CHAPITER

The Bell

The Bell (1958J, iwuraoch's fouith novel, has been unreservedly praised by the critics ror congruence of its theme ana style. It nas been observed that in the novel 'l-iurdoch's two prin--ipal incli­ nations — towards the religiously moral and tne highly plotuec secular — coalesced very successfully' in a style which is •mature', A.S. Byatt feels that with this novel 'one has the sense that to atteiTipt to expose a framework of thought is to oirr.inish it in a certain way; tnis is because here we have a novel wnic;. nas the solid life that r-iss hurdoch praises in the grecit nineteenth-centuiy novels' . Indeed, the characters in this novel have a life of tneir own, wtiich, in a iMurdoch novel, is achieved through a quest for ireeoom. In this sense, forrri anc content, or as Leonard Kriegei points out/ 'myth and reality' in the novel are 'successfuly blenced' .

Freedom in Murduch, hov/ever, means achieving it through •love' which involves, in its turn, developing a respect for reality other than oneself. A failure to achieve it is, tzierefore, a failure in love. But even in failure, or in a consciousness of it, a sense of regeneration, and, hence, a moral efiicacy, is envisaged. As in the earlier books, so in the present one, this theme of the success or failure in love has been presented through 92 some characters who are either would - be saints or would-be artists. A fine correspondence is posited, in the process, betwec, Murdoch's ethics and aesthetics : if the highest art of prose consists in combining 'form with a respect for reality with all its odd contin- 4 gent ways' , then the highest art of life consists in "the exercise 5 of love' wnich is most like its exercise in morals' * Both lead to the discovery of the reality which is unutterably particular. Freedom is considered coterminous with this act that demends a 'disciplined overcoming of self' ,

Two perceptions, therefoie, taken together constitute tne tneme of the novel, one is contained in what the Abbess observes to Michael that 'all oux failures are ultimately failures in love', the other having occurred to Dora in the National Gallery that 'perfectic and reality' reside in the same place. If these are the important characters arouna whom the central visicns are developed, there are others who help builc the situation. Besices, Murdoch's use.of s/nibolism and often of mystery adds to the sic,riiticance of the novel.

The setting itself points to the thematic in ent of the novel. As Peter J. Gonradi observes,

an aerial map of Imber woulo show three sets of walls, ano resemble a cart-board. Vhe outer circle is the wall of half-btriopea Imber court, the next the .-/rjll of the wholly eustere Abbey, and tne last of three ccncentric rings, the hortusr conclusus containinc the happy cemetery with its laughing nuns'. 93

Conradi rightly points out that the three concentric circles exenplify, in the particular context, 'degrees of unselfing'| , 1 The outermost circle is the sphere of ordinary work~a-day wc^rld, whil the innem.ost is that of complete ascesis practised by Lhe nuns. The middle state can be said to be 'the intermediate form of li£e*# a 'buffer state' as the Abbess prefers to call it. it is at IMC advice that Mich'ael comes to turn Imber Court into the hoam of . a permanent lajTcommunity, attached to the Abbey as a 'buffer state* between the world and the Abbey, an intermediary form of life. Michael considers himself one of this intermediary world and expects that with the transformation of Imber Court a new pattern might emerge in his life. It is, indeed, meant to accomrrodate and satisfy the half-contemplatives of his kindj

There were many people ... who can live neither in the world nor out of it. They are a kind of sick pe^-^ .^e, whose desire for God makes them unsatisfactory citizens of an ordinary life, but whose strength or temperament fails them to surrender the world completely, and present-day society, with its hurried pace and ics mechanical and technical structure, offers no home to those unhappy souls ... for some of such people "cisturbed and hunted -^ by God" ... a life half retired, and a work mcide simple and significant by its dedicated setting, is what is needed 9 .

The book is, indeed, a corrinencable study of the reality and complexity of huirien existence, tor» by tne romanticism of aspiratlcna, 94 on the cne hano, end the reality of li.. itation, on the other, Irrber Court is a compromise point, r-.urdoch presents this insight through what the Abbess says to Michaels

Our duty ... is not necessarily to seek the highest regardless ot tne realities of our spiritual life as it in fact is, but to seek that place, that task, those people, which will ma>.e our siyiritual life irost constantly grow ana flourish; and in this search ... We must make use ot e divine cunning (p. 81X

Imber Court's lay comrriunity is established in consideration of the limitations of tne half-con tempi at ives, who, unlike the true con- ter.ipJ-fives, have the religious yeernin , but not the capacity for total surrender.

The theme of tne book is aeveloped through a weaving of two strants mainly j One is that of Dora, the would-be artist in the novel, who seeks a self-ioentify of her own; the.othe^r is that of h.ichael, a would-be sa^-nt. At the back of this moving, progressive, pattern, there is the stead/ picture of reality, represented by the nuns, es^..ecially, the Abbess, across the lake.

both Dora and Michael are roiriantics, having a certain measure of illusion about themselves. The novel shatters their illusion and reveals the reality about themselves and the world. To begin with I'ichael, his religious /earning itself is a projection of his self 95 illusion. He waits romantically tor a aefinite divine destiny to emerge in his life i

It v/as an aspect of Michael's belief in God .... He had always felt himself to be a man with a definite destiny, a man waiting for a call (p. 82 ^

3 gesture has been called 'a self - dramatizing kind of religious- 10 ness, -.'- even a 'sublimation of homosexual iinpulses* . But it xs the complexity of his situation and its masterly handling thot is most conmendable in the novel. A, S. Byatt praises

the corrplexit/.with which Michael's situation is presentea, the way in which the ci^nsequences of the moral decisions he must cake are almost never clear to the reaaer in advance, the way in which Hiss Murdoch has allowed heiself to explore him slowly, without hurry or excessive neatness 11

Indeed, the theme of the novel itself finds its 'rich and ironic 12 fri-ition' in the character of Michael himself.

The lay c>-/mniunit/ at imber Court is establishec for the half-contemplatives with limited objectives with Michael as its leader. The book itself opens with its formation, follows its progress and encs with its dissolution. The experiment fails because, contrary to expectations, the past is always carried over, altri^;ugh care is ta>;en so that it is never referrea to ana that in the meanwhile the 96 n-cessary reorientation or' lonself ing' takes pli.ce. I'he world intrudes again as a repetition or the pest, making things complex again, leading ultimately to its dissolution. This is really the trajectory of Michael himself whose religiosity is marred over sgain by tne resurgence of the fantasy he thinks he has meanwhile conquered. His character, therefore, is an embodiment of a course of conflict between his passion and nis religiosity. He is shown in the book through his relationships with the secular characters like ..ick, Tobby, Dora, Catherine, on the one hand, and the' religious character like the Abbess, on the other, representing, in a way, the two contrary pulls that constantly frustrate the 'eaerging relig^-ous pattern' in his life as 'fantasy overlap tae spiritual world* 1 3. Indeed, the theme of the novel as a journey from fantasy to reality attains an 'ironic fruition' in Michael's failure to be a saint. He comes to recognize the reality about himself thr^^ugh a reversal of situation, experienced in failure. Dora represents the other end through her success in being an 'artist'.

As Dipple points out, there is, in this novel, 'an increased and ;jointed emphasis on the past ana its ability to poison and pervert 14 the present' , and it is Michael's character that demonstrates it. In this respect, his present at imber Court is joined with his past as a stuoent and then as a teacher. Michafel came to Discover his homosexual inclinations quite early as a student. He had had a few homosexual love affairs too. But with the help of a priest he could 97 overcome what he regarded to be riis vice and return to the practice of his religion. As he came out: of Cambridge, he felt chastened ana cured s

Michael set his face towards life, knowing that his tastes wculi" almost undoubtedly reinain with him .... He had passed through a spiritual crisis and emerged triumphant. Now when he knetl to pray he found himself devoid of tne guilt and fear which had previously choked him to silence and made of his prayers mere incoherent moments of emotion. He saw himself with a more rational and more quiet eye : confident of a Love which lay deeper than the contortions of his egoistic and unenligh­ tened guilt, and which worked patiently to set him tree. He looked to the future (p. 100},

But f'iichael's tr^cught that 'a Love which lay deeper' set him free proved to be only a (elusion which easily broke when ati a schoolrTiaster he again fell a prey to the advances of one of his pupils, called Nick Fawley, But there was a certain change this time. He no longer experienced a sense of guilt. Coi the contrary, he seemed to gain a new and-thrilling insight into the real nature of it, as divine and as capable of giving '3 timeless moment of delight* as any authentic love:

He ceased going to communion , He felt, strangely/ no guilt, only a hard determination to hold to it before God, accepting the cost whatever it might be, and in the end, scroehow, justifying his love. The idea of rejecting or surrendering it did not come to his icind (p. 105;. 98 His love for Nick seemed to him to have the same sense of purity, depth and authenticity as religious love. It seemed to him that his passions sprang frcm the same source as his religion and coulc not corrupt itj

He could not believe that there was anything inherently evil in the great love which he bore to Nick : this love was something so strong, so radiant, it came from so deep it seemed of the very nature of goodness itself. vaguely Michael had visions of himself as the boy's spiritual guardian, his passion slowly transformed into a lofty and more selfless attactiment (p. 105),

It may appear that there is something fake about the emotions, L)Ut the novelist really means it. Murdoch herself never believes that 'there is anything inherently immoral about being a homosexual* 1 5, or tftat homosexuals do not really fall in love. On the concrary, she affirms, 'homosexuals in love can experience the same entire and unselfish devotion of body ^d soul to another which is characteris- 1 6 tic of heterosexual love at its best' , But the destiny of the homosexuals is precarious in society ; there is secrecy, on the one hand, and disapproval, on the other. Besides, betrayal by one partner or failure of the relationship entails a sense of guilt. It happened exactly in this way in case of Michael when Nick, after the visit of an evangelical preacher* confessed to the headmaster* 99

Whereas success and happiness had kept guilt at bay, ruin and grief brous:,.ht it, almost automatically, with them; and Michael reflected that after all the idea of the matter which the headmaster had received was not an unjust one. He had been guilty of that worst of offences, . corrupting the young (p. 107).

Michael's conflict was further increased because he had always the most cherished wish to be ordained. Tnis fantasy about the spiritual life made him miserable and blind to the realities of life.

At Imber Couit, favoured by the Abbess, Michael's fantasy of being ordained is renewed. Biat once again* the two 'realities', one instinctual and the other religious, clash. He tries to combine both in that they issue from the same source. He feels within him a aeep spring of love and goodwill for Toby, the same that he once felt for Nicks

He felt within him an infinite power to protect Toby from harm ,,,. He was conscious of such a fund of love and goodwill for the young creature beside him. It could not be that God intended such a spring of love to be quenched utterly (pp. 156-157).

But the situation now is different for two reasons, unlike iuck in Tobby is not inclined to homosexuality and is taken by surprise at Michael's sudden approach .by way of an involuntary kiss under the spell of Devon cider. Besides,. Nick is present at imber Court and will/niliy present also in his mine. So long he was only deeply 100 involvec in his own emotion of love, the bliss or fantasy of it, but not conscious, in Murdoch's sense of love, of the reality of others. For the first time through what he does he becomes aware of the reality of one other than himself. He is really conscious of causiny damage ! to two people. He does not still want: Nick to know of his escapade j with Toby and feel betrayed or abandoned by his preference for some- one younger than himself. Indeed, it seems crazy after such a long time, but Michael feels genuinely distressea at the notion that Nick might think him unfaithful, so far as Toby is concerned, Michael is amaiied that sometning so momentary and so trivial ccula have so much meanin-a, c~-uld cause so much destructionj As Michael now seriously consiocred Toby he began for the first time .,. to recognize that he had damaged somebody other than himself. He pictured Toby's reac­ tions; the shock, the disgust, the disillusionment, the sense of sometning irretrievably spoilt ,,,. That Michael's own halo had abruptly vanished mattered less : but the whole experience of Imber would now be ruined for Toby (p, 165).

However, Michael has yet to realize the extent of violence and destruction that his 'momentary and trivial' act entails, AS for Toby, he feels himself caught in something messy and hates it. He grows conscious of an ^scure wish to do something violent j 'Now sudoently it seemed that since everything was so muddled, anytning was permitted' (p, 175), His climbing the cemetery wall, retrieving the old bell and replacing the new one by it to surprise all are parts of 101 the violence he indulges in. Nick, too, participates in it. He grows portentous in .-/hat he says to Toby:

O felix culpa • For had we been without sin we had been deprived jf that supreme enjo/rn^nt .... How sweet the our guilt .... Let us embrace our sin .... (pp. 257-258J.

He has seen Michael's 'flirtation under the walls of a nunnery and darkly comments, 'his cup is filling and will soon run over' (. 2 59^. A series of unforeseen inciaents takes place : Gabriel, the old bell, going down the lake again, Catherine's near-drowning, aeat;i of Nick and, to crown it all, the aissolution of Imber Court, the abode of the half-contemplatives.

Nick has taken revenge by committing suicice,Toby has con­ fessed to Jaxnes Tayper Pace. The contingent overwhelms Michael by tearing his fantasy-world to pieces. He finds himself face to face with a relentless but necessary revelation that what was needed most was love as a mode of going out of oneself to recognize the reality of other persons. For his obsessive self-love he forgot the neeos of Nick:

Nick had needed love, and he ought to have given him what he had to offer, witliout fears about its imper­ fection .... So great a love must have contained seme grain of gooo, something at least wnich mi^ht have attached Nick to tiiis world, given him some glinpses of hope .... Micnael had concerned himself with keeping iiis own hands clean, his own future secure, when insteao he shculo have opened his heart .... (p. 308) 102 Michael's predicament sharpens the problematic of the novel : love is the road to Goo and GOOQ, perfection and reality; it is rest;ecting the reality of sonething outsice oneself, in his failure in love, Michael realiz:es that he has also failed to attain to a real faith in God J

He thought of religion as something far away, something into wnich he had never really pent-trated at all. He vaguely remembered that he had had emotions, experiences, hopes; but real faith in God was sometning utterly remote from all that. He understood that at last, ana felt, almost coldly, the remoteness. The pattern whicn he had seen in his life had existed only in his own romantic imagination (p. 309).

The Abbess who provides the stal-le centre of ooth reality and perfection at once against the imperfect love of the half-contempla- tives is both the mentor of and the other to Michael. Her words do both place him and define realityj

Good is an overlow. where we generously intand it, we are engaged in a work of creation which may be mysterious even to ourselves — and because it is mysterious we may be afraid of it. But this should not make us draw back. GOd can always show us, if we will, a higher and better way; and we can only learn to love by loving. Remember that all our failures are ultimately failures in love. Imperfect love must not be condemned and rejected, but made perfect. The way is always forward never backward (p. 235; (Italics added) 103

The ^jDbess has the 'divine cunning'. What she mecins by imperfect love made perfect is the reassurance of the degrees of love, degrees of freedon./ not the frightening gesture of the absolute sense of it.

T his position is fuxtner crystallized in the juxtaposition of James Tayper Pace and liichael. James, the austere man, has a deep and unquestioning spiritual life, end claims with equal austerity that 'the cnief requirem.cnt of the good life is to live without any image of oneself (p. 131). It is ' c:angercus to goodness' ano comes 'between us ana reality — when what we need m.ost is just preci£.ely to see reality. And that is something-, outside us' (p. 131^.

HOW close, it seems, he ccnies to the real thing i But his austerity does not tolerate any human weakness. Moral laws are simply enjoined fr'-.m outside :

iie should rather work, as it were, from outside inv;ercs. We snoulc^ think of our actions and look to Goc and to His Law, We should consider not what delichts us or what disgusts us, m.orally speaking, but what is enjoined and what is forbidden (p. 132).

His austerity is comparable to the abstract rationality of Kant, against which i^'.urdoch has tiirie and again airected her attack j he

does not tell us to respect whole tangled-up historical individuals, but to respect the universal reason in their D reasts .... we are supposed to live by exceedingly simple and general rules .... "Always tell the truth", etc. 17 With no place for the m.orally complicated or eccentric .. I

104

Nichael 1 en thE: (.. :ther h:?-nci., subjectivises the approach : ''l'ht.: ch.i_ef .requirem;:nt of the good life is t:.hat c..ne shcult.. have scme con­

ception of cne' s CatJaci ties• (p. 200). He 1 there± ore, sug',;ests tt1at

1 ·we ,,;ust wcrk from 'insiCe outwa.tds1 tnrough uur stren9th • A(_,,ainst

James's austerity, hichael ,tJlea6s ior compassi(;n anO corn.mends only

t:.he 'sE:cvnC .1:.-est' .. 'l'o be preci~EO, no vne ~tonc.i__.;_,int: seems Bcie~..J.uate.

The: two taken togetl"JE-r ,r,ig-ht represent '-'lh

::;t~nds for ; 'we can only learn to love by loving'. If hichael learns any lessun 1 it is an accec)tance of his limitations1 signalized by hi~ going back to a normal life in the world by marrying catherine who loves him ..

Contr. ary to Michcel who 1..ras reliy1vusly rom;:,nt:.ic 1 ;;,w?.itjnc;., a relir;;ivus pattet·n to emerGe in his lite, Lora: is seculoLly ronrtl1tic, seeking to 'assurre her own oeing• in the world at large. 'lhat she can ultimately do it by wey of art jcins the two themes of ethics anO aesthetics in the novel. :I

With her husband Dora feels cr-amped an6 bullieC.. He alway.s urges her 'to grew up and yet had. left her no s,;;;ace to grow up•

(p .. 9). Che feels witnin he:cself an incre<:>sing awareness of herself as a separate inOiviOual but never knows how to realiZe it~ she takes flight~ But she finds herself put between two opposed pvles : permi~siveness anC reli~Jion. As in her other novels generally, so­ hr;:re Murdoch makes use of the different sets of 0.£..1pOsi ti~ns as a 105 structure to make signification possible.

Dora passes through these opposed poles, but. submits to neither, Sht develops into an individual in her own distinct way, The first pole is represented by Noel bpens who goads her to fight the religious people at Imber so as not to allow them to give her 'a baa conscience' :

They may be nice, but they've thoroughly misguiaed. No good comes in the end of untrue beliefs. There is no God end there is no judgment, except the judgment that each one of us maXes for himself (p« 186).

Dora fights but not ss Spens asKs her to. Fight is a rr.r.rK of her rebellion, i^ut she is still boune within herself, not navmo tne required sense of judgment of things happening arouno her. but she rows, end her growth vis-a-vis the dissolution of the lay community at Imber has been observed as a glaring contrast by Hichael towards the eno of the novel.

Dora is never taken in by the community at Imber. She never believes like James that rroral laws are sinjply enjoined from abcjve. Nor does she believe it as a fact that Catherine wants to go in as a saint of her own accord. Finally, the very act of raising the olo bell from the lake is for her 'a magical act of shattering signi­ ficance, a sort of power and liberation* (p. 211). Liberation, indeed, It is a marvellous thing, the sarie bell of the legend, 'the voice of love', called Gabriel. For a moment, in its sudcen presence beside th lake, sne seems to be liberated in an ecstatic joy and, held 106

in an embrace by Toby^ falls uj^^-n the clapper of the bell, which. rings cue loud peals. All their plans are thwarted in the face of a contingent reality that asserts itself.

A similar assertion of reality that is overwhelming and beyonc herself befalls Dora in the National Gallery. It is an involuntary experience, face to face with great pictures:

Dora was always moved by the pictures. Today she w^.s moved, but in a new way. She marvelled with a kind of gratitude, that they were all still here, and her heart was filled with love for the pictures, trieir authority, their marvellous generosity, their splendour (p. 190).

The pictures axe something 'real outsive herself, speaking to her 'kincly and yet in sovereign tones, something superior and good wnose presence destroyed the dreary trance-like solipsism of her earlier mood' (p. 190). With her solipsism magically torn, the sense of killing dreariness also vanishes:

When the world had seemed to be subjective it had seemed to be without interest or virtue. But there was something else in it after all. (pp. 190-191)

She feels a sudden desire to go down on her knees, sheoding tears. Sh« rerrembers that she has b^en wondering what to do. But now she has a revelation : 107 She must go bacJc to Imber et once. Her real life, her real problems, were at Imber; and since, somewnere, something gooo existed, it might be that her problems woulc be solved after all. There was e connection; obscurely she felt, without yet understanding it, she must hang on to that idea j there was a connection. (p. 191J

Here art and morals meet, as Murdoch believes, in their functi'n of weaning one from particularity anc prejudice, showing reality as transcendent, it helps the individual to assume his real personality-, and provioes at the same time a universal dimension for the moral life, which, as Raymono Plant says of Murdoch's standpoint, jannot be found in human native itself ... nian has to looX for the transcenoent if he is to live morally* 18

It is no wonder that Michael, to his surprise, should see her grow and flourish remarkably during those days when in a sharp inverse relation Imber Court totters under the threat of immediate dissolutionj

How wonderfully, Michael thought, Dora had survived. She had fed like a glutton upon the catastrophes et Imber and they had increased her substance (p. 305).

She seems to be full of a simple robustness and vitality, vigorously pursuing her new founc. inspiration in painting. She is lately seen making water-colour sketches of imber Court. Her growth seems complete, she seems to have meanwhile assumed her identity. It must 108 be the identity of an artist. She has decided soon to go and resume her interrupted study of art. She rejects both the convent eno the Court and, at least temporarily, postpones joining even her husband. She determines to pursue her new aestiny. What inpels her is not merely the profuse animal vitality that she has, but 'the vitality of her imagination' 19 .

The image that incarnates tnis spiritual growth of Dora is 'swimming' as opposed to 'drowning'. E^ora was herself nearly drowning in her attempt to save Catherine, but later she learns it. The image is already noticeably recurring in Murdoch, in Under the Net Jake al^ V comes to learn it as he acquires a firm grip on the affair of his life. It is to feel 'like a fish ... the secure supporting pressure' . whet the fish has as innate man has to learn and acquire through struggle and experience in relation to other men and the world in all its contingencies. It is a moral competence and a uniqueness of being, one presupposing the other. N C E

1, Elizabeth Dipple, Iris Murdoch, Chicago University Press, 1982, pp. 145-46.

2, A. S. Byatt, Degrees of FreedCOT : The Novels of Iris Kurdoch, Chatto and Windus, 1965, p. 73, 3, Leonard Kriegel, 'Iris Murdocn : Everybody Through the Looking-Glass', Charles Shapiro (ed). Contemporary British Novelists, Southern Illinois University Press, 1965, p. 17 0.

4, Iris Murdoch, 'The Sublime and the Beautiful Revisited', Yale Review, 49(1959), p, 271. 5, Iris Murdoch, 'The Sublime and the Good', Chicago Review, 13 (1959), p. 55. 6, Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good, Routledge, 1970, p. 95. 7, Peter J. Conradi, Iris Murdoch j The Saint and the Artist, Mac Millan, Second Edition, 1989, p. 116. 8, Ibid. 9, Iris Murdoch, The Bell, Ttied/panther, 1976 (originally published Chatto and Winaus, 1958) p. 81, Henceforward cited in the text, J.U. G,S. Fraser, 'The Solidity of the Normal', International Literary Annual (ed), John wain, London, 1959, Vol. w, p. 44, 11. Cp. cit. , p. 86. 12. Peter J. Conradi, op. cit,, p. 119. 13. A. S. Byatt, op, cit., p» 85. 14. Elizabeth Dipple, op. cit*, p, 146,' 15. .^ris Murdoch, 'The Moral Decision about Homosexuality', Man and Society, 7, 1964, p. 4,

16. Ibid, 110

17. Iris Murdoch, 'Trie Sublime anc the Good', Chicago Review, 13 (1959;, p. 51. 18. Cox and Dyson (ecs.). The Twentieth-Century Mind, Vol. II3 , Oxford university Press, 1972, pp. 94-95. 19. Daniel Majdiak, 'Romanticism in the Aesthetics of Iris Murdoch', Texas Studies in Literature , and Languacie, XIV, 2, 1972, p. 374, 20. ^ris Muraoch, Under the Net, Harmondsworth, 1974 (First published 1954), p. 250.