Female Figures of Evil: Gender and Power in Murdoch’s Fiction

This chapter extends the previous subject of psychopathy into gender. Murdoch’s portraits of feminine evil offset the gender bias in twentieth-century discussions of psychopathy and resonate with discussions of the contemporary popularity of antiheroines. It first analyses The Sandcastle and The Book and the Brotherhood to illustrate how Murdoch’s portraits of women resonate with the violence and cruelty associated with psychopathy. It then considers how Murdoch’s first-person narrators use psychopathic skills to trick the reader into trusting their narrative, highlighting the sexism at play in Murdoch’s vision of sexual attraction and how men can take advantage of it. Finally, it links Murdoch’s philosophical vision of love’s ambiguities to her portrayal of the relationship between Blaise and Emily in The Sacred and Profane Love Machine, illustrating love’s complicity in evil.