Research Information System
18th INTERNATIONAL IDEA CONFERENCE: STUDIES IN ENGLISH, Ankara, Turkey, 13 - 15 May 2026, pp.12, (Summary Text)
Being a philosopher and a novelist, Iris Murdoch is known to interrogate philosophical and
moral concepts in her fictional works. Her twelfth novel, Bruno’s Dream (1969), is an
exploration of the intersection of love and morality through various characters whose paths
crossed due to the immediate necessity of taking care of Bruno Greenslave, an octogenarian
man who is dying as a result of a deforming illness. The centrality of Bruno’s condition as an
old man facing illnesses and death without having affectionate relationships, calls for reviewing
the work in the light of critical age studies and ethics of love and care. These fields converge
on both the marginalisation of older people and the social problem of tending them. While
critical age studies defend the questioning of societal assumptions and prejudices regarding old
age which affect the connection between younger caregivers and older care recipients, ethics of
love problematises relationships in which the needs and desires of one of the parties are
constantly ignored and neglected. Murdoch herself contributes to the ethical questioning of love
with her claim that love requires a total acceptance of the other without expectations, prejudices,
and anxieties. Ethics of care, on the other hand, draws attention to the moral implications
inherent in the notions of care-giving and care-receiving. By the agency of critical age studies
and ethics of love and care, this study aims to bring a new perspective to Murdoch’s Bruno’s
Dream by focusing on the care-based relationship between Bruno Greenslave and the younger
characters.