and the nature of repetitiveness of trauma, Lacan
maintains that repetitive appearance of trauma is possible by the screen memory, "face" of the trauma, whose
veiledness allows the trauma to recur without its being noticed consciously, at least.
Trauma, however, does not reveal itself only through dreams. It shows itself intermittently even in one's
everyday life. Lacan's another statement to this effect is suggestive: "The real may be represented by the accident, the
noise, the small element of reality, which is evidence that we are not dreaming." 7 When we consider the fact that
Lacan locates "the real" in trauma, 8 the above statement can be understood to mean that trauma does not simply
reside in the dream, but also exists outside of it, which allows us to repeatedly find the traces of trauma in the
"accident" we meet in our daily life. Hence the importance of a close scrutiny of the "accident" which obsesses
Bradley in figuring out his trauma.
It is not, however, in any particular event or accident, but in women that we can find a clue to his trauma,
because every woman Bradley encounters in this novel plays an important role in shaping his life and destination:
Rachel not only makes Bradley delay his intended departure for Patara by her seemingly "fatal" fight with Arnold, but
also plays a decisive role in having Bradley accused of murder; Priscilla, Bradley's sister, also makes Bradley delay
his departure for Patara, ultimately leading him to be stigmatized as an immoral person who is indifferent to his
sister's death because of his "carnal desire" for Julian; Christian, Bradley's ex-wife, also throws Bradley's life into
confusion by ultimately leading Rachel to kill Arnold of whose murder Bradley was convicted.
6 Lacan 55.
7 Lacan 60.
8 See, for example, Lacan 53-56 and 60.
What is notable, the women9 who dominate Bradley's life share some common characteristics with Bradley's
mother, which remind Bradley of shabbiness. That is, Bradley's trauma reveals itself repeatedly when he encounters
women who evoke disgust from Bradley.
It is through Priscilla, Bradley's sister, that Bradley’s psychical wound is first suggested. In his portrayal of
Priscilla, Bradley emphasizes Pricilla's resemblance with his mother. Priscilla, who is uneducated and uncultivated,
pursued commercially "advantageous buy" through the influence of her mother who regretted not having made a
"better bargain" by marrying "beneath" her. Besides, Priscilla actively "followed somewhat the same pattern" set by
her mother, thus revealing her closeness to her vulgar mother. In other word, Priscilla is another version of her mother.
This fact is supported by Bradley's description of Priscilla’s “social scene” which includes the image of the shabby
paper shop:
Priscilla really got quite ‘above herself’, dressing and behaving ‘grandly’, and did eventually satisfy her ambition of
penetrating into some slightly ‘better’ social circles than those which she had frequented at first. I suspect that she and my
mother actually planned a ‘campaign’ to better Priscilla’s lot. . . . Perhaps there was after all a smell of shop. (114-5,
underlines added)
The phrase "a smell of shop" seems to have no connection with Priscilla's social ambition. But, when we consider the
fact that a smell of shop is a correlative of shabbiness which has the connotation of worldliness and vulgarity with
Bradley, the term "a smell of shop" is not out of place, though Bradley is not aware/conscious of its implicit
connection. The fact that Bradley's trauma about shabbiness repeats itself without Bradley's being conscious of it 10 is
reinforced by Bradley's confession that “after her[Bradley's mother] death, I[Bradley] transferred many of these
feeling to Priscilla”(132), because his trauma repeats itself in the shape of Priscilla, while implying that object of his
trauma can be transferred to anyone who can represent his mother.
Bradley's trauma repeats itself also in the form of Christian, Bradley's ex-wife. It is a surprising fact because
Christian never seems to match or associate with the image of shabbiness. Unlike Priscilla, she is a self-possessed
woman who is a most independent and successful businesswoman, as shown in her achievement of “the fabulous
success of the salon in a few years”(546) after Bradley's trial. 11 Christian, however, is closely associated with the
image of shabbiness, Bradley's trauma, because she is an incarnation of worldliness, which is suggested by her
9 Above anyone else, Julian plays the most important role in Bradley's life by serving as an artistic medium, or a muse who,
according to Bradley, leads Bradley to be reborn as a true artist. But Julian's positive influence on Bradley's life is possible because
she is associated with male figure, Hamlet. This is the reason why I omit Julian in the list of women who are associated with
Bradley's trauma.
10 In “Remembering, Repeating and Working-Through,” Freud also points out the unconscious repetition of trauma: “he repeats
it, without, of course, knowing that he is repeating it. (150)
11 Even Bradley admits that she looks “competent and distinguished, like the manager of an international cosmetic firm” (146).
remarriage with “a rich unlettered American” shortly after their divorce.
Bradley’s trauma repeats itself also in the form of Rachel, who declares that “His[Bradley's] relation to
myself[Rachel] and my husband was virtually that of a child to its parents”(559). Bradley's own confession is also
suggestive in this respect: “there was a memory-odour like a smell of decay. I[Bradley] felt distressed, physically
repelled, frightened. Her[Rachel’s] wide round pale face was terribly familiar, but with the ambiguous veiled
familiarity of a dream. It was as if my mother had visited me in her cerements” (490). The term "smell of decay" in
this statement evokes the image of shabbiness, especially that of "smell of paper shop", while the term "veiled
familiarity of a dream" reminds us of "screen memory", an indirect manifestation of one's trauma. In short, by his
confession which reveals his repulsion toward Rachel, Bradley reveals that he identifies and associates Rachel with
his mother.
Bradley's relationship with three women through whom his trauma makes its repeated appearance shows
the domination and influence of his trauma, his psychical wound, Seen this way, trauma seems to be a trap where
Bradley is caught and where Bradley is obliged to meet his psychical death. Bradley's writing, paradoxically however,
manifests a possibility of his survival from trauma, because it is the story about his psychical death as well as about
his survival from his own trauma.
III. Writing as a means of awakening: An Endless Confrontation with the Future
Bradley’s writing, as an act of confession, is also an embodiment of his traumatic awakening. That is, his
writing is the very embodiment of “the experience of waking into consciousness”(Caruth 1993, 25). Caruth’s
statement in connection with Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle is suggestive.
The study of dreams may be considered the most trustworthy method of investigating deep mental processes. Now dreams
occurring in traumatic neuroses have the characteristic of repeatedly bringing the patient back into the situation of his
accident, a situation from which he wakes up in another fright.(BPP 11, underlines added)
Here, Caruth points out that dream can function as a means which makes possible traumatic repetition as well as
another "waking up". That is, Caruth does not emphasize the importance of "the experience within the dream", but
"the experience of waking from it,” while asserting that “Freud does not simply attribute the traumatic fright to the
dream itself, but to what happens upon waking up.” (Caruth 25)
What Caruth calls “awakening” is not simply an act of “assimilating” one’s trauma. It is
an act of reliving
trauma. For this reason, “awakening” may be said to be just another version of trauma. At this point, Caruth, however,
is more concerned with the future aspect of repetitive trauma: “Such an awakening, if it is in some sense still a
repetition of the trauma . . ., is not, however, a simple repetition of the same failure and loss . . . but a new act that
repeats precisely a departure and a difference . . . ”(UE 106).
It is this aspect of the “awakening” that should not be overlooked in Bradley's writing, since his writing,
vehicle of his confession, is not the "repetition of the same failure". On the contrary it is an embodiment of his
another repetition of “a departure and a difference” which is made possible through Loxias 12 whose sympathetic
understanding of Bradley stimulates Bradley’s traumatic awakening. In his foreword, Loxias suggests this role:
My task as editor has been a simple one. . . . I have reserved for myself the last word of all, the final assessment or
summing up. . . Why this tale had to be written will appear, in more senses than one, within the tale. (34)
Loxias represents himself as an “editor” of Bradley’s story, who brought into being Bradley's writing. But his role is
not confined to this. Loxias who shares Bradley's pain in the same prison is a sympathetic listener who leads Bradley
to “discover deep things” (537). In other words, Loxias has a responsibility to awaken Bradley from his traumatic
fright, while leading Bradley to look outside of his "imprisoned self".
It is through a dialogue with Loxias in a prison that Bradley experiences traumatic awakening, or rather he is
dimly aware of his trauma, which has confined him to his self-created prison. Bradley makes this ironical fact clear
by declaring that Loxias’s unseen address has a huge impact on his survival from the traumatic repetition:
Perhaps at this point in my story, my dear friend, I may be allowed to pause and speak to you directly. Of course the whole
of what I write here, and perhaps somehow unconsciously my whole œuvre, has been a communication addressed to you.
But this direct speaking is a kind of relief, it eases some pressure upon the heart and upon the intelligence. There is an
element of confession. . . . When the believer, fortunate man, asks God to forgive not only the sins he can remember, but
also the sins he cannot remember, and, more touching still, the sins he cannot even recognize, so benighted is he, as sins at
all, the sense of liberation and subsequent calm must be tremendous. (128-29)
Bradley owns Loxias as the midwife of his writing by defining "my[Bradley's] whole oeuvre" as "a communication
addressed to you[Loxias]. And then Bradley confesses that “this direct speaking” to Loxias is “a relief” to ease “some
pressure” upon his heart which is caused by "failure and loss", thus owning his writing as an effort to speak up “some
pressure”—that is, his traumatic suffering. In this sense, Loxias who induces Bradley to write about himself
simultaneously allows Bradley to survive his trauma because Bradley, through the dialogue with Loxias, is able to
uncover “the sins he cannot remember” and “the sins he cannot even recognize” which represent themselves in the
undetermined shape of trauma.
Whatever “the sins” may refer to, Bradley's mother is connected with such sins as (a source of) trauma, because
Bradley's despise for his mother, a correlative of shabbiness, causes Bradley's sense of guilt, that is, his trauma. In this
sense, Bradley's confession of his “sins,” though “tortuously told” (34) in his writing, is an effort to escape from the
traumatic nightmares as well as his apology to his mother, who evokes his sense of guilt. In short, Bradley, after
12 Dipple regards Loxias as “his [Bradley’s] alter ego”(33), maintaining that “a heavily disguised Apollo figure [the editor
Loxias] claims to be the alter ego of the writer [Bradley] of the love story” (136). When we consider the fact that in Aeschylus’s
Agamemnon, Cassandra addresses her god Apollo as Loxias and that Loxias’s view of art which is revealed in his postscript has, as
Francis suggests, “a marked similarity of literary style” (553) with that of “flayed” Bradley,
Bradley's alter ego.
Loxias may be considered as
meeting with Loxias, becomes ready to confront his painful past memories related to his trauma, while his traumatic
repetition changes into that of “a departure and a difference.”
The immediate effect of his traumatic awakening is reflected in Bradley’s confession of his sense of guilt after
being sentenced to life imprisonment: “In a more extended sense . . . I was condemned for being a certain awful kind
of person.” (534). Repenting of his past faults, Bradley makes an apology not only to his murdered friend Arnold, but
also to his sister Priscilla: “I had failed as a friend and I had failed as a brother” (534). A little later, his apology is
repeated: “I had failed Rachel and abandoned her” (535). His awakening, however, undergoes “a transmission” (UE
106), that is, his awakening is transmitted to others by his writing, as suggested by Caruth who maintains that “[T]he
words are passed on as an act that does not precisely awaken the self, but, rather, passes the awakening on to others”
(UE 107).
It is to Loxias convicted of having murdered his fellow musician that the transmission of the awakening was
made. As the editor of Bradley's writing as well as his fellow prisoner, Loxias deeply sympathizes with Bradley and
his fate: “I[Loxias] felt as if he[Bradley] had suffered the lack of me throughout his life; and at the end I suffered with
him and suffered, at last, his mortality. I needed him too. He added a dimension to my being” (572). Emphasizing that
he and Bradley are indispensable to each other, Loxias even identifies himself with Bradley who he believes is
essential to fulfillment of his being. The most important fact in his confession, however, is that Loxias "suffered, at
last, his[Bradley's] mortality" which is closely related with trauma as we have seen before, since it implies that Loxias
comes to share Bradley's traumatic awakening. In other words, Loxias' confession shows that Bradley's traumatic
awakening is transmitted to himself.
This is the reason why Loxias edits and publishes Bradley's writing, an embodiment of Bradley's trauma as
well as the means of his traumatic awakening. Through the disclosure of Bradley's traumatic suffering, Loxias makes
an indirect confession of his own psychical wound, his trauma, which is essential to his traumatic awakening. In this
sense, the significance of Bradley’s writing is not confined to Bradley's private life, because his writing enables his
traumatic awakening to be transmitted to others, thus making itself a matter of a social dimension. The true value of
Bradley’s writing lies in this very transmission.
Trauma is not merely a manifestation of private suffering endlessly repeated, but a channel of collective
unconscious through which people interact with others. Because of such repetitive nature of trauma, The Black Prince
can be read as the record of Bradley's traumatic suffering as well as that of his survival from trauma, which can lead
us to the open space where we are allowed to consciously (or rather unconsciously) participate in the traumatic
awakening and its transmission.
The "dialogue" between Bradley and Loxias (or readers), along with Bradley's confession in The Black Prince
ultimately leads us to realize that we as should-be witnesses have social responsibility for trauma, and transmit
traumatic awakening to others, since trauma is of a social phenomenon which affects society at large. Such a fact is
suggested by the poker which is introduced at the beginning and end of the novel, because the poker, which is used to
wound Rachel and kill Arnold, is an embodiment of traumatic encounter in a metaphorical sense. In short, as the
poker is delivered from Arnold to Rachel, then to Bradley, traumatic awakening is transmitted from Bradley to Loxias,
then to readers at large, in the form of writing (Here, we need to notice the external resemblance between a poker and
a pen). Hence, the story of Bradley's trauma and his traumatic survival become our story and our collective history
which should be shared by all of us.
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Poetics