FICTION AS REBELLION: ANARCHY, POWER, AND NARRATIVE CONTROL IN MURIEL SPARK’S THE BALLAD OF PECKHAM RYE (1960), THE DRIVER’S SEAT (1970) AND A FAR CRY FROM KENSINGTON (1988)

Muriel Spark’s fiction explores the interplay between anarchy, power, and narrative control, often challenging traditional moral and social structures. In The Driver’s Seat, A Far Cry from Kensington, and The Ballad of Peckham Rye, Spark’s protagonists act as disruptive forces within rigid institutions, undermining authority through defiance, manipulation, and self-determination. These characters, whether through acts of rebellion, artistic control, or moral ambiguity, expose the fragility of hierarchical systems and the instability of conventional morality. Spark’s works reject bourgeois values, ridiculing those in positions of power while embracing the macabre and the absurd. Her protagonists, assert dominance over their narratives, yet their autonomy is always precarious, shaped by external forces that seek to impose order. Through irony, ambiguity, and structural subversion, Spark crafts narratives that resist singular interpretations, reinforcing her vision of fiction as an arena where control is simultaneously asserted and undermined. This article examines how Spark’s use of anarchic protagonists and destabilizing narrative techniques serves as a critique of authority, morality, and the limits of personal agency.