Fiander L.M. Studies on themes and motifs in literature. Fairy tales and the fiction of Iris Murdoch, Margaret Drabble, and A.S. Byatt

References to fairy tales in the fiction of British' writers Iris Murdoch, Margaret Drabble and A.S. Byatt highlight the importance of human connection, in a modem world where people feel increasingly alienated and alone. Characters in their fiction are continuously tempted toward solitude and withdrawal. Typically, protagonists are distanced from their families, engaged in romances that have been based on fantasy and illusion, and reluctant to participate in a wider community that will judge their achievements. If certain characters surrender to the temptation to withdraw from what Anne Cavidge, a former nun in Murdoch's novel Nuns and Soldiers (1980), calls the "hombleness and dangerousness of life... the warmth, the mess," happiness in these novels seems to be reserved for those who resist the attractions of solitude. Human engagement matters even more than that: in the worlds described by these authors, the pursuit of relationships is intimately connected with a moral life.