However, Murdoch shows things are not so simple. At the end of The Bell's narrative, only two characters remain: Michael and Dora. Both have been changed for the better, but neither for specifically religious or spiritual reasons. It is human relations that have changed them. In Dora's case, she has finally found the courage to break free from the suffocating Paul and lead her own independent life. One of the events that pushes her to leave Paul is a visit to the National Gallery in London earlier in the novel. The Bell by Iris Murdoch: characters Catherine is the mezzo-soprano and, innovatively, the prima ballerina of the piece who is immediately identified by Dora as a rival. Catherine is imminently to become a postulant in the convent; or, as her twin brother perceives the situation, to be swallowed alive by the institutional monster of religious passion. Toby, Catherine’s male sexual counterpart, is the the pious, virginal counter-tenor. He is the unsure novice, spiritually as well as sexually unformed. This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.’ - Shakespeare, Hamlet Opening with a very civilised adultery, leading to an even more civilised reconciliation for which the outgoing lover provides transportation to the railway station, there is no conflict which can’t be solved if one just has the patience to wait it out. And for heavens sake keep one’s mouth shut. Intimate communication is far too perilous a venture. Much preferable to rely on one’s friends to buoy one up without making a fuss, usually with a little G&T, or possibly even a bit of evening Compline before bed. This quote encapsulates The Bell's views on secluded religious communities like Imber Court. It criticises the choice to remove oneself from the world. This goes disastrously for many members of the Imber community.

The Bell is a 1982 British television drama series which originally aired on BBC 2. [1] It is an adaptation of the 1958 novel of the same title by Iris Murdoch.In that lowness, Murdoch found the subject of her novels, each to a greater or lesser degree peopled by delusionals and lunatics. Often, those who are compelled by the attempt to be good are the most dangerous, particularly when they have covered themselves in the cloak of mysticism, a recurring trope that allows Murdoch to study – in common with Muriel Spark – the devastating power of charisma. As she travels, Dora strikes up conversation with two men who are also traveling to Imber Court. Toby Gashe is a young boy who has just finished school and wants to spend some time away before beginning his university education. The other man is James Tayper Pace, a genial figure who used to run a settlement house before joining the lay people at Imber Court.

Murdoch’s novels teem with characters who are opaque to one another, confusingly impulsive, acting out ruptures in their supposedly intimate relationships or with their personal histories. It is common for us to meet them in moments of crisis, sometimes entering a space already filled by a group of people at odds with one another. In The Bell, her fourth novel, a young woman, Dora, reunites with her estranged husband in the setting of a lay religious community. Among those she meets are a teenage boy who, unbeknown to him, has been strategically placed to watch over a dissolute drunk; a woman (the drunk’s twin sister) set on becoming a nun and a man once in love with the drunk, and disgraced in the process. can live neither in the world nor out of it ... those unhappy souls whose desire for God makes them unsatisfactory citizens of an ordinary life, but whose strength or temperament fails them to surrender the world completely." Toby and Dora are each innocent, though in different ways. Toby enjoys his blameless, worry-free boyishness until he finds that surface appearances aren’t what they seem. Dora is forever stumbling around emotionally, verbally battered by Paul, unsure of who she is and what she wants to do, but, after a series of calamities for the community, she finds meaning and purpose in her life. Mischief The director/producer is Mrs. Mark (married to Mr. Mrs. Mark), a somewhat beefy person in long skirts, with “well-developed calves.” She is a type of English proto-hippie perhaps, an evangelical Mrs Danvers, living a life of gentile, procedural poverty on someone else’s dime, never without a ‘cause’. Without her, neither sex nor religion could flourish at Imber. She is the liturgical and social hub, the enforcer of strict adherence to the rubrics, “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,” she politely commands. She also ensures that conversation never becomes intrusive, “That’s another little religious rule that we try to follow. No gossip.” What takes place outside Imber, remains outside Imber.

For Charlotte Mendelson, who has written the introduction to Under the Net (1954), Murdoch’s novels “work for everyone because she understood our secret lives: falling in love with exactly the wrong person, maddened with inconvenient lust and sadness and fear. Her books are full of passion and disaster; I loved her as a teenager and will never stop.” Levenson, Michael H. (Michael Harry) (2001). "Iris Murdoch: The philosophic fifties and The Bell". Modern Fiction Studies. 47 (3): 558–579. doi: 10.1353/mfs.2001.0062. Sin, the novel seems to say, is opting out of the struggle and opting against doing good. Opting, instead, from the well of pain of one’s own existence, to commit mischief to cause others pain and suffering, as if that will somehow lessen the mischief-maker’s suffering. Meaning and purpose The setting for The Bell is Imber Court, a palladian country mansion that is home to an Anglican Benedictine commune in Gloucestershire, just outside the walls of an Anglican convent. The Imber commune consists of a group of lay, religious people who seek a retreat from the world to live, for a spell at least, an ascetic and pious life. Life here is intended to be simple – prayer and tending a vegetable garden. But it is not to be. Dora is a young former art student. She is in a tumultuous and estranged marriage with Paul. She is also an outsider to the Imber community. Paul's domineering nature causes her to feel trapped. The events of The Bell lead to Dora's growth as she gains an individual sense of self beyond any male character. She even attempts to save Catherine from drowning, despite not knowing how to swim. By the end of the text, Dora has her own new life.