Wang i

Huaiying Wang

Mrs. E. Richardson

University English II

17 November 2008

Liberation in The Sea, The Sea

Thesis: Liberation, an underlying theme in The Sea, The Sea, is expressed by Charles’

retirement, the desire the characters have for freedom, and the inclusion of Buddhism.

I. Charles’ retirement

A. Moves to a secluded home

B. Gives up his “magic”

C. Tries to leave his past life behind

II. Desire for freedom

A. Lizzie’s love

B. Rosina’s hatred

C. James’s vanity

III. Incorporation of Buddhism

A. The surrender of attachments

1. Hartley

2. Love

B. Death

1. Bardo

2. Sangasara

3. James
 Wang 2

Shan Shan Wang

Mrs. E. Richardson

University English II

17 November 2008

Liberation in The Sea, The Sea

The Sea, The Sea, by Iris Murdoch, is a novel featuring a collection of memoirs written

by retired playwright, Charles Arrowby. Meant at first to be an autobiography, these memoirs

end up outlining loose, unstructured sketches of Charles’s retired life. The novel opens up with a

description of the sea surrounding Charles’s new, secluded abode. After enjoying a successful

career, Charles has tired of the theatre and moved to an isolated, seaside house named Shruff

End, seeking to avoid spiritual wilting and to “end his life in a cave.” As the novel progresses,

Charles examines his life and evaluates all the relationships he has experienced. These

relationships bind his past to his present, as the people, emotions, and desires of his past come

back to haunt him. Murdoch uses these bonds to express a constant theme in the novel. She

interweaves an exchange of bondage and liberation and portrays Charles’s spiritual

enlightenment in the process. Liberation, an underlying theme in The Sea, The Sea, is expressed

by Charles’s retirement, the desire the characters have to free themselves, and the incorporation

of Buddhism.

Seeking to isolate, and ultimately liberate, himself from the rest of the world, Charles

retires to Shruff End, a secluded house next to the sea at the edge of a small village called

Narrowdean. There, he enjoys the simple pleasures of retired life, swimming bare in the chilling

waters, eating his choice of simple food, and writing a diary-like collection of memoirs, hoping

to preserve his life in print and paper. Charles does not keep contact with the life in the theatre he
 Wang 3

left behind in London, especially not with the people. He claims, “The theatre is certainly a place

for learning about the brevity of human glory: oh all those wonderful glittering absolutely

vanished pantomimes! Now I shall abjure magic and become a hermit: put myself in a situation

where I can honestly say that I have nothing else to do but to learn to be good” (Murdoch 1-2).

Charles has been taught the mutability of life and wishes to end his own in seclusion, finding

liberation in the form of retirement and self-evaluation, giving up his “magic” in the process.

Charles has had a successful career in the theatre. His success, however, does not stem

from exceptional talent. Instead, it comes from his personal connections, especially with the

famous late-actress, Clement Makin, and his love of power. Charles’s love of power has

developed into a form of magic. This magic, this supposed power, acts like a magnet and draws

people to Charles, even though he lacks magnetism in his personality. Rosina Vamburgh, one of

Charles’s ex-lovers tells him, “‘Don’t you see that is has all been a mirage? Those women love

you for your power, your magic, yes, you have been a sorcerer. And now, it’s over—” (108). She

reiterates something he already knows, telling him that his magic has waned. However, “What

Charles does not realize…is that in order to save himself the magician ultimately must give up

power and set people free” (Capitani 103). Even though Charles has resolved to give up his

magic as a theatre director and live the remainder of his life in self-reflection, he has not resolved

to give up his power and the hold he has on other people. This is where the theme of bondage

comes in.

Many people are under Charles’s spell, his power, and seek to free themselves from him.

The first and foremost is an actress named Lizzie Scherer. As Lindsey Tucker notes, “Lizzie’s

bondage derives from Charles’s enormous egotism. He loves her because he has created her and

because, unlike other women, Lizzie has imposed no ‘moral bonds’ on him and she flatters his
 Wang 4

ego” (381). Thus, Charles is portrayed as a possessive and jealous individual. Because Lizzie is

absolutely devoted to him and because he “created” her career as an actress, Charles sees Lizzie

as his possession. He becomes envious when he finds out she is living with Gilbert Opian,

another actor Charles has “created” and reflects, “I was becoming conscious of that old familiar

possessive feeling, the desire to grab and hold, which had been somehow blessedly absent from

my recent thoughts about Lizzie… [Gilbert] was making me coarsen and define an impulse

which had been splendidly generous and vague” (94). He is also infuriated when he finds out

that Lizzie has had personal experience with his cousin, James. When confronting Charles about

this issue, James says, “‘Of course, we ought to have told you long ago that we knew each other

slightly. But the nature of the acquaintance was likely to irritate you. I know, if you will forgive

my saying so, what an insanely jealous disposition you have’” (406). Lizzie’s “bondage” to

Charles obviously runs deep on both sides.

Even though Lizzie has had strong ties with Charles for many years, she tries to free

herself from him, expressing the overall theme of liberation in the story. The first step she takes

is moving in with Gilbert and trying to forget her love for Charles. She writes to Charles and tells

him, “I have been happy for the first time in my life…When I look back and see what a

miserable stupid anxious messy existence I led over years and years I can’t think how I tolerated

it…I don’t want to see you now, yet. I’d simply succumb…I am happy here and Gilbert needs

me and we have this house which we have made together” (45-46). She is trying to free herself

from Charles’s hold over her, finding happiness along the way. Unfortunately, by meddling in

Lizzie’s affairs shortly after reading her letter, Charles breaks up her happy co-existence with

Gilbert and she is thrown back into an obsession, a madness, over Charles. As Gilbert, who loves

Charles as well, says, “‘Being in love, that’s another slavery, stupid when you come to think of
 Wang 5

it, mad really. You make another person into God. That can’t be right’” (245). Because of her

“love” for Charles, Lizzie ends up living with him at Shruff End, cooking and caring for him like

“an old wife.” Ironically, living with him and aiding him in all of his misadventures teaches

Lizzie about the nature of love. She learns that true love should be “‘free and sane’” (245). Her

liberation from her obsession over Charles, according to Tucker, “is evident in her urging [him]

to give up ‘mean possessive passions and scheming’” (380). She frees herself from his

“bondage” and leaves Shruff End to pursue her own happiness.

Another person under Charles’s hold is a famous actress named Rosina. Unlike Lizzie,

she is shackled to Charles by hatred and not by love. Charles had previously destroyed her

marriage with a man named Perry and lured her into a short, but passionate, affair. Admitting his

domineering personality, Charles explains, “A furious mutual desire for possession dominated

the whole affair while it lasted” (72). In the end, he leaves her for Lizzie but is never fully able to

break ties with her. She does not allow him to. Rosina is obsessed and bonded to Charles by a

rippling hatred, which guides her to “haunt” him during his retirement. She performs childish,

but effective, acts of vandalism to make Charles as uncomfortable as possible, reinforcing the

rumor that Shruff End is haunted. After losing everything she has ever wanted, Rosina clings to

the one thing she has of Charles, the promise he made her years ago. He swore that if he were

ever to marry, it would be to her. By these words, he binds himself to Rosina. He tries to free

himself of these binds, wanting nothing further to do with her, but she tells him, “Promises are

words. You are bound, Charles. Bound” (106). This emphasizes her mind frame, and the overall

theme of bondage.

Eventually, Rosina frees herself from Charles by realizing how superficial his power

really is. She says, “I can’t imagine why I got so attached to you. I think it was your own
 Wang 6

illusions of power that fascinated people... [I was] just duped by your conceit” (434). She has

been attracted to his power all these years, not to him as a person. Another contributing factor to

her freedom is her ex-husband, Perry. Perry has always acted friendly towards Charles, even

though Charles destroyed his marriage with Rosina. On the inside, however, Perry has harbored

his own brand of hatred. When Perry expresses this hatred, by pushing Charles into Minn’s

Cauldron, Rosina “suddenly [sees] the truth” (433) and realizes that Charles’s magic is fake. She

remarries Perry and they are both set free from their hatred.

Beyond the desire for liberation from Charles, James, Charles’s cousin, wants another

kind of freedom. As Elizabeth Dipple says, he is unable to “free himself from attachments and

the power his mind can endow them with” (292). Because of this and the vanity he can’t be rid

of, James is partially to blame for two character deaths. The first death he causes is of a Sherpa

he was fond of. During his travels in the East, he tries to learn “tricks” that appear to be magic.

One such trick is the task of raising his body temperature by mental concentration. To test this

trick out, he travels with his Sherpa friend across an icy mountain pass. There, he tries to keep

both of them warm, through the night, by means of mental concentration. However, he is unable

to and his Sherpa friend dies. James admits that it was his vanity that killed the Sherpa. The

second death James plays a small, but significant, part in is that of Titus, an adopted child who

was raised hopping to be Charles’s son. James, acting out of vanity, tries to restore Titus to his

adoptive parents. Using his spiritual prowess of persuasion, James convinces Titus to stay at

Shruff End and eventually reconcile with his adoptive parents. This leads to a tragic end, in

which Titus is killed by the sea surrounding Shruff End because James, in his vanity, is unable to

save him. James is “attracted to the worldly idea of power... [He] cannot stay on a truly spiritual

path. When he leaves it, Titus dies” (Capitani 105). Thus, James tells Charles, “The last
 Wang 7

achievement is the absolute surrender of magic itself” (445). He says that the greatest

achievement anyone can make is to liberate oneself from the tenets of magic, power, and vanity.

As common of a character in one of Murdoch’s works, James is, “one of [her] most

subtly developed characters” (Dipple 289) who rises in importance. He is introduced gradually to

the plot and presents a compelling and constant theme throughout the novel, Buddhism. In his

younger days, James is said to have displayed exceptional talent as a student, but decided to

pursue a military profession. The time he spends in Tibet, as a soldier, leads to his conversion to

Buddhism. He, “is involved in the action, not for reasons of ego, but because of his need to act in

accordance with the teachings of his adopted religion, Buddhism” (Tucker 379). Through James,

Murdoch incorporates Buddhist philosophy into the plot and uses “Buddhism to a great extent [to

deal] with retirement and liberation” (Tucker 388). She uses Buddhist ideals of liberation to

model the plot’s development.

Incorporated throughout the entire novel, certain Buddhist ideas promote liberation, such

as the surrender of attachments. James tells Charles that liberation comes from being “‘free…of

attachments, cravings, desires, what chains us to an unreal world’” (385). Unable to do this,

Charles is bounded by his obsession over Hartley Fitch, his long-lost childhood sweetheart.

Charles and Hartley were at one point secretly engaged, but she ends up running away and

leaving him. Ironically, Charles finds Hartley in Narrowdean, right after he retires. Unfortunately

for Charles, Hartley is already married, so he is unable to pursue his everlasting feelings for her.

These feelings lead to an obsession, which he defends by saying, “All this giving up of

attachments doesn’t sound to me like salvation and freedom, it sounds like death” (445). Because

Charles is unable to give up his obsession over Hartley, he tries to force himself into her life.

This causes an enormous amount of trouble and grief for him, her, and her husband, Benjamin
 Wang 8

Fitch. Charles declares, “‘Hartley, I’m not going to leave you alone, so you must make up your

mind to that and invent some humane way of dealing with me!’” (135-136). His egotism knows

no bounds because he assumes that it is his duty to love and protect her from any form of harm.

Ben, shown to be just as possessive and jealous as Charles, holds Hartley with an iron

fist. In spite of this, Hartley has no desire to leave him, if not out of love then out of loyalty.

Convinced that Ben is an abusive husband and deluded into thinking that Hartley would be

happier leaving Ben, Charles kidnaps Hartley and takes her to live with him at Shruff End.

Charles broods, “Ben was just as I had—feared—and hoped. He was a hateful tyrant. He was a

thoroughly nasty man” (152). Charles cares for Hartley like a caged bird and becomes bound to

her, turning her into an almost holy figure. As Tucker asserts, “Charles’s worship of Hartley is

all projection, a worship based on his own enormous egotism, as the understanding and practice

of Buddhist teachings soon make clear” (385). It is shown in the novel that Charles, unable to

give up his attachment to Hartley, binds himself and her to his obsession, which is brought to

light through James’s Buddhist influence.

Buddhism, however, not only helps establish this problem, but introduces a solution as

well. This is done through the incorporation of the Buddhist belief of sangsara, in which people

live in a realm of ignorance, where maya, otherwise known as magic, provides means for

enchantment. In other words, Murdoch presents the Buddhist belief that everyone is trapped in a

world of dreams in her novel. Charles, who is bound by his own fabrication of dreams “imposes

his private fantasies upon other people, destroying them in the process” (Capitani 103). Thus, all

the characters are either trapped in their own little dream world, or Charles’s, as is particular for

Hartley. Tucker explains that, “His so-called retirement has turned his fantasy-governed inner

world outward, and Hartley, a figure of his dream world, becomes his reality” (386). Charles
 Wang 9

confuses reality with the ideal world in his mind, which causes chaos.

James, with his Buddhist principles, tries to take Charles out of this dream. He says, “Of

course we live in dreams and by dreams, and even in a disciplined spiritual life…it is hard to

distinguish dream from reality… [but] you’ve made [this] into a story, and stories are false”

(335). He eloquently tells Charles that to be free from his obsession, his madness, he must not

only give up Hartley, but give up his maya-induced fantasies. To achieve liberation, James

explains that Charles must reach nirvana, a principle based on that saying that, “‘When thou hast

understood the dissolution of all the ‘fabrications’ thou shalt understand that which is not

fabricated’” (Tucker 388). At first, Charles does not listen to James and continues to defending

his actions, exclaiming, “‘There’s a way in which it must be true, it can’t be a dream, pure love

makes it true’” (361). However, Charles’s love for Hartley is not pure, and it is not only James

who sees the nature of Charles’s dream world. Rosina tells him, “‘You’re living in a dream

world, a rater nasty one’” (316). Even Hartley says, “[I love you] in an unreal way, in a dream, in

a might have been. Really, all this was over long ago and we’re dreaming it” (329). Even she

knows that it’s only a dream.

Charles does eventually let Hartley go. Listening to James’s teachings and realizing that

Hartley is miserable, he gives her back to Ben. Shortly thereafter, she and Ben move to Sydney,

Australia, leaving Charles and Narrowdean behind. When confronted with this, Charles says,

“‘I’ve given up…It was a brief mental aberration” (433). He achieves spiritual enlightenment

and liberation from his obsession over a dream through James’s Buddhist principles. Bloom and

Leavis claim that Charles’s failure to keep Hartley comes from “the long-confirmed habits…

ingeniously loaded against him…through [his] vanity” (626) and that his success comes from his

liberation from such habits, through Buddhist principles.

 Wang 10

Another Buddhist principle that strengthens the theme of liberation in the novel is death.

James says, “‘You have a chance at the moment of death…to become free. At the moment of

death you are given a total vision of all reality which comes to you in a flash. To most of us this

would be—well—just a violent flash, like an atom bomb, something terrifying and dazzling and

incomprehensible. But if you can comprehend and grasp it then you are free’” (385). James

experiences this moment of freedom when he dies, after Charles’s brief phase of madness over

Hartley, in his apartment. Dr. Tsang writes to Charles of this event, saying, “I have written for

cause of death on the certificate ‘heart failure,’ but it was not so. There are some who can freely

choose their moment of death and without violence to the body can by simple will power die…

Believe me, Sir, he was an enlightened one” (473). The doctor speaks of James as an

“enlightened one,” better known as yogi, a saint who is able to reach nirvana, being liberated

from a maya-influenced mind.

Beyond death, there is the Buddhist principle of life after death, a state referred to as

bardo. There are many stages of bardo, eventually leading to reincarnation. The first stage is

chikhai, when the dying person experiences the “Clear Light” and is given a chance to liberate

himself from the wheel of life. If the person is unable to do so, he enters the second stage of

bardo, chonyid bardo, in which he enters a state of suspension, losing all connections to his

body. The third stage of bardo, sidpa bardo, consists of a transitional time before rebirth. Tucker

explains, “bardo is referred to in a number of places in The Sea, The Sea and Murdoch appears

to be using the bardo stages metaphorically to structure Charles’s new, but transitory,

illumination following the illness he undergoes after Hartley has returned to Ben and James has

returned to London” (388). That is to say, Murdoch uses the properties of bardo to portray a kind

of rebirth for Charles, the transitory stage after his illness being the chonyid bardo stage of his
 Wang 11

life. In this stage, Charles comes close to general understanding and is liberated from the

fantasies that once bound him to his own dream world. The second and third stages of bardo are

incorporated into Charles’s life after he returns to London. Charles loses his “Clear light,” his

special understanding, and begins to hallucinate, preparing for the final stage of death and,

eventually, rebirth. In Charles’s last memoir entry, he metaphorically leaves the final stage of

bardo, dies, begins his journey through the realm of sangsara, and is finally liberated from

worldly attachments.

Liberation, a theme interwoven throughout Murdoch’s The Sea, The Sea, is apparent in

three major aspects of the novel. The first aspect is Charles’s retirement. As Bloom and Leavis

say, “The interest [of the novel] is in an old egotist’s attempt at remedying his life and

abandoning his past self-indulgences” (626). Charles seeks to give up his theatre “magic” and

leave the world behind by retiring to a remote house near the sea. From his time away from the

rest of the world, Charles is given the opportunity to “abjure the magic and see the truth [and] in

the process, his urge towards power over others subsides” (Dipple 298). By moving away to his

house by the sea, Charles gains a new form of enlightenment in the end, especially after all of his

misadventures. The second aspect is the characters’ desires to free themselves. Lizzie,

emotionally bound to Charles, she seeks to be free of her binds, moving in with Gilbert and

leading a happy life without Charles. Even though she succumbs to his manipulations, she is free

of her madness for him in the end, learning the nature of true love. Rosina, one of Charles’s ex-

lovers, comes after him during his retirement, shackled by hatred. She frees herself when she re-

marries Perry, her first husband and the man she left for Charles. James, chained by his vanity

and thirst for spiritual power, is unable to free himself until death, becoming an “enlightened

one” by willing his own end. The third and final aspect is Buddhism. Murdoch incorporates the
 Wang 12

thematic teachings of Buddhism in her novel, including: freedom from attachments, death, and

life after death. Buddhists believe that true liberation comes when one is free of worldly

attachments. Sadly, Charles is unable to free himself from his obsession over Hartley and is

bound to her until James steps in and, with his Buddhist principles, frees Charles from the tenet

of love. Thus, it is evident that liberation is a constant and influential theme in The Sea, The Sea.
 Wang 13

Works Cited

Bloom, J.M. and Leavis, L.R. “Current Literature 1978.” English Studies 60.5 (Oct. 1997): 625-

648. Literary Reference Center. EBSCOhost. Mississippi U of Women Lib., Columbus.

22 Sept. 2008 <http://web.ebscohost.com>.

Capitani, Diane N. “Ideas of the Good: Iris Murdoch’s ‘The Sea, The Sea.’” Christianity &

Literature 53.1 (Autumn 2003): 99-108. Literary Reference Center. EBESCOhost.

Mississippi U of Women Lib., Columbus. 22 Sept. 2008 < http://web.ebscohost.com>.

Dipple, Elizabeth. Iris Murdoch, work for the spirit. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,

1982.

Murdoch, Iris. The Sea, The Sea. New York: Viking, 1978.

Tucker, Lindsey. “Released from Bands: Irish Murdoch’s two Prosperos in The Sea, The Sea.”

Contemporary Literature 27.3 (Fall 1986): 378-396. Literary Reference Center.

EBSCOhost. Mississippi U of Women Lib., Columbus. 22 Sept. 2008

<http://web.ebscohost.com>.
 Wang 14

own/Observer
Sophia Martelli
Sunday 4 August 2013 12.00 BSTLast modified on Thursday 22 May
201402.50 BST

 Share on Facebook
 Share on Twitter
 Share via Email
 Share on LinkedIn
 Share on Google+

Shares
81

Comments
14

Charles Arrowby, celebrated theatre director, egomaniac and narrator of Iris

Murdoch's 1978 Booker prize-winning novel, has retired to a remote Martello
tower on the cliffs by the sea – a body of water by turns calm, raging and
boasting the occasional, possibly hallucinated, monster.

Arrowby is writing his memoirs, and his attempt to chronicle his successful
career in the "histrionic arts", both on the boards and off, reveals a character
that is part Pooter, part Proust and part Partridge, yet wholly Murdoch.

Shruff End, as the atmospheric, oil lamp-lit house is named, is where Arrowby
aims to become a hermit and reflect upon his life. He details his marvellously
revolting meals with the lyricism of a gourmand – salivating over Battenberg
cake and prunes, and making quirky declarations: "Kipper fillets are arguably
better than smoked salmon unless the latter is very good," and suchlike. These
domestic pursuits, along with some tantalising recollections from his former
 Wang 15

life, keep him – and us – entertained for some time. But Arrowby's heart is
patently not in the solitary life. "How huge it is, how empty, this great space
for which I have been longing all my life," Arrowby writes, adding poignantly,
"Still no letters."

With nothing to do but "learning to be good", it is inevitable that Arrowby will

create some drama even in this isolated spot; and this he does by attempting
to draw his former lover Lizzie into his new life while trying to destroy the
marriage of his childhood sweetheart, Hartley. Other visitors congregate at his
new abode, shedding light on Arrowby's past and present: his Buddhist
cousin, James (of whom he has always been profoundly jealous), and various
theatrical ex-lovers and ex-friends. Their relationships reveal the shallows of
Arrowby's self-knowledge – as well as his ability to manipulate.

Peppered with literary allusions, yet enjoyable on its own terms, the strongest
echo in The Sea, The Sea is of Prospero and The Tempest. Murdoch's subtly,
blackly humorous digs at human vanity and self-delusion periodically build
into waves of hilarity, and Arrowby is a brilliant creation: a deeply textured,
intriguing yet unreliable narrator, and one of the finest character studies of the
20th century.