The Bell

“She was returning, and deliberately, into the power of someone whose conception of her life excluded or condemned her deepest urges and who now had good reason to judge her wicked. That was marriage, thought Dora; to be enclosed in the aims of another. That she had any power over Paul never occurred to her. It remained that her marriage to Paul was a fact, and one of the few facts that remained in her disordered existence quite certain. She felt near to tears and tried to think of something else.”

Dora’s decision to return to Paul comes not from love but from her sense of helplessness and, to a certain extent, boredom with “humdrum” reality. Though not intellectually savvy, Dora understands that her urges are valid yet invalidated, and her choice to return to Paul only because he will offer her a false sense of security soon proves to her that she must become independent.

“She had retained her prejudices when she lost her religion. A murmur of voices suddenly surrounded her, and a dialogue was begun between the priest and the congregation. Dora ventured a quick glance sideways at Paul. He knelt with shoulders squared and hands behind him, looking ahead and slightly upward toward the cross at the far end of the room. He had the solemn somewhat noble look which he often wore when he was thinking about his work, but rarely when he was thinking about his wife.”

Dora’s attitude toward organized religion is like many other things in her life: half-formed and murky for lack of contemplation. However, her vital energy dictates her dislikes, and as she observes the ritual, she focuses not on the mystic quality of the process, but on her husband’s solipsistic enjoyment of the rite. At this moment, a big part of Dora realizes Paul is never going to be able to love her as she desires, which constitutes her own process of ritual awakening.

“Dora saw the boy turning to look back along the lake. Then suddenly he stretched out both his hands and raised them above his head. He looked to Dora at that moment the very image of freedom. She could not bear to look at him any longer and turned away from the window.

Paul was staring at her. He was sitting up in bed with a book in his hand.”

Witnessing Toby as he, believing himself unseen, abandons propriety and satisfies his body’s need to stretch and move disturbs Dora because her own needs are unfulfilled and stifled (to the point that she is largely unaware of them). She has never felt the freedom she senses in the boy, firstly because she is a woman in 1950s England, and secondly because she has been raised to neglect inner—and especially bodily—impulses. This scene anticipates Dora later seeing Toby naked by the lake.

“‘I’m not afraid of his melancholy,’ said James, ‘I’m afraid of his capacity to make mischief. The more I think of it, Michael, the more I’m sure we made a mistake when we took him in. I know how one feels about such a case, and I think I agreed with you at the time, at least I let you talk me round. I admit too that I don’t really understand his background. But it’s obviously a complex business, a bad history there. I doubt if we can do him any good, and meanwhile he can do us plenty of harm.’”

James’s words center on Nick Fawley and his ability to subvert conventional morals and expectations. Murdoch here positions James as an antithesis to Michael and his urges, not only in the sense of Michael’s sexual proclivities, but in his understanding of life and the human condition. Diction like “mischief,” “mistake,” “complex,” “bad,” and “harm” foreshadow the effect of Nick’s character on those around him and the role he will play in the novel.

“‘I hope you don’t mind my saying so,’ said Mrs Mark, ‘but we never have flowers in the house.’ She looked censoriously at Dora’s nosegay. ‘We keep everything here as plain as possible. It’s a little austerity we practise.’

‘Oh dear!’ said Dora, blushing. ‘I’ll throw them out. I didn’t know.’

‘Don’t do that,’ said Mrs Mark magnanimously. ‘Keep those ones. I thought I should tell you, though, for next time. I feel sure you’d rather be treated like one of us, wouldn’t you, and keep the rules of the house? It’s not like a hotel and we do expect our guests to fit in - and I think that’s what they like best too.’”

Mrs. Mark’s words reveal the sense of superiority that her religious virtue gives her. Diction such as “censoriously” and “magnanimously” underscore that the centered consciousness here is Dora’s, who perceives Mrs. Mark as supercilious and ultimately silly. At this stage, Dora is still in awe of everything, and she accepts Mrs. Mark’s authority as a given. Her condescension echoes Dora’s own feelings of inadequacy, which seem to invite such a reaction in most people around her.

“Mrs Mark laughed. ‘Not imprisoned, my dear,’ she said. ‘They are there of their own free will. This is not a prison. It is on the contrary a place which it is very hard to get into, and only the strongest achieve it. Like Mary in the parable, they have chosen the better part.’ They walked on.

‘Don’t they ever come out?’ asked Dora.

‘No,’ said Mrs Mark. ‘Being Benedictines, they take a vow of stability, that is they remain all their lives in the house where they take their first vows. They die and are buried inside in the nuns’ cemetery.’

‘How absolutely appalling!’ said Dora.”

Dora’s vitality and restless nature begin to assert themselves as she blurts out her feelings at the idea of the nuns never leaving the convent. Through her exposure to the world of the Imber community and the adjacent convent, Dora reexamines her values and ideas—something she has never done. This will lead to her new sense of independence and maturity.

“He had been dreaming; but so powerful was the experience that he sat there dazed for a minute, not sure if he was really awake, still overwhelmed by the horror of what he had seen. It was that evil dream again. That was the third time now that he had dreamt more or less the same thing, the scene at night with the nuns pulling the drowned person out of the lake, and with it the conviction that it was their own victim that lay at their feet upon the strand. Each time the dream was accompanied by an overwhelming sense of evil.”

For Michael—sensitive, intellectual, and intuitive—the lake, the convent, and the community are never as clear-cut as they seem to be for the other members. He senses danger in the environment—specifically, evil that comes from passivity and being engulfed by one’s own fantasies rather than living one’s truth. The nuns become murderers in his dream because they represent the retreat from the sensuality and sexuality with which Michael struggles. The dark lake represents the subconscious mind, and the dead body is Michael’s own reluctance to live as part of the world that he and others describe as immoral.

“Those who hope, by retiring from the world, to earn a holiday from human frailty, in themselves and others, are usually disappointed. Michael had not particularly cherished these hopes; yet he was sorry to find himself so immediately placed in the position of one who by force of personality holds a difficult team together. Michael had always held the view that the good man is without power.”

This quote encapsulates Michael’s life predicament. His fantasy is that he might avoid the troubles of the world by retreating from it, and the irony is that he finds himself in the position of community, unable to reject his responsibilities as he immaturely and fearfully desires. Michael’s vision of goodness as powerlessness does not reflect positive virtue so much as neutrality born of passivity.

“Michael felt sure that his own view was the right one; to be eclectic to this extent about methods of work was a sort of idiotic aestheticism. Yet he found it hard to argue the point clearly, and was distressed to find how emotional he soon became about it. Everyone else seemed ready to become emotional too, and by now the excitement had gone on long enough.”

Even in his daily chores, Michael struggles to grapple with the world. This difficulty does not come from lack of character but from the truth of his sexual orientation, which by necessity separates him from his fellow men, as he perceives it as sinful. Michael experiences surges of emotional irrationality in the face of the decision-making process because deep inside he feels unworthy of leading the community and therefore questions his ideas and beliefs even when “sure” his view is “the right one.”

“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 attachment. He would watch Nick grow to manhood, cherishing his every step, ever present, yet with a self-effacement which would be the highest expression of love. Nick, who was his lover, would become his son; and indeed already, with a tact and imagination which removed from their relationship any suggestion of crudeness, the boy was playing both parts.”

Murdoch gives Michael a coping mechanism to deal with his own orientation: He imagines a love that is more than romantic (or perhaps human) love—an aspiration and a mutual process of healing, understanding, and learning. In viewing his passion for teenaged Nick through such a lens, Michael can accept the immensity of his sexual passion and its implications. If his lover is to become his son, then surely such love cannot be sinful or corrupt. If Michael is a “spiritual guardian” rather than a sexual partner, he is not abusing Nick’s youth but rather allowing it to blossom. In fact, Michael seems to reject all physical implications of his love for Nick, and yet the very need to rationalize his feelings proves to him that there must be something “impure” in them.

“And what are the marks of innocence? Candour—a beautiful word—truthfulness, simplicity, a quite involuntary bearing of witness. The image that occurs to me here is a topical one, the image of a bell. A bell is made to speak out. What would be the value of a bell which was never rung? It rings out clearly, it bears witness, it cannot speak without seeming like a call, a summons. A great bell is not to be silenced. Consider too its simplicity. There is no hidden mechanism. All that it is is plain and open; and if it is moved it must ring.”

James’s sermon stands in direct juxtaposition to Michael’s feelings and struggle with himself: James lists honesty, forthrightness, and simplicity as hallmarks of innocence. All these are virtues Michael has lost: He cannot afford to be honest about his inner life, both as a gay man and as a man who has been losing faith. He cannot speak out because his thoughts are too hefty and unspeakable.

“He himself had not been tried yet; how true what James had said about the keeping of innocence being enough of a task! Yet, Toby reflected, would it really be so difficult if one were fully aware? The trouble with so many young people nowadays was that they were not aware. They seemed to go through their youth in a daze, in a dream. Toby was certain of being awake. He was amazed, when people said that youth was wonderful, only one didn’t realize it at the time.”

Murdoch continues to juxtapose characters and their beliefs: Toby, whose fantasies and ideas have yet to confront adult reality, imagines that living innocently isn’t hard at all because he cannot yet conceive of all the ambiguities life carries. As is often the case with adolescents, Toby holds the naively superior air of one who sees better and knows more than other people his age. Toby mistakes his brightness for maturity and his ability to analyze for safety from uncontrollable feelings and urges. As with other characters, his journey in the novel will be one of maturity and fuller understanding.

“Toby had received, though not yet digested, one of the earliest lessons of adult life: that one is never secure. At any moment one can be removed from a state of guileless serenity and plunged into its opposite, without any intermediate condition, so high about us do the waters rise of our own and other people’s imperfection. Toby had passed, it seemed to him in an instant, from a joy that had seemed impregnable into an agitation which he scarcely understood.”

This quote stands in direct contrast to the previous, showing how quickly adolescents’ attitudes can change. After Michael kisses him, Toby’s whole sense of security and predictability abandons him; his “guileless serenity” has turned into a maturing awareness of the lurking uncertainties of existence. Toby’s confusion is a natural state, yet due to his previous feelings of superiority, it is a state that he finds almost unbearable in its equivocality. A single passing event has shown Toby that reality has many faces, most of which are not clear-cut or expected. This is a journey of growing up and Toby, like most young people, finds it disturbing.

“Looking through into the greater darkness Toby was suddenly reminded of the obscurity of the lake, where the world was seen again in different colours; and he was taken with a profound desire to pass through the grille. When he had had this thought he was immediately shocked at it and rather frightened. Here he stood, and in a way, nothing prevented him from opening the little gate in the grille and walking through into the chapel and standing there, just for a moment perhaps, looking down the nave.”

Toby’s experience of uncertainty finds external expression in the physical barrier that separates the convent and its inhabitants from the outside world. The image of the murky lake conveys to him the sudden and immense idea of essential unknowability, and to counteract it, he desires to break through the barrier and invade the sacred space of the nuns. The idea shocks and scares Toby because it is transgressive in nature—a quality he has not recognized in himself before—and through this, he learns about himself. As he later succumbs to his urge and enters the convent, he learns about shame and guilt, which Murdoch also represents as part of maturation.

“Toby was far from the sophistication of holding that we all participate in both sexes. He believed that one loved either men or women, and if one was unfortunate enough to develop homosexual tastes one would never be able to live a normal life thereafter. This thought filled him with an insidious fear. Michael had told him not to exaggerate the importance of what had happened; but what had happened had happened to him and was still going on happening, and he had as little control over it as over the progress of digestion.”

At the time of the book’s writing, sexual activity between men was still punishable by law, and doctors considered it a disorder. By placing these thoughts in Toby’s head rather than Michael’s, Murdoch examines them from the “fresh” perspective of someone who is new to such ideas, thereby inviting the reader to identify with the process. Additionally, Toby’s youth gives him the self-centeredness that renders everything that happens to him of utmost importance; this tempers the seriousness of Toby’s reflections, which diminish when read through the prism of Toby’s egotism. However, the authorial position is not one of judgment or moral apprehension, but of understanding the complexity of human experience.

“It was just that Dora had then estimated, with a devastating exactness which was usually alien to her, how much of sheer contempt there was in Paul’s love; and always would be, she reflected, since she had few illusions about her ability to change herself. It did not occur to her to wonder if Paul might change, or indeed to hope from him anything at all. She felt his contempt as destructive of her, and his love, consequently, as unwelcome.”

Dora’s realization of the inherent selfishness of Paul’s “love” is crucial for her ability to move past it to a place of independence. The “devastating exactness” of her perception suggests she has reached the point of no return in her psychological understanding: She has become aware of herself and the role she plays in the marriage. She is also able to see Paul for what he is and name his qualities for what they are—“destructive of her” and “unwelcome.” This is Dora’s turning point and her journey forward is free of Paul’s dominating influence.

“They had a secure complacent look about them: the spiritual ruling class; and she wished suddenly that she might grow as large and fierce as a gorilla and shake the flimsy doors off their hinges, drowning the repulsive music in a savage carnivorous yell.”

Dora’s observation of the Imber community takes on newfound disgust here. Raging at their silly superciliousness, Dora recognizes them for who they are: Murdoch again represents Dora’s maturation through the symbolic unmasking of figures she once considered frighteningly superior and inviolable. Words such as “fierce” and “flimsy,” “repulsive” and “savage carnivorous” juxtapose the new reality of what Dora perceives and how she feels about her new self. She is becoming a “gorilla,” a presence to fear, and she is coming into her own.

“The bell is subject to the force of gravity. The swing that takes it down must also take it up. So we too must learn to understand the mechanism of our spiritual energy, and find out where, for us, are the hiding places of our strength. This is what I meant by saying that it is the positive thing that saves. We must work, from inside outwards, through our strength, and by understanding and using exactly that energy which we have, acquire more. This is the wisdom of the serpent.”

Michael’s sermon, in contrast to James’s (Quote 12), combines the harmlessness of doves with the wisdom of serpents—that is, spiritual purity with original sin. Moreover, although Michael borrows from James’s sermon the central symbol of the bell, he focuses not on its truth but on the unstoppable nature of its gravitational movement. Once put in motion, the bell continues to swing, propelling the clapper to ring against its sides; the human psyche, once galvanized into psychological action, must similarly continue to echo, move, and grow. Whereas James speaks of the state of innocence as a welcome ideal, Michael contrasts it with the image of a soul’s learning to adapt, learn, and utilize its knowledge to grow and become more functional in the complex world—the wisdom of the serpent.

“Paul reached out and took Dora’s hand. He held it close, masterfully, pressing it without tenderness. Dora suffered this pressure for a while. Then it began to be hateful to her. She tried quietly to withdraw her hand. Paul held on. She began to pull. Paul gripped harder and twisted her wrist. Dora began to shake. A fou rire had got hold of her. She pressed her lips together so as not to laugh aloud. The Bishop’s voice droned on.”

In the moment of the Bishop’s baptismal ritual, another induction into the world is taking place. The struggle between Paul and Dora has taken on a physical form. He holds her hand “masterfully”—a word that contains the double meaning of “like a master” and “in a masterful way.” Both describe Paul’s desire to rule Dora and break her will. Dora’s “mad” (fou) desire to laugh out loud comes from the sudden realization that Paul’s attempt to restrain her physically proves his weakness and that she is finally liberating herself from under his spell.

“Dora knew that if she had reflected more carefully on her plan she would have seen that it was bound to get publicity and bound to look, to the outsider, ludicrous or sinister. Its triumphant witch-like quality existed for her alone. Even Toby, she realized, had cooperated to please her rather than because he liked the plan. How could such a thing be understood by the outside world?”

Dora’s plan to swap the ancient bell for the new one represents her ill-defined attempt to come into her own as regards her decisions in life. In this quote, she has reached the point where she can finally understand the unfeasibility and strangeness of her endeavor. This coincides with her coming to terms with the impossibility of continuing her life with Paul and recognizing the need to arrange for an independent life. In that sense, achieving notoriety constitutes a necessary step for Dora’s character to become free of the shackles of her own self-perception and fear of shame. Exposing her fantasy to the public shames her into responsibility.

“She could not leave things wretchedly like this, unsolved and unmended; she could not leave the bell ambiguously to be the subject of malicious and untrue stories. As if it alone held the solution she could not bring herself to leave it, though tears of exhaustion and helplessness were warming her frozen cheeks. She had communed with it now for too long and was under its spell. She had thought to be its master and make it her plaything, but now it was mastering her and would have its will.”

The bell holds symbolic significance for Dora as a sign of her witchlike femaleness and her desire to become true to her desires and learn not to depend upon others (especially men). Her decision to ring the bell in the middle of the night by flinging herself against it symbolically brings her desires into the open. The bell for Dora is not innocence or wisdom but the secret of her true self—a secret that must be made public. This quote relates to the previous one in the sense that Dora becomes aware that she must cause a public reaction to achieve independence. She must expose herself to allow herself to be who she wants to be.

“Something dark was unravelling on the water before her. It was Catherine’s hair. As in a dream she saw Catherine’s shoulder disappearing in the black ooze, her staring eyes cast upward, her mouth open. Fear of death came upon Dora. She fought desperately, gasping for air, but the weeds held her, seeming to drag her down, and the water was at her chin.”

Saving Catherine from drowning at first seems to be an impulsive act, but Dora’s willingness to risk her own survival—she cannot swim—to struggle with the immensity of the lake figures her as someone fighting death with life. In saving Catherine she is also saving herself from her perceived future fate; just as Catherine will not enter the convent, so too will Dora end her marriage. The “black ooze” and the weeds represent the forces of the patriarchy, of her male-dominated past, and of Paul and his grip.

“Michael drummed on the window. James was quite right in a way. But his heart ached terribly for Toby, sent away now with all his imperfections on his head, loaded with guilt, and involved by James’s solemnity in a machinery of sin and repentance with which he probably had no capacity to deal. How typical of James to do the simple decent thing which was also so damned obtuse. By sending Toby away he had branded the thing into the boy’s mind as something appalling; almost any other way of closing the incident would have been better than this one.”

This quote juxtaposes Michael and James and their worldviews yet again. Both men are well-meaning, but they go about it in very different ways. Michael’s fears about Toby reflect his own past and his own ambiguities—he still has not fully come to terms with his orientation or with its acceptability in the greater scheme of things, especially as regards Michael’s faith. James, on the other hand, believes in the simple act of owning up to one’s mistakes and learning to live with the truth and its consequences. Ultimately, Michael’s fears will prove unfounded; he has failed to take into account Toby’s youth and his strength of character. Unlike Michael’s, Toby’s doubts are of a passing nature.