Paper: Iris Murdoch and dementia: the complexity of personal relations

by Medard Hilhorst

07 November, 2003

Department of Medical Ethics, Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam

Introduction

John Bayley has published three books with regard to his spouse, the famous writer Iris Murdoch, who passed away in 1999. The books spring from the notes he has made during (and after) the more than four years that she suffered from Alzheimer’s disease.

Elegy for Iris (1999)

Iris and the friends; A year of memories (1999)

Widower’s house; The last in the Iris Triology (2001)

The intention of the author is expressed nicely in the titel of the first book. ‘Elegy for Iris’, a lament or sentimental song, with a melancholic content. The book is ‘for’ her and not about her. It is about his life with her. It is as well about him, as about her, as about them both. In book 3, shortly after Iris’ death, he writes: “I only feel strong enough to go on writing about Iris, which means writing about ourselves – myself.” (3, p.144) The books reflect his feelings, his observations, his musings. They portray persons and their relationships. Bayley looks back at it, but at the same time are his recollections intertwined with the present, i.e. Iris’ Alzheimer’s, and the shadows of the future that manifest themselves more and more. “My memory of it (e.g. a singular occasion in their common past, MH) could arise from the difficulty I now feel in writing about Iris as she was. Is it that I can think of her only as she now is, which is for me the same as she has always been? In any case, no description of anybody, however loving, can seem to do anything but veer away from the person concerned, not because it distorts his or her “reality”, whatever that may be, but because the describer himself begins to lose all the confidence in the picture of the person he is creating. The Iris of my words cannot, I know, be any Iris who existed (p.145).

Many have criticized the books, while others love them. I belong to the latter group: I find them moving. One can hear the critism that one should not write in this way about one’s beloved partner – demented, deceased – who cannot speak for herself anymore. But I am not sure what is meant by this. Is it: that Iris’ part of the story cannot be heard anymore? Or that there are evil feelings or dubieus motivations on Bayley’s side? Some sort of revenge after a marriage in which he seemed to play only a minor role, or his purely financial reasons for publishing his notes, thus exploiting the renowned name of his partner and bedraggling her as a person? Whatever the critique is, I disagree. I cannot find any lines in the books or read between the lines anything that gives me rise to any of these interpretations. I do see pieces of text in which one can feel the pain, his pain, about some events in their lives or aspects of their relationship. I consider, however, these nicely written lines as discreet descriptions of facts or constructed ‘facts’ (as he sees them) that are part of human existence, and can be part of any human life, and therefore relevant to readers. I will give (hereafter) an example of what I consider as most painful in book 1. But it is not, I think, in any sense harmful to Iris as a (deceased) person, nor does it wrong her or damages it her image as a human being or her prestige as a writer.

Bayley recounts (in book 2, p.192) in only 10 lines her “toilet habits” (“I don’t know how it is with three-year-olds …”) how Iris is spreading around her own faeces in the living room. It describes sharply what it means to have Alzheimer’s and live with it as a partner. “I don’t mind a bit cleaning up, an operation which seems mildly to amuse her. I can make a joke of it too, and we can laugh about it together.” I cannot take this as an offence. This, again, is part of human existence that should not be denied. It is about Iris, but it could just as much be me, you, us. A reviewer speaks of a ‘devastating honesty’.

I take it as a wise sermon. We should face this side of human life, where relationships and personhood are affected in a way that is without splendour. It should be part of our ‘general moral knowledge’ and should in ethics (ethical reflection) play its role.

My intention in the following is, firstly, to show why I find the books nice and touching, and good to read, and secondly, to suggest why it is important to take it as a part of ethical reflection.

Some quotes and observations

An intuitive, well-balanced relationship’(book 1, p.43-44)

His lifelong relationship to Iris as a person and a creative writer is characterized by Bayley by ‘sympathy’. Although he was never able to understand her mind or enter into it, sympathy is enough to commune together. Even ‘complete understanding’ is than possible for two persons who live both apart and close to eachother. Their living is taken for granted as water or air. “The solitude I have enjoyed in marriage, and, I think, Iris, too, is a little like having a walk by oneself and knowing that tomorrow, or soon, one will be sharing it with the other, or, equally perhaps, again having it alone.”

My reflection on the passage gives rise to the following afterthought. It is unnatural to define a person in terms of autonomy only. Having relationships also seems to be an essential characteristic by which we should define ourselves. ‘Ethics’, dealing with questions as ‘how to live?’, should take this into account. Relationships can have many faces and may include things like a common history, emotional ties, and all kind of contingencies: one’s profession, one’s friends, etc. At the same time can a person not be reduced to relationships, to the life of someone else. Each person has by definition a life of his own and should have one. One can only to a certain extent think what the other thinks, and feel what the other feels. To account for this (e.g. ‘autonomy’) in ethics requires therefore an understanding in less general and more concrete terms: the persons and their relationships which Bayley describes are unique and unlike others. Quote: “How could our cases be compared? Iris was Iris” (about an acquintance who also suffered from Alzheimer’s, p.49). This concreteness – particularity in opposition to generality, best expressed in a narrative way – gives the reader feelings of both recognition and alienation. It describes in part our own world – including what we are and how we relate to others – but also a different world hardly familiar to us and sometimes even beyond our imagination.

For Bayley this ‘other’ world is Iris’ creative, fascinating inner world of writing, that he highly respects and describes with respectable remoteness. It is also Iris’ world of earlier and intimate friends, about which in the earlier times he had strong emotions, feelings of jealousy, and feelings of possessiveness and exclusivity with regard to their own relationship. Living with Alzheimer’s could also be this ‘other’ world, for Bayley as well as for his readers – giving rise to its own emotions: fascination, threat, fear. While reaching out to this other world, as a reader one tries to find at least some common ground.

Alzheimer’s disease (p.50-53)

Striking and salient words describe Iris’ Alzheimer’s and the impact it has on Bayley himself and their life together. “At such times, I feel my own mind and memory faltering, as if required to perform a function too far outside their own beat and practice.” … “Humor seems to survive anything.” … “At such moments, I find myself producing my own stream of consciousness, silly sentences or mashed-up quotations” … “ The raging frustration typical of many Alzheimer’s sufferers can sometimes be dispelled by embarking on a joky parody of helplessness, and trying to make it mutual, both of us at a loss for words.” … “At happy moments, she seems to find words more easily than I do.”

My Afterthought here: Alzheimer’s disease undermines understanding and control. Feelings of fear and anxiety also get hold of the partner. Memories are to a great extent common memories and it becomes difficult to grasp them solely on one’s own. Giving an account of these common memories becomes more and more a private enterprise, triggered by the situation one is in. At the same time Bayley’s memories are more and more bound by her, by their common situation, and seem to trap them both. For him it becomes a challenge to live in his own memories, which leave him at least free-floating thoughts, an inner life of his own. How curious is it working, his inner life. How curious function memories, words, thoughts in his mind.

Living together with Alzheimer’s is different from how they lived in the past, but not completely different. There is still (some sort of) understanding and sympathy. The relationship seems to ‘deepen’ in a certain sense, in that it is now based on even more basic common ground: expressed in words, rituals, jokes, which make mutual understanding possible, or at least the feeling of mutual understanding. There is a feeling of common ground, community, togetherness, unity. It is almost like animals (birds) talking together. There is continuity with the past. But ambivalence seems to surround them more and more sharply: there is doubt, loneliness, desperation, darkness for both of them in their own way. Mentally and physically increasingly bound by the relationship, there is less life outside it. Nevertheless, says Bayley: “One needs very much to feel that the unique individuality of one’s spouse has not been lost in the common symptoms of a clinical condition” (p.49). ‘Living a life’ is, it seems, defined in a new way: “taking short views” – never further than dinner or tea. Post a letter, walk round the block, go shopping, watch television – urgent and practical, done with the illusion of sense and routine.

I have no doubt that this is about ethics: about what life is, and how to live it. It is about the value of inner life, the value of words, of spirit and rituals. They can ‘inspire, amuse, console’ (Good Companions’, an anthology bij John Bayley, 2001). It is about what life it, what place relationships should have in it, what the essence or quality of it is. About care that is given, it seems, without saying, beyond thoughts or discussion.

The painful house ( p.184-185)

I consider this passage as most painful. Bayley describes that he could not identify with the house in which they lived and with himself, long before her illness. He felt not quite at home, because of Iris. It had to do with how she lived, with her attitude to things and to the house. It was all in fact neglected by them and he cleaned it when she was some days away. Iris, who was touched by this, seemed to understand: he wanted it different, he had other feelings with respect to the house and how they should live in it, other expectations with respect it and, perhaps, to her.

Afterthought. What they have in common is the world of their work, which is predominantly ‘mental’. The world of reflection, observation and contemplation. Here they are allies. But with respect to the material things, the things of daily life, they knew not quite well what to do with it. ‘House’ is a nice metaphor for life. Feeling at home. Different feelings about this. It can be painful to experience limits of understanding and sharing. This is without doubt also part of the human condition. In part due to our own inability to share, perhaps, in part because we long to share or expect that we can or should share? We may give more attention in ethics to an ‘ethics of the house’? To the place that our house has in our lives. To how we relate to the things, e.g. our house, and the role they play in our lives.

Teletubbies (p.226,227)

I consider these well-known pieces of text about watching the Teletubbies on television as less painful. Why? Because there is still togethernes and fun between them, although the world of Teletubbies it is a virtual reality. Both enjoy the funny figures. At the same time their own world in which they now live together, childishly, the world of her Alzheimer’s, is also like virtual reality. Nevertheless, these instances of TV-watching are short, timeless moments of sharing and belonging together. Moments of mental diversion, away from daily reality, a grim and fearful present and threatening future. The togetherness is founded in the past, in the way they used to communicate, in their own childish and amorous ways. In their common enjoyment in the past of, for instance, Tintin (Kuifje). Again is the present ambivalance manifest: their commonness is less spontaneous, less genuine, even phoney. There is also alienation and ‘distance’, as felt by Bayley. Can we speak of ethics here, in that the text shows us a way to live with Alzheimer’s?

The voyage is over (p.266)

Bayley writes: “Every day we move closer and closer together. We could not do otherwise.” This description, ‘We could’, is remarkable. What sort of ‘could’ is this? Can ethics throw some more light on it? And what about ‘we’: Iris cannot do otherwise, does she, but can John? Both seem to share the same fate in which they are brought more and more together. Quote: “… under the dark escort of Alzheimer’s, she has arrived somewhere. So have I.” Alzheimer’s is pictured as something that life brings to them both, where marriage takes them together, unwilled. This is accepted as it is, taken for granted. It is not something that needs to be denied or can be withstand, or that brings only unhappiness. One can deal with it, somehow, in some sort of an active way. Quote: “…marriage is taking a hand in the game …, involuntarily, … it is giving us no choice – and I am glad of that.” … “Every day, we are physically closer”, and it is “more simple, more natural”. Bayley describes the inner working of his (opur) mind. It is, of course, in part about psychology, but it seems to me a mistake to understand this only in terms of psychology. It is also about ethics: what to do, how to deal with circumstances in which we have no choice and nevertheless, paradoxally, do have choices, if not in terms of conduct or options, then in terms of mental attitudes to be taken towards these circumstances.

The truly natural state of man (book3, p.132-134)

Quote: “Naturally all of us are always acting a bit …but when we acquire a new profession – still more a new status – a new kind of role is required. At first I played a teacher of English …” … “None of this acting business applied when I was a ‘carer’. There was no one then before whom to play the part. Not even myself … For the first time in my life I suppose, and it must apply to all the rest of us ‘carers’ too, I found myself in what seemed the truly natural state of man, doing not what I wanted to do but what had to be done: sinking into dayly depression; flying into rages; knowing wild moments of the purest relief and elation when I loved Iris more than I had ever done before, and felt closer to her than I had ever felt before … That was the end of what I wrote down just after Iris died.”

Has ethics to say something here? I think it should. About the construed idea of a role, e.g. of a carer, and its limits. And truly acting as a human being. About duty. Surprisingly Bayley does ‘what had to be done’ and one expects something like ‘caring’, but his answer is giving in to his emotions, comply with them, and with his basic instinct of ‘natural’ loving. Can ethics and should ethics perhaps help us in setting priorities in our personal lives, by giving a clearer insight in what life is about?

A private form of public relations (p. 267,268, 269)

“I need our closeness now as much as Iris does” … “I am in mine (my own world), but it seems to be hers, too, because of proximity.” Book 1 ends in a way that should not be summarized. The nice little pieces of text are as a matter of fact too fragile or delicate to commend on. Additional words may do more harm than good. It concerns particular persons, a unique relationship and peculiar circumstances. But it is not just that. The texts should have a broader audience. Readers will have feelings of recognition, have a sence of understanding, may also be moved by some words or passages. Texts go beyond the particulars. This is because salient features of human existence are expressed in a relevant way. Their relevance, also in moral respect, can easily be recognized by the reader. On the one hand life is taking control and we may be its unfree prisoners. One partner is getting more dependent on the other and we cannot think of one without the other. Even in physical respect the distance diminishes, as if they are not two different persons but just one person. Their common language is almost childlike, even animal like: stroking and petting, as Bayley portrays it. What they do – something between acting and behaving? – springs from a long and common personal history (44 years), in which emotions always have been substantial and essential. This history has shaped and still shapes in an essental way what sort of persons they are, what they do and choose to do, up to the present.

Final remark

How relevant is this ‘reading literature’ for ethics? This depends, in part, on the definition of ethics one holds on to. Let us, in the tradition of Greek philosophy, Martha Nussbaum, Bernard Williams, Thomas Nagel etc., not to be too strict: ethics is, I think, about how we should live (Socrates’ question) and what sort of persons we should be. It is deals therefore, in the words of Cunningham, with ways of life and forms of character. I follow him here, with full agreement (Anthony Cunningham, The heart of what matters; The role for literature in moral philosophy, Berkeley, 2001). Ethics includes: ideals, aspiration and imagination with respect to ‘what is good and best’. It also includes rich concepts as shame, jealousy, respect, pride, compassion, cruelty, dignity, etc., not just the concepts good and evil, just and wrong.

Life and character are complex phenomenon. We have to find out what ‘really matters’ and motivates us. Our daily experiences should be in the forefront and can be of great help. As we all know, for instance, intimate attachments provide shape and meaning to our lives. Some may be constitutive of who and what we are. These attachments, relationships, bonds, commitments to others or to personal pursuits are complex, also in emotional respect. Complex but significant. Ethics should account for these attachments and emotions, which provide strong motivations to act as we do. It is not ethical theory in itself that motivates, that motivates us to be moral. Not abstract ‘love’ as such motivates, but the many concrete ‘loves’ do motivate us. Ethics should account for our many dayly ethical concerns, which are rich, diverse, plural and heterogeneous. Enough reason to suppose that there is not one single source of moral value. Enough reason also to believe that just not one and the same moral law binds us all.

But in what sense does literature then help us here? Literature provides detailed pictures, thick descriptions, of live and character, its complexities, the workings of inner life, pictures of particular people leading particular lives in particular circumstances. It provides the right stuff for concrete, particular deliberation. It directs our attention to the subtleties and nuances of what should rightly command our attention. It thereby hones our capacities to see clearly and choose wisely. It sharpens our ability to perceive moral subtleties and nuances. Because it maps the complexities truly, it does do justice to creatures just like us, in a non-detached way, thus speaking to our heart, to the heart of what matters. It provides the power to move us, it has moral force.

The importance of dayly experience is clear. The birth of a child, the illness of a friend, a shared history of friendship, experience acquired in life, it can all provide us with new insight, a better, more adequate vision and a motivation of its own to act morally in our own way. Cunningham: “Mature, developed emotions constitute a way of seeing the world and the road of good character goes through them.” One cannot find all the answers through reflection. Pictures in film or literature may be worth more than however many thousand words of philosophical prose. They can bring us far closer to being “there”, to real life, to the heart of what matters, than philosophical reflection and analysis alone. Stories can bring us an understanding, an insight ‘of its own’, stories can draw us in and enlighten us. And thus have their own power. Stories enlighten us about ‘facts’, how to perceive and appreciate them and the important ethical subtleties, but also about ‘the inner workings of human character and the things that matter dearly’. Stories can do justice to our uniqueness and concreteness, in the context of personal relationships, and its own detailed histories and circumstances. Stories can do justice to thoughts, desires, inclinations, attitudes, emotions, in short: give a rich picture of the interior life of the mind. Literature can filter our moral experience, heighten our attention beyond daily experience in a sensitive, responsive manner by focussing on the salient details, examine and try out different ways of life and forms of character, help us refine our moral vision. Literature engages us. One can see them as character studies, rich portraits of the interior life of the mind and the heart. John Bayley has contributed to this in his own, splendid way.

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