A Literary Geographic Reading Of Dora's Initiation In The Bell

As one of the most distinguished post-war British female novelist and philosopher,Iris Murdoch is a novelist who incorporates her own moral philosophy into her novels and concerns deeply about freedom,morality,love.She rejects rigid social rules and believes that moral life is an all-encompassing way of life.Her works reflect her exploration of the self and modern man's dilemma in a godless world.The Bell is exemplary of Murdoch's incorporation of literature and philosophy.The Bell,first published in 1958,is set in Imber Court,a lay religious community situated next to an enclosed order of Benedictine nuns in Gloucestershire.The female protagonist Dora,fearful of and disloyal to her husband,achieves moral maturity in religious Imber.The novel has been studied from various aspects,such as religious and philosophical ideas.This thesis,on the basis of previous studies,explores Dora's initiation process from the perspective of literary geography and investigates Murdoch's way of achieving moral growth.The novel vividly reflects the painful psychological sufferings of those people who are deeply traumatized by single moral standard.Chapter One explores the protagonist Dora's non-attachment to London through analyzing the relationship between Dora's estrangement and the geographic space in London.Dora's sense of inferiority,caused by her lack of familial love and low social position,becomes stronger andstronger after living with her upper-class husband in their Knightsbridge home.Under the tight space in hierarchical London Dora breaches family ethics and escapes into a Bohemian life.Chapter Two employs Murdoch's concept of unselfing and the theory of literary geography to analyze Dora's transformation from a sufferer in Imber court into a protector.Dora suffers a lot under the striated space created by the moral standard of Imber court,but finally achieves mental independence with the help of the smooth space represented by the Abbey.Drawing on Murdoch's accounts of goodness,Chapter Three probes Dora's possible achievement of goodness in Bath.Dora's connection with art in Imber corresponds to Bath's reputation as a center of art,which ensures Dora's moral progression in Bath.Taking the literary image of Bath into consideration,Bath's openness in culture also makes it a fertile ground in which Dora can progress to moral perfection.This thesis is to confirm Murdoch's moral belief through Dora's initiation toward goodness that to have a good moral life,one should establish a complete self,and then transcend the limitations of moral judgement with one's ability of love.This thesis also holds the view that through Dora's initiation toward goodness Murdoch expresses her conviction of novel as a form of moral investigation.