The Bell

The convent symbolizes full retreat from the outside world, especially as it is a Benedictine order, whose vow of isolation is profound and exclusive. It represents those who have made their peace with renouncing profane pleasures and dedicating their lives to prayer and contemplation. However, the immediate proximity of the lay community at Imber Court complicates this purpose, since the nuns (and especially the Abbess) find interaction with the members of the lay community unavoidable. Additionally, both the Abbey and the community bear the same name, which indicates the essentially shared nature of their pursuit (though to significantly different degrees). The lay community attempts to straddle the middle ground between retreat and participation in the outside world—an ideal that proves untenable due to inherent human weakness.

It is also symbolic that when Catherine Fawley attempts to commit suicide by drowning, the nuns have to intervene from their side of the lake. It is the Abbess, who appears as “a grotesque figure […] apparently naked to the waist” (280), who saves both her and Dora (who has tried to stop Catherine and begun drowning herself), breaking her isolation only to attest silently to the fact that no one at the lay community is able to fulfill their duties.

The lake is a complex symbol of boundaries, secrecy, silence, and duality. A boat attached to a rope allows the members of Imber Court to travel to the Lodge, in which Nick Fawley resides. Thus, the lake resembles the Greek mythical Styx River, which separates the world of the living from the Underworld; Nick Fawley inhabits the world beyond, hovering between life and death both symbolically and factually, as he ends his life in suicide. The lake separates him from the rest of the community as if creating a boundary that Nick must not cross so as not to threaten the others’ existence. It is ironic, then, that the new bell ends up in the lake due to Nick’s sabotage, thereby contributing to the dissolution of the community.

The lake represents secrecy, as it conceals an ancient bell that is waiting to be discovered. Toby Gashe also bathes naked by the lake, feeling free, yet crucially unaware that Dora and Michael see him. It represents silence, as inside it Toby finds another world free of human chatter and worldly sounds. Inside the lake, the bell is also silenced; the lake’s mud has immobilized its tongue, so the bell cannot perform its function.

Finally, the lake symbolizes duality—between the surface and the depth, the visible and the unseen, the silence and the voice. The lake also belongs both to the lay community and to the convent and thus has both sacred and profane sides. Murdoch explores all of these concepts of duality thematically, and the lake embodies the theme.

Sin is a leitmotif in The Bell. Every major character deals with questions of what sin is and how they should respond to it. Dora Greenfield, a nonbeliever, nevertheless struggles with what she perceives as unacceptable behavior. She fights to attain the strength to do what she desires without feeling guilt or duty toward her husband or society generally. Michael grapples with the issue of sin on a religious plane as he attempts to come to terms with his desire for men and, more importantly, his impulse to act upon it, which he believes constitute sinful thought and behavior. Michael learns to accept himself throughout the novel, which means that he has to relinquish parts of his religious belief to attain a degree of freedom from his sense of sinfulness. James poses the question of sinful behavior during his address, and he particularly refers to original sin, which he believes renders all of us equally sinful from the outset. James’s view of sin is that it is an abomination and sinful behavior is never to be accepted or understood. Toby Gashe struggles to understand his nascent faith and to glean from others around him what sin is, so the episode where Michael kisses him represents the young man’s first intimations of living with sin. By contrast, Nick has known what he perceives to be sin since a very young age; he too feels attraction toward men, and this has led him to a life of carnality and very low self-esteem, which ultimately leads to his suicide. Murdoch therefore utilizes the leitmotif of sin to emphasize to what extent religious and social strictures determine the characters’ ability to lead lives free of guilt.