 In this strand, Murdoch emphasizes the complexity and difficulty of apprehending the moral reality in question. She says that we are prone to fantasy and egoism (the “fat, relentless ego” [OGG: 52/342]) that block us from being able to see other persons clearly; from appreciating that they are as real as oneself (SBL 1959/EM: 215); from a lived recognition of their separateness and differentness (OGG: 66/353); and from grasping their true individual character (OGG: 59/348). Our ego must in a way be silenced—a process she refers to as “unselfing” (a concept she draws from Simone Weil’s “décreation”)—in order for us to fully grasp reality in this  sense.[3]  (“We cease to be in order to attend to the existence of something else”. OGG: 59/349) Murdoch’s novels frequently portray characters lost in their own world who see others primarily through their own fantasies of them. But Murdoch also emphasizes a more general contingency and idiosyncrasy of persons, resulting in a general opaqueness of persons to each other, a point apparently independent of the one about fantasy and egoism, though complementing it.