In her Booker Prize winner novel "The Sea, The Sea" Iris Murdoch features a sixty-year-old protagonist and narrator, Charles Arrowby, who retires from the vanities of the stage in order to contemplate, repent and piece his life together in blissful solitude of a small seaside village. After meeting his childhood sweetheart, Hartley, he decides that his real passion is still concentrated on her. This demonic obsession awakes his "black Eros" which finally causes the death of Hartley’s adopted son, Titus. After shedding tears of grief and regret, he finally gets released from his crippling self and realizes that happiness can be achieved by means of doing little kind things for other people.