Symbolism In Iris Murdoch's The Bell

As one of the prominent writers of postwar British literature, Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) has published twenty-six novels. The Bell (1958) is her fourth novel. It is the most attractive one of Murdoch's earlier novels, which tells of the founding, development and dissolution of a lay religious community around an old bell and a new bell. Murdoch conveys the difficulty and beauty of the road to self-knowledge, freedom, love and art through the description of her characters' life and love. The present thesis attempts to explore the theme in the novel from symbolic angle. By the employment of symbolism, Murdoch presents the novel's theme clearly before the readers. There are two major themes in the novel:love and freedom. This thesis takes symbolism as the main thread and analyzes the symbolic usage in the aspects of title, settings, characters' actions and specific symbols. The usage of symbols adds seriousness and ideological content to the theme.The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter 1 is to introduce the life and career of Murdoch and her works, tells the synopsis of the novel and criticism on it, and review the origin of symbolism and the definitions of symbolism and symbol from a theoretical perspective and the function of symbolism.Chapter 2 explores the symbolic meaning of the title and the settings of the novel. By the interpretation of symbolic meaning of the existing time of the Bells, the decoration of the Bells and the importance of the Bells, the author wants to show the reason why people at Imber Abbey cannot acquire true love and freedom.Chapter 3 analyzes the symbolic interpretation of the four major characters'actions.Chapter 4 focuses on studying the symbols in details. By creating these unique symbols, the author conveys her thoughts and deep concern with people's fate. The symbols are skillfully adopted to imply deeper meanings. Without a good understanding of the symbols, readers cannot perfectly grasp the essence of the novel.In the conclusion chapter, the author believes that through the discussion of the symbolic elements in the title, the settings, the characters' actions and specific symbols, the function of symbolism can be easily observed. It demonstrates Murdoch's writing talents.