Chorus and Agon in the Political Novel: Staging Left-Wing Arguments in H. G. Wells, Iris Murdoch, and Doris Lessing

The novel of explicit political commitment is often seen as simplistic and formally naïve by left-leaning critics, who prefer the Jamesonian unconscious. Yet novels stage left-wing arguments in artful ways that not only situate against counter arguments, but also test their efficacy embodied social lifeworld text. This essay uses Chantal Mouffe’s work on agonism to frame readings H. G. Wells’s Kipps, Iris Murdoch’s Under Net, Doris Lessing’s A Proper Marriage. It shows how monological chorus characters bring counter-hegemonic ideas into texts, testing limits liberal discussion novels.