Till We Have Faces

For my Modern Christian Writers class, we had to write a response to reading Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis, addressing whether or not Lewis intended for his story of Orual and Psyche to mirror particular truths in Christianity, and why the title of the work is appropriate. I read this book a few times before I read it again for class, and I get a new appreciation and love for it each time I read it. This time was especially wonderful because I got to hear it explained more fully and to be in a discussion about its significance. I think one of the most memorable things I came away with was realizing Lewis's talent even more, since he was able to write this story so convincingly from a female perspective. How many male authors can do that?

Lewis does suggest some similarities between Christianity and Orual’s struggle. The process of Orual slowly discovering her spiritual ugliness and realizing that she can have no complaint to bring against the gods is a process very similar to what Christians must come to terms with. Like Orual, Christians all struggle with the question of whether God is a good God. It’s one thing to believe that God exists; it’s another to believe that He is really good. At the end of her book, Orual discovers that the complaints that she brings against the gods for what she has supposed to be her own concern and love for Psyche is actually all about her own selfishness and bitterness that she can’t have control over Psyche and have Psyche’s love all for herself. In reality, Psyche’s “death” involves her being freed by being taken away from Orual. It is merciful of the gods to keep her from being drained by Orual as Bardia was.

When Orual “loses” Psyche to the god of the mountain, she displays the ugliness of her heart in her fierce desire to bring Psyche back to her and in her disregard for Psyche’s ultimate good. The word she uses over and over again in her complaint to the gods is “mine.” When people ask questions of the Christian God and demand that He tell us why he has done something, such as take away a loved one, the most common thing they say is “how could God be a good God and still cause this pain?” What we hardly ever realize is that such a question is more about us than it is about that person that we miss. Though death is awful and Christians can’t escape being hurt by it, when a loved one dies “in the Lord” we know that God is still good, and that that person always belonged to God to begin with, and not to us.. It is significant that Lewis constructed this story of Orual and Psyche to be parallel to some important questions in Christianity, because before writing this book he had lost his own wife and had to work through that grief himself.

The title of the book is very appropriate to the work, and is explained in the last chapter. Most of the book is Orual’s depiction of her life and justification of her actions—her complaint to the gods. But for much of the story she is shrouded in a veil, faceless to her kingdom and friends, hiding the physical ugliness that closely mirrors her spiritual ugliness. She is like Ungit—faceless, thirsty for people that she can suck the lives from in order to feel fulfilled. She steals Bardia from his wife, draining him emotionally, all the while believing that she was loving him, just as she thought she was loving Psyche. Orual is able to get away with many things because she is faceless and does not acknowledge the weight of the things she has done, and it is not until the gods strip her of her clothing and veils that she is exposed in all her ugliness and selfishness. The ugliness that she has hidden behind her veil directly symbolizes the distorted, egocentric intentions with which she has treated all people. Until her “face” is revealed to her, her real self, all that she has are her endless words of bitterness and accusations, not resolution or peace. As the Fox says, Ungit’s false image is “too true an image of the demon within” (295). When Orual’s face becomes known to her, and she knows “as she is known,” then her questions become meaningless and the face of God becomes the answer.

I really want to make it a tradition to read this book again every year. I love books that you can read over and over and still receive such meaning and enjoyment. And I hope that I didn't ruin the plot for anyone patient enough to read this entire post. :)