Murdoch and Gilead: John Ames as a Model of Murdochian Virtue

What’s so good about John Ames? The narrator of Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead has been much admired, but it’s far from obvious why. His life is quiet and unassuming, and has for the most part been uneventful in the extreme. In this chapter I draw on Iris Murdoch’s moral philosophy to explain the moral arc of the novel, and suggest that the novel in turn can shed light on Murdoch’s key ethical ideas. What is so notable about John Ames, I suggest, is his commitment to seeing the world justly and lovingly—a commitment which for Murdoch is at the heart of virtuous agency.