Till We Have Faces (1956)
Uniqueness within Lewis’
fiction
 Genre – MYTH
 “Into an allegory a man can put only what he already
knows; in a myth he puts what he does not yet know
and could not come by in any other way.” – C. S. Lewis
 Origin – Apuleius’ Metamorphoses
 Psychology
Plot Summary
Orual’s suffering
 Shame – over her physical ugliness
 Loss of Psyche
 “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and
your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be
broken.” – Lewis, Four Loves, p. 166
 Mask / Veil
Orual, like Job
Orual’s complaint against the gods:
“I say, therefore that there is no creature (toad, scorpion, or
serpent) so noxious to man as the gods. Let them answer my
charge if they can. It may well be that, instead of answering,
they’ll strike me mad or leprous or turn me into beast, bird, or
tree. But will not all the world then know (and the gods will
know it knows) that this is because they have no answer?”
“…know then that God has put me in the wrong and closed
his net about me…I call for help, but there is no justice. He
has walled up my way, so that I cannot pass, and he has set
darkness upon my paths. He has stripped from me my glory
and taken the crown from my head.” (Job 19:6, 7b, 8-9)
Reflection brings change
Writing as reflection that brings revelation:
“What began the change was the very writing itself. Let
no one lightly set about such a work. Memory, once
waked, will play the tyrant…The past which I wrote
down was not the past that I thought I had (all these
years) been remembering…The change which the
writing wrought in me…was only a beginning—only to
prepare me for the gods’ surgery. They used my own
pen to probe my wound.” (p. 253-4)
“… those divine Surgeons had
me tied down and were at
work.”
 Writing
 Awareness
 Re: Redival, upon encounter with Tarin
 Re: the Fox
 Re: Bardia, upon his death, the rite of Ungit, and the
vision in the subterranean Pillar Room
Realization: “I am Ungit”
“With her realization of the truth of Ansit’s words—that
she is Ungit (or the Shadowbrute), that she as Queen has
drained the country as she believes the house of Ungit
has—Orual tries to reform herself, to practice Platonic
philosophy, to be calm and dispassionate and wise, but
she finds herself unable.”
– Joe R. Christopher
Orual’s Helplessness
“Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about ‘man’s
search for God.’ To me, as I then was, they might as
well have talked about the mouse’s search for the
cat.” – C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy
When Orual tries take her own life, but is stopped by
the voice of the god, “’Die before you die. There is no
chance after.’” (p. 278)
She then writes in cold dispassion:
“There was no rebel in me now. I must not drown and
doubtless should not be able to.” (p. 279)
Effort at Righteousness
 “…if I practiced true philosophy, as Socrates meant
it, I should change my ugly soul into a fair one. And
this, the gods helping me, I would do. I would set
about it at once…I would set out boldly each
morning to be just and calm and wise in all my
thoughts and acts; but before they had finished
dressing me I would find that I was back (and knew
not how long I had been back in some old rage,
resentment, gnawing fantasy, or sullen bitterness. I
could not hold out half an hour.” (p. 282)
Tainted Love
 Even Orual’s love for Psyche is selfish. She cries out in her
complaint to the gods:
“Why did you lie to me? You said a brute would devour her.
Well, why didn’t it? I’d have wept for her and buried what
was left and built her a tomb and…and…But to steal her
love from me!” (p. 290)
 “Orual is [not a symbol] but an instance, a ‘case’ of
human affection in its natural condition, true, tender,
suffering, but in the long run tyrannically possessive and
ready to turn to hatred when the beloved ceases to be its
possession. What such love particularly cannot stand is
to see the beloved passing into a sphere where it cannot
follow.”
-- Nathan Comfort Starr
Idolatry
“We may give our human loves the unconditional
allegiance which we owe only to God. Then they become
gods: then they become demons.”
– Lewis, Four Loves
Stripped of selfrighteousness
“The complaint was the answer…I saw well why the
gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till
that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear
the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet
us face to face till we have faces?” (p. 294)
“Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind
and said: ‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words
without knowledge?’” (Job 38:1)
Job responds: “I had heard of you by the hearing of
the ear, but now my eye sees you, therefore I despise
myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:6)
The Final Vision
 Repentance  Reconciliation 
 Judgment  Forgiveness
 Vicarious suffering & Death  Imputation
 Resurrection  JOY
“I ended my first book with the words no answer. I
know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are
yourself the answer. Before your face questions die
away. What other answer would suffice?” (p. 308)
“You also are Psyche”
Beauty for Ashes
 “…the Lord has anointed me…to grant to those
who mourn in Zion—to give them a beautiful
headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness
instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead
of a faint spirit…”
 “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult
in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments
of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of
righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a
priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride
adorns herself with her jewels.” (Isaiah 61:10)