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C.S. LEWIS: THE CREATURELY nESPONSE

A Thèsis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate

Studie,s and Research ~n partiàl fu1fillment of" --'

the requirements for the degree Clif Iilaster of Arts.

Department -6{ Eng1ish

MeGill University

/ Montreal, Quebee.

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Georgia Ludga te

August, 1978

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ABSTRACT

This thesis undertakes tO,examine the creaturely

response as a significant idea in Lewis's ficti~n. The term'\

',creaturely response' is Lewis's 'Qwn, and denotes an attitude

of submission to' God as the appropriate response of, a creature

to 'his Cregtor. In his imaginary work, Lewis renders the ,

negative concept of self-surrender not only palatable but -

alluring. He. accomplishes thi~ through his choice,of metaphors

which convey the freédom and delight inherent in self-abdication.

Creaturely self-realization 'is portrayed as a graduaI awakening

to reali ty i~ respon~e to God~ as the Divine Wooer. This

involves a death to the illusion 'of self-autonomy and rebirth f

~o the reality o~ true creaturehood. Through the archetype of

.gender, L~wis envisions the crea turely response as feminine

urecept~vity to the absolute Masculine. , , )

In the hierarchy of

loving inequali ty, self-gi ving be cornés a coinherent exchange' . ,

recapturing the joy of acknowledged interdependence. This ,

perfection f~inds expression in the final image of the Great

Dance" in which the harmony of creaturely participation is ,

realized. ."

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RESUME ..

Cette th~se examinera ,1 la réponse créaturale" en tant l,

que concept important dans la fiction de Lewis. L'expression , ,

'réponse créaturale' est propre à Lewis, et indique une .. ,

attitude de soumission ~ Dieu. le comportement 'naturel d'une

èréa t'ure envers' son Créateur. Dans son 0 euvre, imaginaire,

Lewis rend le concept négatif de l'abandon de -;oi non seule'­

ment acceptable mais aussi séduisant. Il arrive à,ce faire , 1

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par son choix de métaphores qui traduisent la li-berté et I.e é

plai~ir inhérents à l'abdication ?e soi. 'Les créatùres L

remplissent leur destinée en s'éveillant graduellement à la

réalité en réponse à l'appel de Dieu le divin Soupirapt. , J

'Ce6i implique une mort à l'illusion de l'autonomie de soi ,et

une renaissance à la réàlité 4e l~ vraie essence d'Une

créature. Par le mojen de l'archétype du genre, L~wis

présente 'la réponse créaturale' comme une réçeptivité

féminine à l'absolu Masculin. Dans la hiérarchie de cette

tendre inégalité, le 'don d~ soi devient i'êchange inhérent

récip~9que qui fait revivre la joie d'une interdépendance , , .

. reconnue. Cette penfection trouve son expression dans l'imagè J

rin~le de la Grande Dance, dans laquelle lJharmonie ae la

participation 'créaturale' est r6alisée.

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Table of Contents

. . Introduction ................................ l

"'. ""' Chapter One

Creatureliness versus Se'lf-autoJtlomy .. ., . 5 ..

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Chapter Two " " JI

The Regress .......... . . ' ............... . Chapter Three

Daath and Rebirth ......................

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56

Chapter Four

• Hierarc~y, Gender and Coinherence ...... 8)

Bi bliography •••••••••••••••••••••••••••..•• 100

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.. ,Introduction

The creaturely respo~se is·a term c6ined'by Lewis in - l \

The Problem of,Pain. It signifies the conscious acknowledge-, .

ment of one's sta~us ~s a,dependént'being ~n relation to God ) < 'L 1

as Creator. In Biblic~l phraseblogy, it cO?1sists of self-

denia~ and submission to God. 2 TJ:le a~socia~ion o~ surrender ..

with servility renders the notion of creatureliness'unsavoury.,

Lewis, in his imaginary work~ transrorms the negative concept, \

into à positive one. He does so by presenting the creaturely "

response as a liberating process. It is essentially an

emancipation from self-enslavement, with glo~iou~~consequences.

Lewis portrays it as an awakening 'that begins withinthe

imagination and extends to the intellect, graduâlly affecting

one's outlook and behaviour. Denying oneself 'in this co~text 1

denotes death to an illusion and rebirth to reality. In

Lewis' s characters i t enables se~f-recogni tton~' and hJightened ~~ ~

sensitivity which in t~rn make possible a greater participation . in and 'enriched enjoyment of aIl of life. Ta restrain on~self

from selfr'surrende~ is thu~ to hind~r an ed).fying transposi t,ion. ~:::: -

One ~emains not !lY spirit~ally, but,aesthetically and

intellectually im oyerished. ,

The {ollow'ng chapters undertake to demonstrate how

Lewis animates his' theology ~~' his fiction. ' The 'study limi ts . , i ts·elf p~imarily to The Pilgrim 1 ~ Regre-q, the scl'Émce fiction

. .. triIo~ and Till W9 Have Faces, bu~ reference is alsQ made to

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The" Gre'a t Divorce and the Chronicles of Narnia where the se' aïd r.>

\ : in clarif'ying a par;ticular ,aspect ,of the creaturely response or

showing -the continui tY of the patt~rn. Lewis has sa'id that, , '

The stary of Christ demands f'rom us, and repays, not-only a religious and historical but also an imaginative response. It is d~rected to the child, the ~oet, and the savage in ~s as weIl ~s to the conscience and the intellect. One of its functions is ,to break down dividing·walls.J

AThe position adopte~ in this thesis is that, in its appeal to

the imagination, Lewis's fiction succeeds in surmo un ting >

dividing walls.

Chapter One begins by establishing the theological

basis in Lewis's apologetics and fiction for understanding

.' II}.8.n' s status as that of a dependent creature and his role -as

one of responsé. It proceeds to introdu99 the'paradox of

'surrender: , that.to relinquish one',s self-autonomy is to

discover new areas of freedom and delight. "" '

Chapter Tw~ traces the development of several reluctant

pilgrims who resist the calI to 'creaturely· self-realization. , / . Lewis portrays this in terms of a divine wooing which works

inwardly, appealing first to the ima~ination and reason and . ,

finally tne will. Indivi4ual ch9ice is the key element in this

proceas because of the respect for man's free will. ,

, The enact~~ of surrender is usually preceded by

intense inner conflict within Lewis's characters. in Chapter ; ., \

Three, submission entails a da~k and deathlike experience ~s

the" natuz:al, inwardly-centred ,~éif' is denied so that the~ new, ! ' l

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God-directed self May come to pirth. This spiritual

re-creation is climactic in the r~gress of the pilgrim ta

true creaturehood.

Chapter Four outlines the hierarchical conception as it

relatés to the crea'turely responée. Difference of degree is \ ' . '"

expressed in}terms of gender, each creat~re recognizing his

spiri tuaI, feminini ty before the absolute Masculine. ka each -

participant assumes his position in the hierarchy, he not only

affirms his selfhood but contributes to the gracefui funct~on­

ing of the body .. Furthermore, as 'each creature ab~icates , , , ~

himself in coinherent exchange with another, each shares in

the interdependence of"the whole.' The interwe~ving patterns . '. /.

of this exchange form in turn the joyous'order and freedom of . ,

,the Great Dance. It is in this vis}onary harmony o~ tne Da?ce

that Lewis's ideal of the creaturely response culminates.

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.;; '. Notes te Introduction _

le . Th b f .S; Le~ls, e Pro lem 0 Fontana, 1957)", ,p. 42. Hereafter

2S~. Matthew xvi.24; James ~.

Pain (1940; rpt.' ci i;ed as Pain.

iv.?, - {

Londpha

Je.s• Lewis. Miraolês (London: Géoffrey B1e~, 1947), p. ' 161. Hereafter ci ted as Mir.-

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Chapter One

Creatureliness versus Self-Autonomy

,

. Ce'ntr~l to iewis' s phil'osophy, and consequently a focai

point ~n both hi~ apologetic and his imaginative wri~ing, is '/ $

the conception of man r S status befor~ a 'Wholly Other 1 self­

existent Being. This conviction formulate~, for ~nstance, ~ .

. Lewis' s main resistance to Anthroposophy, a sect which several - "

of his friends embraced. In his correspondence wi~h one ,friend

on the subject he summarizes: .

l ~bink the real difference between us is on a more general topie which l can' t weIl go into now--I don 1 t think the conception of creatureliness is part of your philosophy at aIl, and your system is anthrop~centric. That's the real 'great divide'. <

In Lewis's description of.man's relationship with God in -

terms o~ creatur~ and Creator, he states that this relation ls

unique and that no other parallel,between one creature a~d /

another can compare' to it. He writes,

J

God.is both further from us, aAd nearer to us, than any' ot4er being. He is fur~her fro~ us~ because the sheer difference between that WhlCh has Its principle of beil1K in--I-tself and that

,to which being is communicat"'el:i, is one compared with which the difference between an archangel

, and a worm is quite insignificant. He makes, ' we are made 1 He is original, we derivative.

• (pain, p. 29) - ..

Thât we -a.re by nature derivative and owe our' very being

to a'Maker separate from us, iB an Augustinian emphasis . .

.adopted ,and re~worked by Lewis. In st. Augustine' s terms',

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the power of the Creator and Ris OJ!ll1i!otent . and all-.swaying st:rength is :for each nd every creature tl1e cause of i ts conti ued ex.rs-t;ence ~ •.• Since we are other t'han He, we 'are not in Him f'or any other reason e cept·, that He caused i t. Il. And by this qisposi tioh, 'in ''flint we live and move and have our being' 0

(Acts xvii~2B).2 ,

o Lewis thus def'ines • creature' as "an essentially , y ,

dependent qeing whose principle of existence lies not in/'

i tsel! but in an?ther" (pain, p. 63). This defini tion does /

not relegate man to the position of mere automaton. On the

contrary, Lewis's discussion of man's creat';lrelinesJ) emphasi~~ -,

the h9nourableness of man' S position, evidenced in his being ,,' t - loved by God and :wooèd into relat~oriship wi th Him. Even

Lewis" s infernal character Screwtape is :forced to acknowledge

this and to. wri the -in his utter incomprehension of' i t, In a , (---_. \

letter to his JOunior Wormwood, Screwtape broods upon this 'Most ) , .

:r;epellent and -inexplicable trait' of the' Enerny',

'Lewis's

purpose

He wants each man, in the long run', to 'he able to recognize aIl creatures (even himself) as glorious and excell-ent things. He wants .... to restore to them a new kind of self-love--a èhari ty' and gratitude f'or aIl selves including their om .... He really loves the hairle ss bipe~s ,He has.created ..... :3

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wi thin a theocen1:ric uni verse, as rei ter ted in

~l' man's

The /

high view of' man is. based on: l'iis ~derstr~ding

Problem of Pain 1 :..;;;...;;;....;;o.;;;...;;.=-_______ ~~ ~"

Man doe's not exist fo'r his 'own sake. "Thou hast crea ted aIl things and l'orJ thy pleasure they are and were crea ted Il (Rev • i v .11). We were made not primar ily tha t we may love God (though we ,were made f'or'that too) 'but that God May love us, that we may 'bécome objects in which the ivine love may'rest "well pleased" . , (Pa'i , p. )6) ,

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In The Four Loves, Lewis descr~bes :the Divine -or primaI

love as a pur.e Gift-love. It is wholly disinterested i~ the

sense that there exists in Gad no h~nger tD~t needs satisfying,

"only plenteousness tha t desi~es' t0 give." 4 God, being ve~ Goodness, "càn give gbQd, but cannat need or get it. In that

sense aIl His love l..s .. as i t were, bot'tomlessly' selfle ss by

very definition; it has everything te g~ve and nothing ta

.receJve". (Pain, p. 38). The nattl.l?al love exhibited by the

cr~ature, on the'other hand, is basically a Need-love. It

rnanifests the inherent dependence and needinéss of the creature

who is loved into\existence by the Creator, and who derives

aIl his goodness and loveability from God. Need-love is the

natural expression on man's part of the Creator-creature

relationship, where God is all-Giver, and man is the.recipient. l"

i It would be a bold and silly creature th~t came before i ts -

Creator wi th the b.oaE1tt "l'm no beggar. l love you disinterest­

edly,'" writes Lewis (Loves, p. 9). The element of need is

always present, even when, man approaches God with a love -./

bordering on Gift-Iovel

Those who come nearest to a,Gift-love ,for God will next ,moment, ev en a·t the very sarne moment, be beating their breasts witk the publican and laying th~ir indigence beiora the o~ly real Giv~r. And

'God will 'have i t so. :tIe addresses our Need-love 1

"Come unto, me aIl ye that' travail and are heavy ... laden", orl in the Old Testament, "Open y-our mouth wide and l will fill it." (Loves, p.9) 5 . \ .

The highest activi ty . of the creature' is tha t of recepti­

vi ty or response. Lewis desc~ibes thr soul as being "bu-t a·

.ho!1-ow' which God fills" (Pain; p.1J9). The cre~turely r_~~p()n~e ./

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is the act of willingly abandoning one self to God and receiving

back one's unique and satisfied self. For each individual i8'

loved not only infinitely by the Creator but differently (Pain, l', ., ') -

p.1J8). This is the paradox j' the emptied sou! in union wi th , --r,.,..

"God forms a distinctive specie.gr~' an indi vidual. "Human will,"

Lewis maintains, "become8 truly creative and truly our own when

i t i8 Wholly God' 8, ahd tl).is is one of the many s'enses in which 1

he that ~oses, his soul shall find it." (Pain, p.90) ,1

, In The Problem of pain, Lewis draws a hypothetical picture

of the paradis8:1 condition in ord~r to ;'depict the creàturely

~ response' as it was me~nt to be, an affkrrning ~nd "joyOUS

experi~nce. Lewis suggests that parad1îsal man exercised com­

plete control oyer aIl his functio,ns--:including organic pro-J

cesses such as digestion and circulatron--because he was 'all­

conscious'. His will, not nature, governed his appetites as ,

weIl as his activi ties. He 'also ruled the lower animaIs wi th

discretion. Man was fijlly conscious of himself as an entity , ,

distinct from his Creator. Be.cause his will wa,s wholly disposed ,"

towards God apd could repose there, man delighted to enact

complete self-abdication in o~edience and love for hïs Creat'or.

'''The- self-surrender which he practised before the Fail m!?ànt . 'f .

no struggle but'only the delicious overcomin& of an infinitesi- ~

mal self-adherence which delighted to be ove'rcome • .;

Il (Pain --' , "

p. 69) • The ecstasy of Paradise was fo'und in surrender.

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In Lewis's fiction, the closest equivalent to such ~

delineation of idyllic creat~reline~s is life on Perelandra.

The very lands cape of this world invites surrender. The in­

habitants live in the ,~ves and upon the undulating surfaces

that are b~ing perpetually re-shaped bY,the heaving wa'er.

Their life is one of continua} venture, plunging into whatever )

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wave rolls towards them. The greater and swifter the billow,

so that "something inside you bids, you to stay on the land",6 ,

the more exciting,and rapturous the swimming. Ransom de scribes 1

his initial experience of riding the Perelanqrian waters as

being "almost like meeting Pleasure itself for the first time.

. . . There was an exuberance or prodigality of sweetness

about the mere act of living which our racè finds it difficult

not to associate w,i th forbiùd8'l) and ex ~ravagan L ac tions" (Pel',

pp.JO-J2) .'

Ransom's second introduction to this Paraùisal e~stence

i~ his meeting with Tinidril, or'the Gr~en Lady. As queen-and

mother of this world, Tinidrii fuIes over and ins~ructs the , (

beastsi she ~oves them and treats them with courteous author-,

ity and affection, and they recognize and obey her as_theÎr

sovereign.' Tinidril's actions are spontaneous but willed;

Ransom ha s' the impres~ion that she daes not sa much fall asleep

as she 'performs', sleep. Ope feature that particular1y Îptrigues

Ransom is Tinidril' s face, which, despi te i -es humanness', reflects , '

an unearthly' serenity. Ra.nsom cQncludes that thi~ exceptional

quality is due to ,"the complete absenoe ,of that.element of re-

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sigriation which mixes, in however slight a degree, with aIl

profound stillness in terrestrial faces" (p.49). Tinidril ,

exercises total obedience toward her Creator Maleldïl, and '~

delights in this submission: "1 am His beast, arid aIl His

biddings are joys" (p. 67) • In her conversation wi th Ransom,

however, TinidriI becomes more acutely aware of herself as a

self separate from Maleldil with a will free to choose to obey: / i

"1 thought," she said, "that l was carried in the will of Him l lové, but now l see that l walk in it. l thought that the good things He sent drew me into them as the waves lift the islandsi but now l see that it is l who plunge into them with my own legs and. arms 1 as when We' go swimming. . • • It is 'delight with terror in it! One's own self to be walking ;t'rom one good to anûther, walki:ng beside Hlm as Hllll­self may walk, not even holding hands. How has He made me so separate from Himself? • • • l thought we went along-paths--but it seems t~re no paths. The going itself is the pE!.th." (p.62) ~

With this heig~tened consciousness Tinidril (and the King

Tor ,as weIl, we learn later) is brought to the ultimate choice

of continuing in subservience to Maleldil or attempting self­

direction, becoming "really separate from Him" as the tempter

Weston suggests (p.l06). Lewis explains in The Problem of Pain

.that the act of self-will "is a sin ~ossible even to Paradisal

man, because the mere existence of a self--the"mere fact that

we calI it 'me'--includes, from the first, the danger of self­

idolatry" (pp. 6)-69). In conversation wi th 'Tinidril, Wes"ton

endeavours to maximize her self-interest. He 'attempts to foster

aveiled egoism in her by-~ontinualiy reminding her of 'the 'high

destiny' for which Maleldi+ has created her, one of leading the

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King and her Yyt unborn childre~to a freedom 'heretofore

untasted. He'labours to convince ~er that creaturely'self-1

realization is not enough, that it""is merely an initial 'branch-, " '

ing out'. To bedorne 'really old' requires autonornous self­

realization, which ~ creature can acquire only by daring to

Jlbecome fully itself, to stand up in its o\\ln reason and its ' . own courage even against Him''' (p.l06). 'A real disobeying' of

Maleldil is essential to 'a real brançhing out' _, Weston insists.

While Tinidril is ~gnorant of Weston's mali~ious intentions, she

is able to detect to a lim~ted extent the falseness of pis prop­

ositions~ She intuits the illusion inherent in ~eeking'suffïc-

ienc:y- in self rather than in Maleldil. "To walk out of His will

is to walk ,into nowhere," she refleèts. (p.l06). And later she

perceives more deeply: "We cannot walk out of Maleldil's will: ,.

, but He has given us a way to walk out of QEf. will" (p.,10?;

original italics). This represents, from a Paradisal point of

view, Lewis' s impression that JI tho1se Di viJ1.e demand's which sound

to our natural ears most like ~hose qf a despot and least like

those of a lover, in fact marshall us where we sho,uld want to

go if we knew what we wanted'~ (Pain, p.4l). In renouncing her ,

creaturely' rôlè 1 Tinidril would in fac,t, be deny1ng hers~l:t: her , (

keenest ~leasure. , . • 1

The apparent~passibility of self-government in Perelaridra

lies in living on the Fixed Land against_Maleldil's'bidding~

In ,Stark contra st t9 the ·floating islands',.. the Fi~~~ Land is •

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, ,~n.immense, stable mass, its mountains rooted sOlidly in the

core of the planet. Bere is the' obvious available al ~ernative

• ta an unpredictable existence upon the perpetually moving

islands. For one'wishing to establish an independent lifestyle,

it offers a tempting securi ty, ci potential 'settled happine'ss'.

To remain on the Fixed Lanf would essentiall~ ,constitute a

:r;ejection of the wave,s, the momen1;;s as Maleldil sends them. As

'the enlightened Tinidril ,expresses it in retrospect, ta have - , - . relinquished the waves for the Fixed Land would have been '

to draw~rrry hands'out of Maleldil'E?, ta sày ta Him, 'Not thus, but thus'--to put in o~r own power what times should roll toward us ••. as if'you gathered fruits together today for t9morrow's eatin~ iDstean of taking what came. That would have been cold love and feeble 'trust. (p.19J)

Each of Tinidril's rejections of Weston's prompting is

victory for Pere landra , the averting of great disaster.

Ransam senses,at such moments the very atmp~phere rlnging with 1 J

victory, as if "festal, revelry and dance and splendour'~ are

being poured into him (pp.96-97). Separate from Tinidril, Tor

i~ made aware of'thé spiritual battle transp'iring. He too is

faced with the choice to fall into corruptiop, or ta repudiate

" evil andlbe taken into perfection. Again, total aband'onment ls

th'~' requis,-~ te: "He (Maleldil) gave me no' assurance. No fixed

l:;md .. ; Elways one must throw oneself into. the wave" (p.19.5).

'" The story of Perelandra ia one of a Paradise retained.

To.r cJ.1ngs t,~ ,the good, and ~inidri~ resists ~eston' s al~ure- .

ments, foiling and frustrating him repeatedly in he~ innàcence.

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lvlaleldil in turn 'supervemis by providing, Ransom t'o end the' . ' ,

tl"'ial. The vanquishing of evil on Perelandra effec:ts consid~r­

able, change. The paTadisal conGli tian is not so muéh retained ;- 1

a~ metamorphosed. Eden i tself / cornes in"to ma turi ty, a fùllness

of perfection. Lewis pours in~o this apocalypse his'vision of

th~ glorious and arduous destiny for which he believed God

designed man. AlI that Tor and Tinidril have abandoned to

Maleldil is glorified and given baèk to them. Their v~ry

selves, offered in creaturely response'to their Creator as

"mere adjectives" (Pain, p.68) are transfigure ct into radiant, ---- ., . live and holy image s , divine lik(ene sse s of Beauty i tself, yet

distinct. AlI of'Perelandra, floating lands and firm, are

given them ta rule with thei~ discretion. Even the Oyarsa are

now subject to them. Naiveté gives w~y to knowledge, including

a knowledge of evil. a pure understanding that awakens not '

through having succumbed to evil but by having transcended it. . ,

-The ,attainment of rewar:d in this final ceremonious 'scene .

~n PerelaBdra provides an extravagant ye~ fitting conclusion~ -

It is the subsequ~nt unexpected yet glorious, consuming wave , . '

tha~ Tor and Tinidril have freely chosen. In a)paper in which .

he contests .,the insin,uation that the rewarding of virtue ~n 1 .

heaven is a m~rcenary affair, L~wis says l "The proper rewards/ ~ .. -- .... tt .. ~

are not simply tacked on to the activity for.which theyare 1 •

gi ven, but are the activi ty i t~elf in cohsummation : .. 7 Similarly,

the loss o'f the paradis~'l condition occasioned bY th~ Fall in

man' s case ban, be s'éen as another such instance of .proper

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reward. Here the co.nsequences,: s~Ch as. sUffering and deat!l,'

are not 'so much punishment inflicted by God as the natdral "

consumm~tion of man's action. In this case the'tr~nsposition

is' d9wriward to a lower level of existence in which man is

subject to nature ,in mattews where he had once fully exercised

his ~ill. ,Lewis explains this as a deveIdpment of Hooker's

conception of Law: . ,

To disobey your proper ,law (i. e. the: law God makes for a being such as you) ,means to find yourself obeying one of God's lower laws: e.g., fr, when walking on a slippery pavement, you neglect the Iaw of Prudence, you suddenly ·find yourself obey­ing the Iaw of gravitation. (Pain,. p. 70 j origina"l ' italics)

The Perelandrian epic, as ,a celebration 'of the Paradisal

condition, 'mirrors the future Paradise redeemed man. can anti-, '

cipate, but ~t also serves a~ a stringent index of man's

present situation as lia creature ill-adapted "ta the universel! , . .

(Pain, p.5i). While Ransom is awed by the harmony and beauty

wh~ch constantly confront him throughout his ventures on

Malacandra and Perelan~ra, he is just as.often painfully

reminded of the contrasting evil, ignorance an~ mediocFit.Y.. of

his own world. On Malacandra he 'finds himse,lf' in a humil-iating

posi tion attempting to ansWer the, ~ro,ssa' s questions about , ,

, . earth. How can he âccount fOr man' s preoccup'ation wi th such '" .

things ~s war,' indus~rialîsm and exploitation,before a race of

crea,tures totally ,unfamiliar' wi th greed,' hatr~d or jealousy? .- • 1 1

A sensation akin to, thàt of physica:l nakedness cornes over , . . . RansQm whenever he·is questioned too closely about men. Later,

.. l _

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in 'the c0Il!pany of Augray" . the opportuni ty to view E~rth through \ .

the sorn's telesçope f~rnishes the bleakest moment of Ransom's

journey. nI). Per,elandra, while exul ting in the sheer puri ty of ,

t the planet and its creatures, Ransom is again forced to recog­

nize the loss suffered by his own raçe. Prostrated before-the

transfigured King and Queen he finds himself utte~ing-in a, ,

broken voice: .

Il l have never before seen a man or a woman.. -1

have lived aIl my life ~mong shadows ,and broken images" (p.190).

In the sp~c~ tr,ilogy we discover wi th Ransom that at..- the

he~rt of the universe exists a goodness and justice that is

·tr~gically laeking ~n the human heart. It i8 not outer space

tbat'is peopled with,bogeys, but earth. Men'are the 'bent

hnau' --,rebels and e~iles. Lewis a ttributes man 1 s defeetiveness

,to the re j eetior. of his erea tureiy s'ta tus. -He wri tes in The

Problem 'of Pain: "This act of self-will on tlie> par,t of the "

creature, which eonsti tutes an utter falseness to i ts 'true

'creature~ position, is the only sin that can be eoneeivea as­

the Fall" (p.68)." In h~s understanding of the Fall, Lewis once -,

again follows Augustine clos~iy. The doctrine is oùtlined in

A Preface to Paradise Lost where Lew~ ~ompares Milton's version ./ .... Ii

of the Fall story to that of Augustine, "whlch is that of the ' 8 Chu;r'ch as a whole." The sole function of this doctrine, says

Lewis, is' ta as sert that "God created aIl things without except~ ~ ,~

tian good" '(Preface, p.66), an~ -that man is a spoiled species ..

,_". __ ,~~n~t ~.c~use God Ul..aâè. him .. sQ. .bjl.::Lhe~ause he has' made himself sa

'Dy the abuse of his free will", (Pain, p.57). Evil is not

. ,

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-'

~ : . .

original, but only good perverted (De Cive Dei, 'XIV, Il).

Lewis stresses this to guard against Dualis~, which asserts

that two equal and independent powers, one benevolent and the

other wicked, existing from aIl eternity, are the cause of good

and evil in the universe, Only GO? is self-existent, argues

Lewis. Evil,is a parasite, and the belief that Satan is a

fallén angel is a recognition of this facto

, While the Fall consisted of d~sobedi~rtce, it was generated

by pride . (Dé Civ. Dei, XIV, 1J). pride is regarded as the

'narcissistic movément whereby lia conscious creature becomes >

more interested in i tself than in .God (ibid,. XIV ,'ll), and ""!Il:.

wishes'to exist 'on its own: (esse in sernet ipso, XIV, 1J)",

(Preface, p.66). This is a proc~ss,of self-deification in that

the self attempts to usurp the rt91e of its Sustainer and to claim

itself inste~d as the centre of its existence. In this way"man

as cre~ture abdicates his true position and asserts a false ", J •

self-sufficiencY. Setting himself up as his'god',. he no

longer desires to enact obedience and surrender towards his

,Creator. His soul now gravitates aw~y from God ta self.

Through pride, he has fostered in himself an' emotional aversion ..

ta dependency.

Lewis " like ~u:gus~ine, considers man' s of!iginal act of

disobedience heinous simply because obedience was 80 easy.

There was' really no 'te~ptation' to disob~y. AlI the pleasure .. ,

clayon the other side, in the,' act of ,surrender:,.' . The only

occasion for sin'was "the bare fact that the self was himself"

, 1

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(Pain, p:69).· As the existence 'of a separate'self ma~e

possible the voluntary act of surrender, so it s~pplied the one f

point of resistance. It was thus in the véry na~e of freedom , ~.. .

that man denied his own freedom and thereby contradlcted himself. t " ,

In theological terms, he determined to know good as evil. v

• Not aIl evil is tp be traced to man, says Lewis. The

"

archetypal example of pride and fallenoess is Satan, the' arch- t:­

angel turned rebel who absalutèiy disavows his creatureline,ss. , '

In the trilogy, i t ls the Dark po'wer'l the Bent Eldil who revol ted

agalnst Maleldil, who is baund'to th~ silent1planet Earth and

is responsible for its corruption and alienation. Lewis des­

cribes Satan as' the "per~onified self-contradiction", Dr simply,

the "Lie" (Preface, p. 97) . In hi.s prid!=l, Il the complete anti­

God' state of min~", 9 he perp~tuates his own illusion of being

self-created and autonomo·us. Satan "has wished ta 'be himself'

and to be in himself and for himself, and his wish has been .

granted" (Preface, p.l02). He has become supremely self-

ensnared in his ntonomaniacal concetn for himself" Our Father -

worships nothing but himself, says Screwtape, of whom we can,

say he shates his Father's affliction. Indeed, from Screwtape's

correspondence, we suspect that self-aggrandizement is the . , ~

serious business of Hell. 10 The Devil and hJs Lowerar;chy are " 1 at great ~ains to pres'erve, their digni ty, and cannot bea~.)okes

... '........ u • .,

at theiz own expense. The great contradiction lies in their, '

clai~ing total $elf-satisfaction, yet on the other hand'demonsi-,

, rating this greed and gnawing need. Their prestigious selves', '

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la-

whil laiming proua indepentlence, are de~peratefy parasitie;

ownerslip is ,tantamount in Hell. Human wilis are to be absorbed

to in late the Devil's selfhood, and évery soul 'lost' to the

Elfemy se'hds a howl' of sharpening famine re-eehoing through the

in~ernal abysse As Wormwood learns from his 'increasingly,and

:r:avenously aff,ectionate ~cle': "We want eattle .who can finally ,

become food. ~ • We w t to suek in. . . . We are empty and

would be filled. r war aim is a world in which Our Father

Below has dra~ aIl otl)e beings into ,hims~lf" (Screwtape, p.11.5).

So Screwtape, exhibitinglthe Sa~anic subtlety/hand in,hand wi~h '

the uricomprehe~dingness of Hell, hastens his impending e~ter~i:r,.a-1

tion. 1

Throughout.Lewis's fiction we eneountèr in various forms

this dragonish craving, to suffiee ~he self. In the evil powets,

it proclaims itself through unabashed devouringness .. Tash con-.

,sumes his lawful:' prey, the Saracen' s Head demands 'another', and

Ungit will have her blood sacrificés. In the human and semi­

human charaeters, the narcissus-like want manifests itself not fi , • ,

only through expIai tation and the strugg~~or powe.r, as exercise~_;;;»

by Jàdis and the White Witch in Narnia and the N.I.C.E. coor~in-••

ators in Belbury, but in the cloaked·but eq~ally tyrannic form

of possessiveness. This is the kind of maternaI love by'which

Orual claims that Psyche is he~s and by which a domineering " , --mother in a forceful scene in The Gre~t Divorce insists that

her son Mi~hael be given back into hèr charge. Instinctual . .

loye, in both of these has become fluncontrolled and fierc8',

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f, , and monomaniac [al] ." 11 "Mil1é. mine, mine ~or 'ever and ever •.••

Michaél i6 mine'," (p.86). clamours pam in The Great Divorce, .. m~nifesting the- dE?sperate,' unacknowledged nee"d which is re'-

v \' ,""

echoed in Orual's tehemeht demand.in Till W~ Have- Faces:

"P h : /. Sh '. M' 12 h' . syc e was mIne. . •. e was mlne.~. T lS .~~ the r ' 1

~atural af!~ctiori r~fusing to be converted, that is, dlrected , "

to its proper Source. It is the kind of enveloping love that i~, "-

in the-Fox' s terms, Il one part love, fi ve parts anger, apd seven

parts pride't (p.148).

Orual is one of Lew~s's mQst brilliantly-drawn human \,

figures i~ that she 'displays normal and natural impulses with

which- the reader can empathize, and yet which he ~an detec~ as

warped and abnormal on the spiritual levelw Whereas the tena­

cious moth~r in The Gre~t Divorce ~xerts a selfis~ heartless, .. love'and impresses the reader as being an ufireasonable and tota~-'

ly distasteful character, Orual's obsession is much~more covert. '" ,

She is a de cent ruler by mast standa~ds, intelligent, brave and' ", ' . '

benevolentw Early in the novel she huries her excessive craving

for her lo-st Psyche effecti vely enough to, bel,ieve, almost 'to .

the v.ery end when she stands beiore the gods, that she has loved

, Psyche genuinely. Th:j.~. concealment is' effected by means of a

It ~s thus th~

~ veiling Which is both physical and spiritual.

Orua:). avoids the reali ty of her ug1y face, and h,er ugly se1f __ _ 1

She :willfully assumes her Mafa--illusive--~xistence.1J Ironicall~, the veiling inhibits not only Oxual's insight into herself, but

"-, 1

a1so her perception of other peopJ,e' and of thel goda .. She is

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unabie to apprehend.. any motive of 'love in the gods. "You also

• shàll be Psyche" (p. 174) is perceived only as a threat to her,

not as a promise. She feels accused and eut off from the gods.

As her physical veil 'and her silence terrify.brave ambassadors

in her Pillar Room and 1}1ake "the most seasoned liars "turn red

and blurt out the truth" ,(p. 229), S9 the gods are :forced "to

resort toothe weapon of silence to bring Orual to self-recogni-1,' 1

tion and uxtimate 'libe.ration. 1

~

Meanwhile, Orual's inner, denied and rankiing need-love

feeds disgùisedly on Batdia. ) Pr~fi ting ~rom his. devotion, Orual

works him day and night, keeping him beside her, drinklng up hi~· .

blood year by year, eating,out'his ~ife (p.264). Even Bardia'S

,wife Ansi t, who truly Iove,s him, would not so interfere in his " . life, "make him so mine that he was no longer his'" (p.264), qS

" she states so effectually, Painfully, Orual realizes the

inescapable truth that she has been gorging herself with people's

-lives. She recognizes her love for Bardia as a sickening thing.

"lt stankj a gnawing greed for one to whom l could give nothing,

of whom 1 eraved aIl" (p. 276). Her atti tilde to the Fox ha& been

little different. _ "1 was that Batta-thing, that all-devouring

womblike, yet barren thing. Glome was· a web--I the swoll,en spi-\

der, squat at,its center, gorged with men's s~oien lives" (p',476).

With this awareness the craving for Bardia ends, but Orual finds· "" <>" - -1

"

that '''nearly aIl that l èalled mys~lf went wi th i t.-' lt was as e -' .

if my whole soul had been one tooth and now that tooth was-drawn. !

l was a gap" (p.267).

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EVen at this point Orual denies any sueh engulfing ten­

aci ty on her part in relation to Psyche. "Howevér l might have

devoured Bardia, l had at least loved Psyche, truly,'( she says

(p.285). She makes much of this, trying to reassure herself, ~/ ,

finding it'necéssary to comfort herself to the point of gorging \

herse If with comfort. B~t she increasingly despairs of eeasing ~',

to be Ungit and she fee-ls a deadness within her. "Though it

was spring wi thout, in me a winter which, r thought, must be

everlasting, locked up aIl my poV/ers" (p.284).

The inne~ vacuum, like the craving, i8, in Lewis's fiction,

a product of self-centredness. The two are elosely re~ated.

Lengthy spiritual starvation breeds àpathy and despair. Lewis

suggests that the egoist ul timately turns "everything he meets

into a province or appendage of the self. The taste for the

other, that is, the very capaeity for enjoy.ing good, is quenehed

in him . " (Pain, p.11L; original italics). Hell is the

state of being utterly enclosea within the vacuum of the self.

"The whole difficul ty of understanding Hell is that the thing

to be understood îs so nearly nothing," says Ge~rge MacDonald

in The Great Divorce (p.68). Satan, who has ultimately' negated

everything outslde hi~self, is described by Lewis as carrying

wi thin himself "a Hell of infinJ.,te bore dom" ,(Preface, p.1 02) .

. In Till We Have Faces, Orua'l gradua.,lly becomes. thE! victim of

.boredom and desp-air. Whi1e exercising skillful a~d-progressive

'le~dership in Glome she is plagued with the monotony and meaning-t. ~ ". ~ 1

..: ' IJ

lessness of hér existence l "1 did and l did and l did--and what

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d-Oes i t matter what l did? . . . who cares?" (p. 236) • To be

away from the bustle ;Of her qu~enship is to be alone wi th

herself--tlthat is, with a nothingness" (p.236). Her career.

at the he..tght, of eff'iciency and securi ty--Glome rules i tself

and is at peace wi th everyone--is to her merely a "senseless

repeti tion of days and nights and seasons and years" (p".2]6).

Unlike Tinidril or Psyche, Orual has established a life

of' routiBe and securi ty in which the exp'ectancy' of' upheaval is

minimal. She has éarefully scoured her life of all unforeseen ,

delight. Ea:rly in the novel, when she journeys to the mountain

in search of Psyche's remains, the gods invite her to let go of'

Psyche, even her own 'psyche' (soul), -and th us to step out into

the joy of surrender, but she struggles effectually agai~st

submi tting to any such 'fool-happy mo6d' (p. 96) • "1 ruled

myself, Il she says. "Did they think l was .not~ing but a pipe to

be played on as their moment's f'ant:y cho~~?" (p.97). We are -told that the gods cease trying to gladden _her as she continues'

her determined search for evidence of' Psyche's death. "The

emptiness of rny life was to begin at o11ce," she recalls (p.99). ~ .

. ~ ~ The letting go, the surrender, the acceptance of the wave,

. ./

18 a necessary prerequislJe to t~e fulf'illme~t and delight

inherent wi thin the creaturely response.: It involves the re-' , \

linquishing of.pride, and 'the mistrust that prlde begets. In

contrast to, Orual, ,Psyche .embraces' ber fate. "1 'm not nïy own," , < . ,

she wilelingly recogilÏzes (p.128). Wl1ere 'Orual 'chooses to see _ ' 1) . ,

cruelty and coldness, Psyche experiences, warm~h and love. On

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\ the eve of her sacrifice sne exclaims: "1 am going to my lover"

(p. 76) . The years spent wi th Psyche were years, Orual recalls ~

later, that "doubtless, went round then as now, but in my

memory i t seems to have been aIl s.prings and summers" (p. 22).

There was a 'joie de vivre' that is'no longer a par~ of Orual's

life. Whereas the gods' invitation to nierriment is mockery to

Orual, i t is an occasion of ecstasy to the open and expectant

Psy~he. Orual mus~ needs be busy, serious, careful. On the

mountain she implores Psyche to co-operate ,to plan her escape:

• • • we mustn' t let the joy of the moment put i t out of our minds--what are we to do now?

Do? Why, be m~rry, wha:t else? Why should our hearts not dance? (pp.lo4-105).

While Psyche is an instance of, the "anima naturali ter

Christiana,,14 who responds r~adily ta the Divine love, Lewis , 1

underst~nds the majority 6f humankind to tend, like Orual,

towards insistent self-direction. It is generally the Oruals

on whom Lewis focuses in his work, the pilgrims who so often . '

mùst tread their way through anguished searchlng to recognize

the illusion of their self-sufficiency.

Perhaps Orual's closest counterpart in Lewis's writings is

the character of Vertue in The Pilgrim's Regress, wri'tten twenty-, ~. \

three years before Till We":Have Faces. Vertue strives in earnest

to be a self-made man. The very strength of his determination

forces him into a rigidly-structured pattern of living, and as

sueh he symbolizes the consciene~ ~f John. Vertue's primary J

eoncern is_to make his'own rules and te abide by them, making

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sure he is not 'under anyone's t~umb', especially that of the

Landlord. At one point John questions Vertue's .self-imposed

regulation of walking thirty miles per day, only to detect

Vertue's underlying lack of purpose. His walking is not simply

exercise, Vertue insists: Il l am on a pilgrimage. l must admit,

now that you press me, . l have notl

a very cl~ar idea of the end. ,,15

Lewis supplies a heading here to the effect tha t "the Moral

Imperative does not fully understand itself" (p.4o).

In a subsequent chapter enti tled "The Self -Sufficiency of

Vertve", John and Vertue wish to cross the perilous Grand Canyon

(Peccatum Adae) which blocks their path. Vertue is tempted to

accept Mother Kirk' s offer of assistance until she says, "You

must do exactly as l tell you" (p. 81). This is eno'ugh to

change Vertue's m~ndi he cannot tolerate another's authority:

"1 cannot put myself under anyone' s orders. l must be the

capta in of my soul and the master of my fate" (p. 81) .

Vertue's encounter with worldliness in the form of Mr.

Sensibl~ does little to influence his self-determination. Mr.

Sen~ible's aim is ultimate and independent contentment. One is

to moderate'one's passjons in order not to open oneself to

vulnerabilitYi one is never to love someone enough to be impov- -

erished by their leaving. Ironically enough, Mr. Sensible is

himself a complete parasite, depending on his neighbours for _

almost aIl of his food. The only things he can produce fr9m his

garden of sand and rock (are radishes. When hiâ se~vant Drudge

deserts him, he is totally incapable of looking after himself "

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25

and purposes to live. in a ,hotel "until l have fitted this place

up with mechanical devices as will henceforth render me wholly

independ~n t" (p. 9)) , \

1

œ

After much self-i~pbsed hardship with little 'fruit,

uncertainty followed by futility descends upon Vertue. He sees

no purP9se .vlhatsoever in In his effort to be a free

man, to live solely acc~rd 'ng to his' own will or power' of choic~,_

he refuses-to be influence by anything outside of him. AlI

desires are to him merely ribes, aIl fears are threats "to

corrupt my will and kill

Vertue is over'come by utte

(p.l1)). In this state,

"Vertue," said Jo n, "give in. For onclil yield to desire. Have don with your ch~osing. Want something." ,

"1 cannot," said' choose because l and in the whole rising from this

\

"1 must choose because .1 and it goeson for ever~

cannot find a reason for (p.llJ; original italics)

This is one of Lewis f s Most po~gnant portrayals of the ,

\ 'emptines!3 and ul tima:tè despa r to which unyielding ,self-autonomy

can lead. 1t also reveals t e conviction and ~assion in which

Lewis w~ites, not as a moral'st, but as a feeling and believing

individual. "What really mat erEl," he says, "is no.t to obey v

morai rules but to be a .creat re of a certain kind. ,,16 Lewis's '--

vision of perfection 'for ,man

to assume the. high ra)1k cif pe

rise to·a new life--to unveil, .. before God (Malcolm, pp.22-2J).

The creaturely response-is an ideal, but reali~able 'in little' jJ

in the choices we now make~ e Iearning' pr~cess, Lewis, ackno\'l-

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- . ledges, is painful, simply because our faIlen hatures are now

set against creatureliness. We would "kilL or die rather -than • Il

give in," he says in The Problem of Paln; • • • to surrender a

self-will inflamed' and swollen with years of usurpation i8 a

kind of dea th" (p. 79). We are' not simply imper-fect 'Creatures

Who need improvement, but "rebels who ~ust lay do"m 9ur arms"

(p.79). Humiliation canpot be ~oided. But Lewis believes it, ~ ,

is weIl worth it, in fact that "the sufferings of this present

time are not worthy to be compared with the glDr,y that shall be

revealed in us.,,17 It i8 this attitude, formed after his own

conversion, which helped Lewis to discern a lûving putposiveness ,

in God which involves a,glorious freedom for His creatures. ,

Lewis is constantly pelebrating this joy, and the theme seeps

into aIl of his wri ting. "The words 'compelle intrare'" compel

them to come in, Il he wri tes in Surprised by Joy, "have been so

abused by wickéd men that we shudder,at them; but, properly

understood, they plumb the depth of tne Divine mercy. The hard­

ness of God is kinder than the softness of, 'men, and His compulsion'

is our libpration.,,18

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Notes to Chapter One

lFrom a letter by C.S. Lewis to Mrs. A.C. H~rwood quoted by A.e. Harwood, "C.S. Lewis and Anthroposophy,'~ New York C.S. LeWis Society Bulletin, 5 (Feb .• 1974), 4; original italics.

2De Gen. ad litt. IV, xxii, 22, '2J, quoted by Erich. , Przywara, S.J., ed., An Augustine Synthesis (London: Sheed & /Ward, 1936), pp. 17-118. .

"

Jc•S• 'Lewi , The Screwtape ~etters (1942; rpt. London: Fontana, 1955), Hereafter ci ted as ScreYitape. '1

4' C.S. Lewis, The Four Loyes (1960;' rpt.Londonl Fontana, 196J), p~116. He eafter cited as/Loves.

5This sen"se. of, dependence J together wi th the awar~ness of the numinous, is ssociated with the "creature-feeling ll or "creature-conscio sness" by Eudolf Otto. He describes this as "the emotiol'l of a creature, abased and overwhelmed by i ts own nothingness in con rast ta that whi~h is supreme above aIl creatures." Rudol otto, The Idea of the Holy, trans.' J .W •.

. Harvey, 2nd ed. (L ndon: Oxford Univ ersi ty Press, 1950)', p.l0.

6C• S. Lewis, ~an Books, 195J},

to Vehus Perelandra) (194J; London: Hereafter cited as Pero

,:,"7 C. S. Lewis, "The We ight of Glory," Transposition and Other Addresses (L ndon:' Geoffrey Ble s, 1949), p. 22.

8 " CoS, Lewis, University Press, 1

Paradise Lost (London: Oxford Hereafter cited as Preface.

9C• So L~wis, ere Christiani (1952; rpt. London: Fontana, 1955), p.l06. Herea ter ci,ted as ~.

lOIn contrast, 'Joy is the serious busi~ess of' Heaven." C. S 0 --'Lewi s, Pra er l' Letters to Malcolm (Glasgow 1 Fontana

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1;3ooks, 1964), p.95. ) Hereaf'ter cited as Malcolm. l,

,'--.. • 11C•S• Lewi,s, T e Great Divorce (1946; rpt,.; 'London 1

Fontana, 1972), p.8 • Hereafter clted as Divorce. '" • '--=',

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12e •s . Lewis, Till We H~ve.Faces 1956), pp. 29~-292i o~iginal italics.

(Grand Rapids 1 Eerdmans, Hereafter cited as Faces.

IJMaya , as a promi~~nt term in-Hindu philosophy, means 'il1usi n" or 'appearance'. John Allan, "Maya,'.' Enc;yclàpedia of Reli ion and Ethics (Edinburghl T. & T. C1ar~, 1915). ~-

\,.

l~ .H.:Lewis, ed., Letters of G,.S. Lewis (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1966), pp.273-274. _Hereafter cited as Letters •

• S. Léwis, 'The Pilgrim's Regress, rev. ed. (London: le~t 194), p. 40. Hereafter cited as Regre~s.

16~ S. Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth eentury, Excluding'Drama, The Oxford History df English Literature. Vol. ) (Oxford: Ularendon Press, 1954), p. 187. . -

/7pain , p. 1)2. Lewis is here quoting st. 'Paul from Rom. vi1.:).8.

~" ~

18e . S. Lewis. Surprised by Joy , (London: Fontana Books, 1955), p. 18). Heréafter cited as SBJ. .•

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/

Chapter Two

The Regress

---The-regress to creaturehood, made explicit through the

allegory ,in The Pilgrim 1 s Regress J, is implici t in Lewis 1 s J, !, ,

later fiction! What constitutes the regress is,a re-learning , , '

of response to d~vine initiative. This involves the paintul

reversal of the i~ward spirallingmovement of the self and the \ '

retracing of man'~ long journey from Paradise. It cannot be

over-emphasized thrt for Lewis suc~ a pilgrimag~ is not a

seeking or quest i~itiated by ma~, but the ~esponse to 'a

summons coming from outside of himself'" In The Problem of pai,n

man's se arch for Gbd is described as a mod~ or appearance

(Erscheinung) of God's search for ma~~l T~is is reiterated

more simply in The Silver Chair when Aslan tells Jill, "You

would not have call~'d to me unless l had 'been ,calling to you. ,,2'

Whether in the form of the Landlord, Aslan, Maleldil or 'the

gods', God is con~istently portrayed by Lewis as the Divine

Wooer, and man a~ the vooed. 'To examine the regréss is'to Il

examine the wooing process, which can evolve', in às, much as

man responds, into a unique relationship between Creator and ~ J

creature. ·f

How is man woo~d from self? The pattern that emerges

in The Pilgrim's Regress suggests two primary ch~hnels ~~ ,

Which God '( the Landlord) communicates himself to man

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(his free tenants). One ~hannel' i8 man's imagination, which , .. can be roused to Sweet Desire by 'pictures' sent by the

Landlord. The other i8 man's reason, which perceives matters

of fact including primary moral principles or Rules:, T,he

Enemy is always at work distorting both the pictures and the

Rul~s. As a ~esult, the tenant receiv~s very blurred messages.

Often the pictures and the Rules appear to pim as ends in

t~~selyes rather than as a means to something or Someone else.

Seeming contradictions between the Rules and the pictures

, reinTorce this, as weIl as the rumour, spread by the Enemy, of J ' ,

"-the Landlord'~ suppose~ cruelty. Thus, while imagination and

reason can funbtion as positive receptors in the pilgrim's

regre8s t misconceptions and fear. emerge as major hindrances.

In the allegory John responcts primarily through the

imagination while V~rtue, John's ~oral self, is concerned

with rules. John is awakened to Sweet Desire by. a picture of

an Island sent him by the Landlord. It is the most beautiful

picture he '.has ever seen and '~is accompanied by sweet music

and a voiee saying,' "Come. 'f John' s initial reaction i8 one

of ecstasy. The vision.recalls in him a vague memory of·

having experienced a s'imilar joy long ago. As he attemp.ts to

grasp that memory the> vision fades and John i8 overcome with

, a sadn't!ss wrought, wi th painful feelings of emptines·s and

exile~ The intense feeling of 108s and the desire to regain 1< j ,

the experience of Joy ini tiates John' s quest for the myste'rious

Island. His journey embodies w,h1it Lewis has termed "the

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dialectic of desire" • .3 This is a li ved dialectic in which

the pilgrim diligently ~ollows the Desire, "pursuing false

objects until their f~lsity appears and then resolutely

abandoning themtl (Regress, p. 10), until he cornes at last to

recognize in the _Absolute Other; the Object of Desire and the

Source of Joy.

Wooe~ by Desire on the one hand, on the ,other John is

victimized by fear. Unable to comprehend or to keep the rules

proyided him by the Steward, he lives·in dread of death and

the Landlord's 'black hole'. One of the first temptations to

which John succumbs upqn setting ~ut on his quest is to abandon

belief in the Landlord. This he doe~ wi'th proioU1~'d reli~f in

respo~se ta nineteenth cen~ury rationalism in the form of

Mr. Enlightenm~nt, who superficially explains away religion.

Later, however, in his journeying through the barren Nort~ern

regions inhabited by stern, cerebral dogmatists, sceptics and

cynics of aIl sorts, John learns that his Island can also be _

simi,larly r8.tionalized away ~nd dismissed as a wish-fulfilment

dream, às illusion and nonsense. But the intensity of De~ireJ

which has led him by now so far along in his!journey and

'thr'ough', ma.IliV perils J provides' stronger eviderlce for John in •

favour of the reality of the Island. He has tasted"what. ~ ~

Northerners only philo!?ophize abolit. 'Furthermore J divine • ( , ,1

Reason herse If will not dismiss the ~sland as illusion, nor

will she ignore John's Iear of thé Landlord which he has . .

hidden in the dark part of hlS mind. One must dec1de

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according to the evidence; she tells John, and this means

living wi th honest--aoubt until evidence is found and

tried (p.69).

tmwilling to -face the possibili ty of Desire~ and the'

Landlord sharing ~ common reality, John flees Southward to

avoid the, demands of Reason. Ironically, i t is in the South , - ,

that John is exposed to substantial evidence to support his

, ~rowing'suspicion that thr Landlord may be the true object of· ., '

Sehtlsucht. As mu ch as the North dis,dains ,romantic longing,

th~ South acknowledges it and lures it with various intoxi­

cants or desire-substitutes. These false Florimels. while

seeminJ1y unrelated (for example, sexual indu~gence. the,

aesthetic experienc~ and pantheism) are similar in that they

profess to be the real object of the pilgrim's yearning.

Once again it is Desire itself that acts as the corrective

measure, proving ail alternatives to be inadequ~te to' it.

John senses the shallowness of each substitute in comparison 1

to the depth of his unfulfilled longing. Desire itself pulls -

bim away and redirects him on his quest, until, through a " b

process of elimination, John cornes to recognize, most reluct­

antly, that this' Desire is inde'ed "the perilous sie~e in whieh . onlyane can sit" (p.161).

At this point John realizes that he is in imminent 1 '/

danger of becomipF a Christj.an~ His imagination has already

8urrendered i tsetf to Joy: His reason subs'tantiates the

imagination and will not allow-' John ,to turn back to illusion. jj

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This convergence cannot but remind one o~ Lewis's own ---'

experience of nearing conversion as he recorded it in Surpr1sed

~ b~ Joy. There he describes the two opposing hemispherès of his . ,

mind, his desipe-life and his philosophy, dovetailing as he

approaches their c,mmon Source. L!~e Lewis. John experiences

/ the sensation of' beirig caught, .hemmed in by the univer:sal eye: ,

But you have seized a+l in your rage Of Oneness. Round abdùt, Beating my wings, aIl ways, within your cage, l f'lutter, but not out. (p.148)

Imagination and reason having been wooed thQs far, John r

is brought to the ultimate ~hoice of total surrender. The will,

inwardly bent, must also submit to be redirected outwardly. This

is symbolized by Vertue' s rejoining John after having rebufted

him in a determine'd effort ,to wi thstand the influence of Desire • . Vèrtue, who had been intent upon self-sufficiency, now collapo- ,/0

rates with Jùhn in surrender. Indeed, he takes the header and

, John follows. This purposivê. '8.ct of creaturely response mÇl.rks

the turning point of the regress. 4 .

The remainder of the journey is marked by the change in

John's (and in ,Vertue:s) perception. Travelling with their

an'gelic guide through the same ,country they had prev~ously , .

pa,.ssed, they are ama.zed to find no similari ty whats~ever hl

the'surrpundlngs. ''''It is. Just as i t was when you passed i t, , '

beiore,' said'the Guide, l'but your eyes are altered .. Y0U see , ~ .

nothing now but realities,'" (p.1?7)'. The culmination .of the '.

journey is the crossing of' the' brook, that is, dyi~g. The'

transformation pf John and Vertue 1 s fear into cQurage is·

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demonstrated in their submission to ul timate death. They no

longer a ttempt ~ avoid the- bro~.k as the y once did' the canyon.

They cross it willingly. Nor is their attitude'one of ,sto5.cism.,

That tao has been transformed, especially in Vertue. Death

brings wi th i t great Barrow as the pilgrims enter into their

glorious destiny. Hope is mingled with sadness, just as Swéét

Desire has always been a mixture of joy-mèlancholy." The irony

is expressed in John' s concluding song: "Gods we are,

Thou hast said: and we pay dearly" (p.~98).

The regress, then, is a journeyvowards truth, and

contains elements' of pain as wel.J. as joy.~ Desire and "God-~ $

, ,

kindled" reason (Mir, p.37) never function to soothe the- pilgrim"

.,.., but tp awaken him irom illusion, unsettling the habituaI self. ,

The lu~ling of the ~e'lf lnto çomfortable

always '~esignat~d in Lewis's writings as , \

of evil fDrces. Prince Rilian's

Underland in The Silver Chair is the most

rficiali ty is

intentional work·

y the Queen of

lici,t example of

this. The evil spall is "broken by Puddleglum' s stàmping on the

wi tch' s f1re; this cauS,es terrible pain but produces salutary

clari ty. ' .. There is nothing like" a good sh~ck 9f pain for

dissolving certain kinds of magic: .. 5 wri tes Lewis', echoing a

parallel statement in The Problem' of .P:=tin to the effect ,that ~

pain ramoves the veil 'of-illusion and implants truth, in thé-1 - ,

....

rebel soul (~, p.8J). On the part of the pilgrim, perseverance

is required ,"to belie:v.e in lthe, wid~ -awake real,. through aIl the \

8tupef'ying .. ~, enervating, âistorting 'dream: r '

" ta will to wake,

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- ./ '6 whén the very being seems athirst for Godless repose."

~Perseverance ïn The Pilgrim's Regress is the honest and active . ' fesponse to divine initiative. In The Screwtape Lettets

,Lewl's suggests how, in contra'st, superficiali'ty may be bred

~through the simple reversaI of the wooing process. Just as

God works inwa~dly, penefrati:hg the' pilg'rim wi th gl,eams q:fi

truth, sa the evil force is ~îctured as thrusting truth and

virtue o\ltward, 0 50 that these vital elements are caught in the "

embryQ and.remain merely passing thought or fancy. Screwtape,

informing his apprentice tempter in this regard saysl

Think of your man as a series of concentric circles, his will being the innermost, his intellect coming next. and finally his fantasy. You can hardly hDP~,'at once t to exclude from aIl the circles -:everything tnat smells of the Enemy:' but you must k~ep on shoving aIl the virtues outward till they are finally located in the circle of Ïantasy, and aIl the desirable quali ties inward into the ~lill. . . . AlI sorts of virtues painted in' the fantasy or approved by . the intellect .' . • will not keep a man from our Father's house .... (p.J8) Î

(il<

, In the' space trilogy :r;,e"tis por~rays man' s choice to

submi t ta 'either .one process ,or the '~ther: to the' wooing of

Maleldi~~God or to the ravishing' or" Satan. The wooing oÏ the

reluctant pilg~i~'is evident in Ransom's journeys in the first \ . . -

two books of ,the trilogy and in Mark"Studqock' s re-education in

That Hideous strength. Converaely"the'process of dé~ay can be

witnessed in the unmaking of \'le'ston and 0 the deb,ili taUon of

'the, .N. 1. C. 'Il, elite. ,) , .

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Ransom's regress consis~s largely of unlearning inadequate,

habituaI reactions and aùquiring a new freedom of response.

The consequent change in- Ransom is fairly radical, as manif'es'ted , , \.

in his transformation from a middle-aged and blundering' don in . , , /

the Silent Planet to the authoritative the opening"of Out of ~~~~~~~~~--~~ "

and somewhat awesome Pendragon ih That Hideous Strength. Lik€

John in The Pilgrim's Regress, the early Ransom is subject to

fear which frequently arises from misconceptions. His,' pilgrim­

age' .to the "other a~d more sp~rituaf world,,7 of Malacandra is

l~rgely a conquest of this inner vulnerabilit,y. Imagination .

and reason serve as effective vehicles through which Ransom

ban be wooed from his illusions, fear and alienation to new

understanding, appre~iation and faith.

This reorientation commences during the space journey

itself en route to Mars. - Ransom has always conceived of space

as "the black, cold vacuity, the utter deadness, which was

supposed to separate the worlds" (asp,' p.J5). Just thé

"- ward 1 space' tr~ggers fear in him: "Ransom uttered the word

wi th difficul ty as a frightened c}üld speaks of ghosts or a

f'rightened man of cancer" (p. 27). It is thus vii th great

astol1ishment that Ranso'm encoÛllters a light and 'beauty in Space

that irresistibly attract him'. Moreover, he d.lscovers that as

he surrenders nimself to, the light and darkness o,f the universe / :

that immerse him, deligbt and 'tranquilli ty permeate his whole . ., ,

being: "almost he felt, wholly he imagined, 'sweet influence 1

" " liouring or "ev~n stabbi1J.g into his surrendered body" (p 0 4) •

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Bath body and mind are 'Irubbed and scoured and filled wi th new

vitality" (p.35) so that Ransom feels'lightened, exultant and

untouched by fear. .He is totally re~eased from his former

false and ni~htmarish notion and replaces it with his new and

awe-filled perspective of space as teemirrg wi th life, l'the

womb of worlds • . • ~he heavens which declared the glory

[of GOd]" (Pt 35).

This numinous exp,ience: which re-directs Ransom away

from his fearful seif and ultimately towards the Source of

glory, initiates in him a spiritual gravitation which continues

throughout his adventure. In contrast, Weston ~nd Devine

concern themselves wi~h space solely in terms of scientific

phenomena and fail tô perceive any spiritual implications.

Similarly, their quest on Malacandra is of a sel~ish and

exploitive n~ture"and their unwillingness ta open 'themselves

to the realities of the life they encounter on this planet

condemns th~m ta a self-contained blindness .

. Ransom has~een brought to Malacandr~ to'enco'unter the

Oyarsa of that world .. Rahsom's careful avoidanc~ of this

. meeting -turns out ta be a postponing of the very knowledge and ,

clarification which ,alone can relieve him of his terror of ./

be1ng ~anded aver to some ruth~ess, bûlbous-eyed creature or

worse t an extra-tèrrestrial Otherness, and, either' way, being

"'devoured as a human sacrifice. Ransom is gently wpoed from " ,

this, th~eatening pros~ect. First of aIl, the strange beauty

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of Malacandra that greets hi~ on his arrivaI offsets his

preconception. Ransom r,ealizes that "the same peculiar twi~t·

of imagination which led him to people the universe with monsters

had somehow taught him to expect nothing on a stra~ge pl~~et

except rocky desolation or else a network of nightmare machin~s"

(p ",47). This dread gives way immediately to curiosity and

admiration. Particularly intriguing to Ransom is a perpendicular

the me which he distinguishes in the landscape. Everywhere, in

the elongated mountains and plants apd natives of this wo~ld,

Ransom finds a rOGketing skyward impulse. The theme of

perpendiculari ty assumé,s a moral dimension as Ransom learns

that for the hrossa, 'bentness' is equivalent ta evil. Ransom's

exposure to the 'perpendicul~r' thinking and feeling of the

unfallen Malacandrians enables him té discern· the inhè.rent

bentness in much of his own knowledge and sentiment, and he is

able gradually to change. One of Ransom's most pteasant , 1 _

surprises, which demonstrates the extent of this gooct infectioh,

is his failure to recognize Weston and Devine upon their

arrivaI in Meldilorn because "for one privileged moment,' [he]

had seen the human forro with almo'st Malacandrian eyes" ·(p.145).

Ransomls fearfulness, indicated by his tight grip on self­

preservation and his status as a fugitive, is diminyshed under

the influence of the hrossa's positive'attitudes to'ward's danger

and death. Ransom discovers il,l himself a "new":"foupd manhood"

(p.92) whe'n' he accepts wi th eagerness ,(" so strongly they 1

infected him", p-.90) the place of honour and danger in :the ."--

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hnakra-hunt wi th Hyoi and Whin. His cour~ge i,s proven ~n his . ' full participation in the dramatic slaying of the hnakr;a. He

,-' ls now fully'hnaui "he had grown up" (p. 93),

Maturation includes the acceptance of responsibility,

Ransom 'is immediately confronted wl th a renewed summons t1)', , '

, appear before the Oy,arsa. No explanations or promises now

entice himj he must simply obey .. 8 T1'!-e transi tian from bÈ3ing

wooed primarily through the imagination and,intel~ect'to

actually being cailed to an almost purely vO,li tional response

is a difficult and painful one for Ransom. As in the cor­

responding point of John's regress, there is a sensation of

being ensnared: "he was walking of his own free will into, . the very trap that he had been trying ta a!oid ever sinee his

arrivaI on Malacandr~" (p.Is). Yet Ransom now finds wi thin'

himself the çourage he did not farmerly possess ta face such a , ,

challenge:

Now, in the clear light of an accepted duty~ he felt fear indeed, but with it a sober sense of confidence in himself and in the world, and even an element oi pleasure. It was the difference between a Iandsrnan in a\s~nking ship and a horse~ man on aboI ting horse l' ei ther may be killed, but the horseman is an agent as weIl as, a patient. (p.100)

Thig' change of outlook is re-artic~lated in Perelandra,

where' Ransom is surnmoned ,to 4ndertake the haza,rdous mission o:f - -

slaying the Un-man Weston. When ~he thought first ent~rs

Ransom's mind ~e dismisses it incredulously, but as the proposaI

is wrestied on the levei of the, imagination- and the intellect, / <,

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the will is gradually freed ta accept the task. This recognition

of the freedom inhere:n,t in sueh a total 'response is prefigured

in Tinidril's reali~atiQl1:, in conversation with Ransom, that

she is not carried in Maleldil's will but walks in it. She

in fact seizes her opportun~ties for joY. Thé only instance

. tha t Ransom wi tnesses Tinidri,l as a passive recipien,t of any , ,

emotion occurs when Weston introduces her to fear (pp.124-5).

Fear is, in fact, the Un-man's most f~rceful weapon for over-

rlding the power of free choiee. . '

j

Ransom's observance of this impaet on Tinidril is

directly succeeded by an awareness of the responsibility

delégated, to him. "He wri thed and ground his teeth, but could

not help seeing. Thus. and not 'otherwise, the world was made.

Ei ther something or nothing must depend on individual choices"

(p .130.) • Ransom cringes as he visualizes struggling wi th the f.

Un-man, "th~ long metallic_ !lails . • • rip]?ing off narroVl strips

of flesh, pU'lling out tendons" (p.l)l). H'e attempts 'te attribute' l

the whole idea' of phys'ical combat to morbid fancy, rationalizing ~

that the suggestion degrades spiritual warfare. But he is

checked by the reminder that the division of' body and soul is ~ .

a terrestrial one resulting'fro~ the Fall, and is thus irrelevant

to the pe~eî~ndria~ si tuat~ Ransom attempts furt'her argument , y

. but àll excuses peter out in the pervading presence o,f Male;tdil. ,

As a last re~ort he faneies the possibility of winning the fight,

perhaps wtthout setious mauling. "But no faintest 'hint of, a j

1

guarantee in that direction came to h,im' from the darkrtess. , The

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, future was blaek as e night i tself" ' (p .134) •

1

As Ransom sense in himself a movement towards aceepting . '

this formidable task, his innèr-self in last-minute defiance

distracts him with th intimation that he is being trapped into .1

inviting his own dopm In momentary self-pit y Ransom repines ~

agaipst hi9 fate, "to be still a man and yet to be fo~ced up

,Înto the métaphysic~l world to enact what philosophy only o

thinks" (p.'135). He ries for mercy, but there is no answel;'.

/ In the silence an awa eness gra, dually steals over Ransom that '.1

10

the strug~le is over, the decision 'made. Only twiee before in

his life has he'exper enced a similar oècurrence of wrestling ,# \ a

wi th a diificul t choi e only to suddenly diseover that he has

. traversed ,the region f indecision and, "wi thoq.t any apparent • , 1

movementjof the will, as objective and unemotïonal as the

readlng on a dial" (p 136), has arrived at the certitude of

seeF h1mself perfor the task.

,., The future et stood there, fixed and unalterab1e ~ ." as if he ha already performed i t. . . • You .

might say, f you liked, that the power of choi'ee had been si ply set aside and an inflexible destiny. substituted for it. On the other hand, you IDight say that he had Qeen delivered from the rhetoric of his passion and had emerged into unassailable ' freedom. R som cou1d not • . • see any differerice between these two statements. Predestination and freedom wer apparent1y identical. (p:137)

In this passage de~onstrates the fusion of personal ~. , J

responsibility with ge'uine free,choiee. At their maximum,

Lewis oelievad, nac.es freedom converge. 9 The ,acceptance J

of responsibilit,y_ in he area of choie~ is usually.revolution-,

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ary in the regress. For Ransom, it brings the consciousness

of himself as agent as weIl as patient. ,

Se.en through an

-~pprehensive, self-protective shell, the idea of creaturely

. response appears as a ,ruthless demand for self,-abnegation. -In retrospect, however, the choièe is perceived as the whole , . man freely and .responsibly acting,' and thus being.most fully

'himself'. In surrendering, Ransom relinQuishes his defenses

and gains eternal insight: he sees the future aet standing

there, Il fixed and unal terable as if he had already performed i t'" .

(pp.136-7). Predestination and'freedom coincide. 1D

This issue is brought to the forefront in That Hideoüs ',--Strength where freedom and ultimate individuality are threatened

by the N.I.C.E. sch~me'to conqition mankind and .determi~e his . behaviour. IroniÇ..~lly, Belbury,' where predictive man is ,to be

perfected, is at its core an amorphous institution. Positions <

1 are ambiguous and responsibilities are undefined, 'elasticity', , . - . 11 being the keynote of the Instltute. ,Mark Studdoek, a young

and impressionable sociologist, is enticed into the N.I.e.E, ,by

flatterîng intimations of his ,functionin'g i:t;l a prominent rore

among the ~elbury élite. What he encounte~s is mlsterious

unpertainty regarding his employment and his relation to his

cohorts. The more Mark 'tries to'become an accepted part of ,

the Belbury system, the more his,outlook and behaviour eonform 1 •

t , b' 't d 'h . 12 Th' t h jd~ h o lts am 19U1 y,an c aos. . lS cornes 0 a ea w en

Professor Dimble identifies-Mark with the~poliçies of tha

N.l.C.E. and will not confide to h!m Jane's.address. Mark " .

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objects to this. insisting that "even if l do hold a job in

the N. 1. C. E.' for the moment. 'you know,!!!&.," only to hear the Ij

. stunning replYI ~'I do not know you .••• l have no conception

of you!: aims or mot'ives" (p.13l. original. italics).

As long as Mark complies--with the N.L.C.E.,· he is drifting

into nonentity. T~e environment encourages neither rational

thought nor true sentimenti a syst matic training in objectivity

is desi5~ed to seal off the of the imagination and

reason. The desensitization is like ed to "killing a nerve. 1 •

That whole system of instinctive preferences, whatever ethical.

aesthétic, or logical disguise they wear, is to be simply .,.

destroyed,'" ,says Frost (p.182). The process is the anti thesis ,

o~ the inward working of Divine wooing. First, the will is

rendered powerless simply-by the removal of aIl responsibility

and actioni reason is,weakened by the ambiguity which reduces

aIl logic to guessworki imagination and sensibility are warped

through an insidious infiltration ~f ugliness andJobscenity

into anything representative'of beauty or desire. Gradually

. all individual thought, feelings and motives are .erased as the

can~idate is ass~milat~d.

Actual~ brief imprisonment enables Mark to recognize the

servili ty into which he hàs fallen through his, own pride and

follY4 Seeing the puppet he has been, he awakens to memories

and genuine desires long ago sacrificed for the sake of self­

aggrandizement (pp.148-9). True remorse brings clarity. j'

' .

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44

When Frost unexpectedly enters the ceil, Mark discerns for

the first time the inher~nt, hideous e~il present in this man 1

,

In one sense everything· .about Professor Frost was as it had always been~-the pointed bear~, the extreme whiteness of forehead, ' and the bright Arctic smile. But Mark could

, not understand how he had ever managed to overlook something about the man so obvious that any child'would have shrunk away from him and any dog would have backed into the corner with raised hackles and'bared teeth.

(pp. 149-.50)

Ma,rk resolves heroically that he wi'll be 'taken in' no

longer'. 1 A new and dangerous self-assurance rises in him as he

reflects upon his courageous and independènt choosing of 'the

other side', Pride reopens the flood-gates to the powerful , J

Ijre, of evil desire. His imagination is instantly capt,ivated

by tl?-e "infini te à ttraction of this dark - thing [which] sucked._

all,other passio~s into itse1f" (p. 16J). The terrible gravi­

tation, which completely overrides his resolution, is broken

momentarily by an abrupt recollection of the reality of probabld

death. As Mark realisss he is being beseiged by a force too ,

powerful to -resist on his owp, he cries out' in,terror for help,

with "aIl that could ,be called him~elr going into that cry (p.

164). Immediate1y the enchantment is banished. Not only Mark

but the whole room is described as wearied, emptie.d and purged

after this exacting conflict. This is Mark's initial emptying

of self, whieh enables receptivity to the Other. His ensuing

regress i8 marked by a graduaI responding of the imagination and

'intellect to the'Straight or Normal (pp.l84, 212). Wh en Mark is

"

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45

. faced with the ultimate decisron of opposing Frost directly, he

1 , finds himself making his own free choice: '". • • his fears

seemed to have vanïshed. They had been a safeguard ~ • •

they had prevented him, aIl his life, !rom making mad. decisions

like that which he was now making as he turned .xo Frost and \

said, 'It's aIl bloody nonsense, and l'm damned if l do any

-such th'ing' li (p.21J).

Lewis makes clear in the trilogy that Frost and Wither

1 have adequate opportuni ty to cho~se responsibly' as ~ell. but~ like Weston in Perelandra, they embrace nonsense and ultimate

damnation. Weston had already indicated on Malacandra his

preference for evil, as in the declaration to Oyarsa, "Me no

care Maleldil. Like Bent One better: me on his side" (OSp,

p.16) •. The commitment to evil is ~disguised on Perelandra.

Weston has obviously surrendered himself to Satan1J and is no

longer ~n control of himself. He is the Un-man--a pody without

individua~i ty or personali ty',' a mere tool for evil. "He does .

aIl my thinking for me" (p.118), Weston says in one of,-\he

brief moments in which the decaying inner man is allowed to '

emerge. The evil 'process to which Weston has submitted is

described qy Ransom as the intoxicated will poisoning the

intelligencê and the affecti6n~ and finally co~sumlng itself.

"Only,a gho,st was left--an everlasting unrest, a cruID?ling, ,

a ruin t an odour of decay" (p.119).,

For Wither and Frost, the process of un-making is

similar. Both.of these have submitted to the Dark Eldils J ,

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and are cont~olled by that hideous strength. Wither is , .

described as having an outward attitude and vague mânner ~hich

t:unction indepêndently from .the· inner self (p.'151). This self ,

is withered, aIl but ,dead. At one point Mark, observing Wither, j'

thinks he is looking i~to the face of a corpse. Wither remains

untouched by knowledge or sentiment. He lives in an inner void ~

, .' where these have no meaning for him. Even the knowledge and .

7

terror of his own imminent death and damnation he cannot

apprehènd ,as qui te. real, so he merely looks on "while the last

links with joy and reason.are severeg a and drowsily sees the

trap 'close upon· his sou'l" (p. 227). Frost, as his name suggests,

is coldly fnhuman. His actions are determined by something

other th~he, and he is completely devoid of motive or inten-~

tion. "He did this and that, he said thus and thus, and dfd

not know why. His mind was a mere spectator" (p.231) •. He even

resents the existence of the spectator-self •. Frost's cold seIf-"

murder is tÎle epi tome of tijis denial of self. The "Frost wnose,

existence Frost denied" (p.231) watches as "t1;te clockwork figure

he had chosen to be, his stiff body, now terribly cold" (p.2Jl)

arranges his own annihilation, cutting off aIl possibili ty of

salvation in spi te of "that tiresome ill,usion,' his con~ciousness"

~p.2Jl) screaming in protest. The struggle and the personal

chûosing of a damnation which ends his struggle demonstrates' ,

Frost's responsibil~tyl

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\' Escàpe fO,r -the soul, if not for the body was offered him. He became able ta know (and simultaneously refused the knowledgeJ that ••• souls and personal responsibility existed. He half saw: he wholly hated. ,', • With one supreme effort he flung himself back into his illusion. In that attitude etern~ty overtook him. (p.232)

Choiee is a vital element,in Lewis's concèrn for'

creaturely self-rea~ization. Imagination and reason are'impor­

,_~ant vehicles', for truth, but ul timately each person ?hooses to

accept or reject divine grace 1 to 'enact what philosophy only

thinks'. In The Great Divorce solidityor personhood hinges on "

personal choiee. At one pGint MacDonald is a,sked why divine

reseue is not mo~e forceful, why heaven-does not exert a more

militant charity 'ra ther than allowing the' , ghos'ts' to decide

themselves whether or not to come on the celcstial excursion.

MacDonald's reply summarizes Lewis's position: r

Everyone ~ho wishes it does. Never fear. There are only two kinds of people in the end: Thoss.." who say to God" "Thy will be donli, Il and those to f, whom Gad says', in the end, "Thy will be do ne . " AlI that are in Hell, ehoose it. ~ithout that self-choiee there could be no Hell., No soûl that seriously and eonstantly desires joy will ever miss i t. 'l'hose who seek find. To those who" ' knock-it is opened. (Divorce, pp.66-7; original i talies)

The 'most typieal character in Lewis' s work is the person· " 1

'Who' flees responsibility,' who perceives no libeTty i~'th~ act /

of cho~sing; but 'only 'demand'. As for John, Ransom and Mark,

it ls God's love (as opposed to mere kin~ess)' that/draws them

, to- the recognition and aeceptanee of. resp6nsibili ty, and thus '

to reality and maturity. In Narnia, the 'solid' eharac~rs are

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48

/' .' 14 those who face reality and aèt upon it •. - In Prince Cas~lan "1 9 .' .

L~cy, journeying with her companions to Aslanc's How, se~s Aslan ,

beckoning -to her but does not ob~y hi~ calI because ~f the

refu~al of the others to accQmpany her. Later, upon enco.untering

Aslan in the night alone, she attempts to excuse'herself by'

blaming the otDers for not following her, only ta fi~d that, ~.

befora ~slan and before .her honest self, she is personally re-•

sponsible for her actio~. Lucy's resulting obedience is

rewarded with renewed sight as she sees Aslan when the others, l' ~.

thvough lack a! faith, cannot. '.

J ••

Throughout Lewis's fiction, blindness and deafness are ~ . ,

shown tq be eonsistently ~elf-impo .

a~oid the responsibility that spiritual sight and hearing may ". . incur., The Dwarves who ehoose ~ee ugllness and unrea11ty in

The Last Battle are clearly self-condemn~d. Likewise, in

The Magician's Nephew, Uncle Andrew hears nothing but roaring

when Aslan sings b~cause he refuses to aCkn~wl~dge the song.

Looking on this pitiful,. frighteneq figure, Aslan says, "Oh

Adam's sons, how eleverly you defend yourselves against aIl !

that m'!ght do you goo'd!"15 ,

is resistanc~ agqinst spiritual sight and self-

r~cogni ion is the self-imposed barrier which Orualrmust over­

come in her, regress as -recoi"ded in Till We Have Faces. , \

~ 1· ,

Througllout the novel the ,gods repeatedly send Orual fresh l ' ,

.. ->

evidenge of their existenc~ and goodness, and each tille Orual

~i ther I~pores the data' or misinterprets th'em a~cordi~g to her

prejUd~ces. I~iti~lIY, Psyche's .beauty ~estifies. ta the exist-,

;/ 1 1

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49

ence of the gods as an experience of Jo~ for Orual. Orual

says th~t when Psyche was present, her beauty seemed natural

~d proper to her age, but once Psyche was out of sight and

you reflected on her beauty" it ~stonished you (Faces, p.22).

, She v also rernarks on the beautify ing and enli vening effect of . \ ' . , , ~

Psyche on the world ,around her. V/hile Orual entertains that

a~onishment with Psyche's beauty, she refuses to aCKnowledge l '

o the Source in which Psyche finds her primary delight and to

Whi?h. she d~reèts .her devotion, na~ely, the goë1 of the Mountain.

Orual ~nsists on, possesâing this Joy in her life, keeping it as

is, r~ther than following ~t to its t~ue fulfillment.

. Confirmation of the existence an~ benevolence of the

gods-is given in the form.of the' drought ending and the abundance \ ..

of rain and growth that follows the·offering of Psychè. The

change fn weather is not without aùpers9nal effect on Orual. ,

She recovers from sickness as quickly as the grass revives; .

her sleeps are sweetened by the' sound of rain, as weIl ;:ts "the

k·ind southwind blowin~ in at the wind~w, and sunshine" Cp.8)).

Yet Orual is influenced more by the rationa}izing of the Fox, and

retains~a stubborn dubiousness as t9 di~ine interv.ention.

Mor~ evidence surfaces in the actual finding of'Psyche

alive, 'bright-faced' and:'happy. ,The discovery a~to~ds. Orual

büt 'also angers her" to think, tha.t Psyche, her joy, is happy ,

apart from.her. ,Oiual does net even wfsh to see the palace

. l'IJ:i9h is invisible. to her unbeliev.iÎng .eyes--the proof of Psych~ "s

. ~

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50

real existence as the bride of the god. But she is granted a

vivid though momentary g~impse. The detailed beauty is diff~

icult to forget later when Orual attempts to relegate the

observation to illusion; yét she succeeds to an astonishing v

degree, as when she says later of the gods:" "They would not

tell me whether Psych!3 was the bride of a god, or mad, or a

brute's or villain's spoil. They would give_no clear sigu,

though l begged for it" (p.249).

Another instance of evidence falling upon deaf ears

occurs when Orual actually prays to the gods and asks for a

sigu. When she finishes praying, she is aware thatall the

time rain has been drumming 'on the roof. -This repetition of a

previous sign of the gods' existence and presence makes ho

impact on Orual. She says the gods gave her no sign, and she '-

was left utterly to herself (p.150).

The extent of divine iRitiative and m~rcy towards a

short-sighted individual iS,manifested in the god of the

~ountain actually showing himself to Orual. The resportse of

terror aroused in ..Drual is the'- kind' of salute C"that mortal fle'sh -

gi ves to immortal things" (p.l?l). Orual is, moreover, subdued .

more by the ~eauty of the god than by his terror (p.l?J);

She aiso Bta tes that there was no anger in his face or his

voice. The rejection she feels in his presence cornes from.deep

within herself:

,. .... He made' it to be as if~ from the beginning, l had known 'that Psyche' s ''lover was a' god, and· as ~ if aIl my doubtings, fears, guessings, debatings,

. ---quèstionings of Bardia, questionin9s of the Fox" - aIl the rummage and. business of i t, ha<:1 bee!].

Î

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51

trumped-up foolery, dust blown in my own eyes by myself. (p.i73)

Yet soon after she convinces herself that she has acted .

. rigntly and that the gods are .unjustly angry with her and

indeed hate her.

Orual endeavours to efface her guilt and avo~d self­

recognition by veiling'herself both"physically and spiritually.

She tries to make the inner, vulperable Qrua} vanish altogether

into the Queen. The more she denies that inner existence, the

'more her daily life assumes meaninglessness and bitter loneliness.

On an excursion taken to relieve that monotony, Orual hears a

priest~s version of P~yche's story that reawakens the innermost

miserable and angry Orual. According to the tale, Psyche's \

sisters saw the palace and ~ere jealous. Burning with indigna­

tion against this lie which she assumes is perpetrated by the

gods, Orual resolves to write her case against them. The task

is painful but salutary. The true Orual emergesr

AlI day, and often aIl night too, 1 was recalling every passage of· the true sto~, dragging up terrors, humiliations, struggles, and.anguish that l had pot thought of for years, letting Orual wake and speak, digging· her almost out of a grave,,, out of the walled weIl. The more l remember,ed, the more still l could remember--often weeping beneath my veil as if l had never been Queen. . . . (p.247)

As Orual determlhedly so'rts Imotive from motive and both . )

from pretext, she is'also drenched with seeings from the gods

th~t painfully illumine her. When she finally hears hersel! . readin'g he.r complaint against the go'<is, she recognizes her true

d voice, a voiee strange to her ears because she had,formerly

/ , '

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52

refused to acknowledge it. What she utters is the speech , ,

that has been lying at the center of her soul for years (p.294) . •

The inner, willful Orual unveils, and shows-herself. She now '4

has a face (an acknowledged self) which the gods can address!

Thus Orual later reflects,J "How can they meet us face to face

till we have faces?" (p.294).

By acknowledging the self-justifying self, Orual ?pens "

herself to seeing her actual hatred, jealousy and resulting

guilt. Only then can she experience genuine contrition and

ul timate salvation.. The sélf-righteous shadow which sh'e had

assumed is banished and she can appropria te new life as a --genuine, unmasked persona Lewis describes Buch self-revelation

and its consequences in Prayer: Letters to Malcolm, where he'

states:

OrdinarilYJ to be known by God ls to1be, for this purpose, in the category offthings .. We are, like ~arthworms, cabbages, and nebulae, objects of Divine knowledge. But when we (a) become aware of the fact • • . and (b) assent with aIl our will to be so'known, then we treat ourselves, in relation to God, not as things but' as persons .. We have unveiled. Not that any veil could have baffled His sight. The change is in us. The passive changes ~o active., Instead of merely being known, we show, we tell, we offer ourselves to view. . . • By unveiling, by confessing our sins a~g~~aking known' our requests, we'assume~gh rank of persons before Him. Anrl~descending, becomes

_ a, ~erson ~olm, pp.22-2J)

Ultimately, Orual becomes a"'solid' individual. On

meeting Psyche, with no cloud 'between them, Orual has the

impression that she has never before seen a real woman,(p.J06).

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53,

Shortly after, looking into thè pool, she sees two Psyches, not

exactly.the same, but bath beautiful. The wooing process is

complete 1 Orual has 'become Psyche', the god's bride.

'.phe response to divine_wooing may, from a li~ited and Il 'frightened human perspective, seern an ensnaring. Lewis attempts

to offer~a more balanced and, indèed, attractive yiew, while at

the ~ame time, not explaining away what is essentially mystery.

While never qompromising the transcendence or Otherness of God,

Lewls"portrays a Gad who yearns for man t s relationship. It is

essentially in that God is a Persan, that man can be dynamicall~

rel~ted to Him, and in that Gad is Love, that man discovers

identity and affirmation in that relation~hip. In this way, ' the 1

regress' to creaturehood càn be seen.not only as the working out

~f divine intention, but the reaiization of human freedom.

"

, '

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o n '

, . otes to Cha' ter Two

lPain. p.40. This concept bears close resemblancè to the "lov~-chase" or "Real~ ty' s quest of the unwilling se).f" discussed by Evelyn Underh±'ll in M*sticism (1911; rev.ed. London: Methuen~ 1930), 'pp.lp3-13 •

2C. S• Lewis, The' Srlver Chair (1953; rpt. Harmondsworthr Puffin Bc)Oks, 1965) 1 p. 28.,

3Regress, p~10. The dialectic of Desire is to the search for Joy' in Lewis's autobiographica~ Su lseù b Joj. The idea is also expressed in terms of roman lC longing or SelIDsucht. Corbin S. Carnell devotes an entire "study'to' , this concept in his book Bri ht' Shad w of Realit: C.S. Lewis and the Feeling Intellect Grand Raplds: Eerdmans~ 197

4This enactment'w~ll receive closer examination in the . following chapter dealing wi th death and. rebirth.

5The Silver' Chair, p.156. 1

6C.'S. Lewis, (London: Geoffrey Anthology. '

ed.,. GeorZe MacDonald: An Anthology Bles, 194 ), p.65. Hereafter cited as

7 . C.$. >,Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (1938; rpt. London:

Pan-Books, i~52, p.7). Hereafter cited as aSPe

8. . t ' d . th S t t f ThlS transI. Ion correspon s Wl crew ape~s accoun 0 ,< ·the trougl1s which follow the Enemy' s initial wooJ.ng: "Sooner

or later He'" Wl. thdraws, if not in fact, a t least from their eon-­scious experience, aIl those supports and incentives •••• It is during sueh trùugh periods, much more' than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the short of creature He wants i t to be. • • • Our. cause 18 never morê" in danger than when a '

< -'

, human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our~ Enemy's will, looks round upon a,universe from whi~h every trace of Him'seems to have Vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys." (Screwtape, p.47) , ,

9L~wis wrirtes: "Freedom< or necessi ty?, Or do they differ at their maximum? At ~hat.maximum a~an is what he does; there i8 nothing of him left over or outside tlie act. Il ~(SBJ, p. 144)

, ,- .'A

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10 - . . Screwtape explalns that "thè,Enemy does not forese~

the hûmans making their freê: contributions in the futuré, but ~ them doing so in His unbounded Now. And obviously to watch a man doing something i8 not to make him' do it •••• Sorne meddlesome writers,notably Boethius, have let this secret out" (Screwtape, p.139). Lewis's s'ource is Boethius' The Consolation of PhilosophJÇ, particularly Book V"

llC•S• Lewis, That Hideous strength (194.5; abridged ed., Lpndon: Pan Books, 19?5), p.7L}. Hereafter cited as THS.

> 12Mark ,s 108s of identity'within the N.I~C.E. is pointed out in a discussion of Lewis's ideas regarding'individuality 1 and,personality by Paul Holmer, C,S. L~wis: Thè Shape of His­

'Faith and Thought (New York: ~~rper fl~d Row, 1976), pp.78-rO:

13Weston's ear~ admission makes this,clear. On arriving on Per~landra he tells Ransorn that ~~ is being ~ade a fit re?eptacle for the 'Life-Forc~'. "lt's a questlon of surrend­

, erlng yourself," he says (p. 85), adding, "Can you not even conceive a total comm~tment .•. which overrides aIl our petty

- ethical pigeon-holes?" (p.86'). Ransom witness~s the' horrible _ self-offering: "1 amcthe Univ,erse. l Weston, am yO'Ur-God and your Devil. l èa)l that Force into me completely: • • ." (p. 86)

140 •S• Lewis, Prince Caspian (1951; ,rpt. HarmondswoJ)thl Puffin Books, 1962), pp'.lfO-13, 12.4-32.

, ,

/~50.S. Le'wis, Th~ Mafician's Nephew {195:5; rpt". Harmonds­worth: Puffin Books, 1963 , p.158.

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Chap:t;er Three

. " Death and Reblrth

In Lewis's workj death is the most frequently, used

analogy for surrender or th~ creaturely response. In ,Mere

Christlanity we readl "This process of surrende.r--this -

movement full speed astern--is what Christians call repentance. . . • • • It means killing ,part of yourself, undergoing a kind of

,

death" (Xi ty, p . .56"). In the vegress, the pilgrim constantly

confronts the narcissistic and fea~!ul elemen~s withi~ftimself

which must be reoriented, unbent. Lewis stresses that God's

purpose in wooing man is not.m~rely to improve him, but to

transform l1im into a 'new creature. The crises in this remaki'ng

proc~ss are often confrontations with death. The necessity on

the part of· tne pilgrim to embrace death freely if he would

èmerge into n.ew life, 'marks the r'egress as a journey int~ death

and a second birth. ~,

, ;<

In terms of the inward working'of the wooing process

outlined in the preceding chapter, each response of the,

ikagination Or reason can be seen as reflecting a fteath-li~e

submission in little. False notions.and illusory desires are

relinquished and give way to truth ~nd reality. Lewis finds

the word 'baptism' appropriate for such reô~ientations.

Describing the transposing effect'produced by George MacDonald's • .II

Phantastes on his own,imagination, Lewis writes: "What,it

f \v

a tua. 11; did to' me was to converti even to oaptize (th~t was

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where the Death came in) my imagination. It did nothing to my.

intellect nor (at that time) to my conscience. Their tu~n came, .

fat' later ..• "1Anthology, p.21). John's imaginative , 0

resp.onse to the vision of the Island, and" Ransom' s surrender

to the beauty of space, are comparable instances of such a

baptisme They are preparatory for the surrender of the will

which comes later and signals a dramatic transformation of the

whole person. We have observed how, for the pilgrim, the step ,

from imaginative and rational xesponse to the purely vqlitional,

while most free, is also most d1fficult a~d unpleasant due to

the absence of desire. It is this critical act of the will,

motivated by"no appeal to self ,and indeed contrary to natural' -

desire. which bears the elosest analogy to death. The self-

ward, fall'en nat.ure is de:pied--kille,d---as the centripetal

'journey homeward to habituaI seIf~l is reversed and man as

creature enacts obedience to Another. It i9 this turning­

pqint in the regress on which we now fo~~s.

John' s pilgl?image to' truth, as recorded in ~The Pilgrim t s

Regress, leads him inevi tably ,te> the chasm which is cal'led

Peecatum Adae, or the sin of Adam. This is an allegorical

picture of the soul's return to its original choiee. "What . 2

the will'has caused, wi~l must be brought about to correct."

As John edges hi~ way along ~he side of the canyon in Book

Nine of the allegory, he cannot dismiss the hauntin~ fear that ""

he may be"" nearing death. Visions of his own body lying

smashed at the bottom of the canyon mingle with the memory

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, of his Uncle George-' s terrible face wi th his mask :Callen, off.

The craving for the Island almost forgotten, John tries to

abandon his·quest., Reason,Co however, will not let him turrr

back. Then, on the bri~~ of the gulf, in the darkness, , '

John's terror is realizedl he finds himself face to face Vii th ,; ,

Dèath.

'Christian theology asserts that- death is the product of

the Fall, and this is Lewis's belief. 3 -Death is the most ugly

and horrible consequence of man's sin. Looking upon'Death,

John discerns "an aged, appalling face, crumbling and chaotic,

larger thàn human" _ (p.166) • In Miracles, Lewis describes this •

'penal obscenity' as the "triumph of Satan, the punishment o,f --

the Fall, and the last enemyll (Mir, p.151). As such it consti-

'tutes no illusory fear; Death teJ:ls J0!tn, "I am no negation,

and the deepest of your heart acknowledges i t" (Regress, p.167).

John' s sense of ui;t~r helplessness as a victim about -to be

enslaved by Death i~ furtper cQnfi~med by his Enemy who ~

informs John 1 ,',

Do not think that you èan escape me; do not think you can calI me Nothing. To you l am'· not Nothing; l am the being blindfolded"the losing aIl power of self-defence, the sur­render. not becau8e any terms are offered, -but becàuse resistance is gone: the step into the darkl the defeat of aIl precautions 1

utter helplessness turned out to utter risk: the final 108s of liberty. The Landlord's Son whO::feared nothing, feared me. (p.167)'

Ironically, the only way in wh,leh John can overcome

'Death is by submitting' to it-. Death offers John two alternatives:

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to give in, or to struggle in the hope of saving himself.

To surrender would be ta actijely.pl~nto death; to resist

would mean being dragged into it. John chooses s~lf-surrender, - . , thereby exereising bath hu"'ili ty and courage and even more sa

in that he h~s no expectation of reward. His sole anticipation

at this point is his 'final loss pt liberty' foretold by Deathj

A remark recorded by Lewis in his George MacDonald AnthOlogy

sheds light on this uncomfortable moment of despair which so

often precedes the enactment of surrender in Lewis's fiction.

MacDonald says of the expectation of loss, UIt may searn to 8;

man the first of his slavery when it ~s in truth the beginning \"

of his freedom. Never soul was set free witho~t being m~e ta

feel its s-lavery" (Anthology, p.45J. ,rTo experience one's

bond age is to have one' s illusion of self-sufficiency shattered.'

o Slavery ,ance recognized however, can gi ve way to freedom.

Thi~ is shawn in the effect wrought by John's choiee. His

decision ta submit neutralizes Death's power and renders Death

subservient to him. "Then l am your servant and no 'more your

master 1" Death tells John~ "T~e cure of death is dying. He

who lays down his liberty in that act receives i t back" (p.167).

This transformation of a monstrous threat into a means

of redemption is a thame mueh ce~ebrated by Le~is., In Miracles,

c he compares it to a classic chess-move in which the pu~erior

player takes "what is precisely the strong point of his

opponent's plan and mal;ces it the pivot of his own pl al) " (Mir,

~.155). 'By converting p~na~ death into th~ remedy for the Fall,

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God has turned Satan's masterstroke into nis defeat. Simple

illustrations of th~s principle can be found in The Chronicles - / ,-

of Narnia where, ~or instance, Aslan, by submitting to Deep

Magic (whereby the White Wi tch clai'ms any trai tûr as her lawful

prey), brings into effect Deeper lI1agic which causes the Table

te crack and Death to work backwards. In-The Last Battle'Ja ,

Stable doorwhich represents annihilation by the monster Tash ,

becomes a me~ns of entry Into a superlative exi8tenc~. The

only req,uirement is to go through the door, thet, i8,' to die. -

In The Pilgrim's Regress John's ,submission to death is,his gate-

Vfay to new life. "Our enemy, so welcomed, becomes our servant," , ,

says Le~is; "bÇ>dily death, the Monster, becomes bl~ssed spirit-

ual Death to self, if the spirit so wills . . . ....

Always, the key is assent. Lewis insists on the necessity that

"death shoulà. be accepted. Humanity must embrace death freely,

submit' to it with total humility, drink it ta the dregs, and' so 1

conve;rt i t into that mystical death which is the secret, of life"

(Mir, p.1J4; origi!lal italics).· ,

Aèceptance in this context is'far from passive resigna-. . ,

tion, as is demonstrated in John's enactment of surrender, which

assumes the forro of a death jeurney. John must first dive,

naked,_ into a deep pool of water. He must actively let himself

go, a'bandoning aIl effo~ts at self-preservation (p.168).

Jumping will not suffice because, as Mother Kirk explains, ,

"If you jump, you will be trying to save yourself and you may '.

be hurt" (pi 168). diving is also nacessary in order for John , '

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tO'reach the very bottom of the pool. There, he is told, he 1

will f.i:nd a tunnel through which he must pass in order to' come

up on the far side of the canyon.

The nature of John's descent into the depths of the pool

and his re-ascent through the lnwards of the mountain of the

land beyond Peccatum Adae, is not revealed in detail te the ' " ' -

reader. We- are simply told that John" learned many mysteries

in the earth and passed through many elèments, dying many

deaths" (p.170). Wh':He Lewis belie;ed 'willing submission to'

humiliation and a kind of death' to be a universal description

of what 'goin~ back to GO,d is like ,4 he also saw wi thin this

pattern of repentance a g:reat freedom for variation. God woos

,ïndividua:ls,.and "no one is told any story but their own.,,5 ~- ,

. Lewis does, however, take 'pains in the allegory to assure the

reader that, while John's subterranean.journey may seern very

hazy and mysterious, it is, nonetheless, authentic. In the '~, .

passage we read that Wisdom troubles John deep in the caverns \.'

by telling him "that no man co.uld really come l where he ha9

come and that aIl his adventures were but figurative''v (p.'170). - .

But ~e vO,ice of Go'd /assures ~ohn that while on one level his

experience corresponds with metaph~r and mythology, it is not

.illusory. Dying to oself is a spiritual reali ty,

" , We note that two complemen~ary and intertwining ~eanings

. are emerging in regard to this doctrine gf ~ath. In'submitting

. ~

to bBdily Death, the monster, John 'acknowledge~ t~e reality of.

death which is the consequence ,of willful separation from God

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through Qisavowed creature.line?s. This recognItion cons~itutes ,

an about-face, a new acceptance of responsibility, which iri

i tself is a death of. the prevlous illusion of selfïsufficicncy

undet which John h,as been living. Thus, the cure of death ( - . .

(pnysical deatn and spiritual in the sense oT separation from

God) is dying (to self 1 or the illusioh of self-sufficiency).

The cortsequence is eternal lire for both body and soul, though

il1 a new dimension-'-"after a falling, not recovery but a new .

'clt'eation" (per. p.198).

The theological implications which Underlie the redemptive

efficacy of John 1 s death and rebirth are alluded to bxief'ly in . . "

the all.egory, primarily through. reference to the Landlord 1 s Son.,

John 1 s confrontation wi th Death. followed by his experience 'of

descent and re-ascen~ is not unprecedented. Someone has

pioneer~.d, the 1 way. We know this .because the route is famil'iar . \

to Mother Kirk· and has been followed by other travellers ~ John,

upon eIT\ergin~ from the gorge, is "reo"èived into a great company

of other p'ildrims who had aIl descended like {him] into th~ wate.r

and the earth and again come up • . "1' " (p.171). We have also

bee:t:l inf'orll)ed, during John' s stay,wi h Wisdom, of the' 'legend'

of the ~andlord's So~ who lived among ,the tenants and was killed .

.1at~ Death ~e~ls John that t~e Landlord 1 s Son has' encountered

him. Finally, deep in the caver~s of his descent, John's most

vi vid ex~erienee i~ that 'of hearlng :the voiee of God ref'ute

Wisdom t s metaphorica~ interpreta tio.l) and speak Of the true

"dying and yet living God~' (p.l?l). John, in his death jO,urney,

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. traces the steps of the 'Landlord' s Son" thus bringfI1g grace

into e(fe'ct for himself. Lewis bèlieved th;t ip the redemption

~rocess ~'\he death of ,œhr ist i6 the factual and primary eventi' , 'c J ' and that which man experiences in )surrencier is derivative. The

"great action hafi been ini tiated for us, done on our behe,lf 1

exemplified for our imitation, and inconceiv,ably communicated

to aIl believers~ by Christ on Cal vary," Le'wis v/ri tes in The

Problem of pain (p.90). ~d in Mere Christian'ity we r~ad,

"Our' attempts at this dying will succeed only if we men share e

in Gad' s dying" (p'. 57) • Man' s crea turely raIe is one 0 f

conformity to Christ's exemplary death and resurrection. Christ, , ,

the perfect p~nitent, ~as conquered Dea"4h, -and man, in submis-1 0 .

sion, re-echoes tlÎe supreme Sacrifice'. "We are baptlzed into

the dea th of Christ, and i t is the remedy for the Fall" (Mir,

p.1Sl). ,.

This empha~is on a pattern provided by God for'man's

imitation is further exemplified in the allegory by freqûen~

referency to the seed which dies to live. Lewis pèrce~ved the .

operation of death and rebirth within Nature and mythology dt "

deriva'tive,and reflective of the Divine original. In the seed

which must 'bel,ittle 'itsell' into some:thing hard, small and ( , .. ,

, ,

deathlike' ,and fall into the, ground from whence new life re-6 ~~""'\' ...

ascends, Lewis ~scerned \ the deslgn of redemptlon ln WhlCh , '\. ' • ' '0

, G~d descends to .become man~ dies 'and atis~s. 1 This i8 articu-, • 1 (~ , '-. lat~d in Miracles, where Lewis, speaking of the. Grand Miracle

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which is'the Incarnation, write~:

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Death and Re-birth--go down to go up--it is a key principle. Through this bottleneck, this be~ littlement, the highroad nearly always lies.

The doctrine of the Incarnation, if accepted, ~ puts this principle even more empha tical'ly a t the

centre. The pattern is ,.there in Nature because i t was first there in God. AlI the ~ dstances of i t whlch l have mentioned turn out tp b.e but tr~>s­positions 9f the Divine theme into a minor key. (p.1J6)

, . Extending this applicatioN into the realm of mythology, Lewis

suggests:

He [Christ] is like the Corn-King because the Corn-King is a.portrait of Rim. The similarity is not in the least Q~real or accidentaI. For the Corn-King is der1vect (through human imag,ina­tion) from the facts of Nature, and the ~acts of Nature from her Creator'; the De'ath and Re-birth pattern is in her because i t was first in Him •

~ . (pp.139-40)

It' is in this sense of myth being the handmaid of truth that

John is reminded of the s.tory o~ Semele, anq of the universal

corn and wine which anticipate and commemorate the blood and

body of the dying and ~t living God (Regress, .p.171).

The theme of the seed which dies to live also arises in .

Father History's spng. There the hermit compares his soul's 1

interior ~orm to ~the insensible dropp'd seed' which 'deep-

buried, ~ill not die' ~ut grows through winter ripe 'for birth

"bec8;use, while i t: fo.rgets, the h;eayen remembering throws/

Sy.reet influence stiil on earth" (p.162). The picture of the

buried, helpless se~d, totally reliant on the surrounding - i -. u 1

elements' to sustaiQ it through its wlnter slumber and awake i important element of man's -~t to new life, capsulizes the

" 0

tlependence on God as exercised in the cr~aturely response.

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Appropriately, Lewis introduces Bpok Nine featuring John's

surrender by quoting Langland: /

Sholde nevere whete wexe bote whete fyrste deyde; And ~her sedes also, in the sarne wyse, That ben leide on louh erthe, ylore as hit were, And thorwh the grete grace of God, of greyn ded in erthe Atte last launceth up wher-by we liven aIle. (Regress, p.16J)

~ , The need to entrust one self to the dying and yet living

God finds expression in The ChrQnicles of Narnia where Aslan .

offers himself as the, perfect sacrifice and overt:o.mes death for

Edmund. Only an innocent victim could satisfy the demands of

Deeper Magic.

still live.

Ed,mund ,could not atone fo;!J his own misdeeds and,

In The Voyage of the Dawn TJeqder, Aslanfs

transforming power is crucial in Eustace' s change-over from a

dragon back into a boy. Unable to rid himself of his dragon , - . skin, Eustace', after much self-effort, submi ts ta Aslan to

remove it for him. The 'dragon-that-had-been-Eustaee' is then

~mme~sed by Aslan in a pool of water from which he emerges a

boy • remade·. He is not perfeet, but from then oh "he began . " to be a different boy. . , . Tlie 'cure had begun." 7

. -In The Pilgrim's Regress, John's baptismàl 'experience,

like ~hat of Eustage, marks the eommencement of a new way of

life. For John, the newly-begun Christia~ life is to be

'-- charac'terized by death-like surrender. As his angelic Guide ,

explains, "We cal} i t Death in the Mountain language. It is "-,

too tough a morsel to eat at one bite,~You will meet that '. broo1rmore often than you think: and each time you will suppose \

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that you,have done with it for good. But sorne day you really ,

will" (p.l7J). In an essay entitled "Two Ways with the Selfu ,8

Lewis discusses the possibility of a person's being,aware of his

selfness and allowing it to 'die daily'. This constant 'cr~ss­

ing of the ~rook' is·described in Mere Christianity as permitting - ,

Chri~t to interfere with one's-very self. killing the old,

naturally self-centred life, and replacing it with a Chris~­

like (God-directed) self. "At first, only for moments. Then

for longer periods" (Xity, p.16o). This is a graduaI process in

which the Bios (natural, created) life is drawn up into the

Zoe (spiritual, begotten) ~ife 1 the -surrendering person "is

being pulled into God, by God, whîle still remaining himself"

(Xity. p.1J9). Death to self thus becomes a way of life,

climaxed by physical death, "an important part of the treat-"

- ment" (Xi ty, p.172). This final stripping liberates the'

creature from his biological, ,decayin~ existence sa that he •

can whole-heartedly enter the joyous harmony of eternal Zoe

life. As Screwtape, bewildered at .this discovery, exclaimsl

"You die, and die and then you are beyond death. How could l­

ever have doubted it?" (Screwtape 1 p .158) .

In Lewis's imaginary worlds, death is not necelsaril~ an evil. When Jill shudders at the S~able Door in e Last

Battle,and asks if there ls any way to prevent passing through' ,

i t, she is told by the Unicorn, Jewel, "Nay, /fair friend. It

may be for us the door 'to Aslan1s country and we shall sup at

his t'ablé t.Dnight~'. (p.118). In the science fiction trilogy, ,/

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unfallen-worlds are subject to 'gôod' death. In Out of the

Silent Planet, Malacan~raJ like Narnia in the last of the

·Chronieles, -isJa dying world. Ransom is amazed at the Mala­

eandrian' s acceptanc'e of this fact. nA world is not made to

last forever, mueh léss a race j that is not Maleldil f s- way,"

he is told by the sorn Augray.9 Ransom agoniz~s_~ver this.

Later, on Perelandra', he tells Tinidril how mueh' he had come

ta love the furry people of Malacandra. "Are they to be

swept away?" he' objects. "Are they only rubbish in the Qeep

Heaven?" (per. p.55). "Tinidril does not understand what

'rubbish 1 means. She answers l "You do not mean they are worse

because they come early in the history and do not come again?

They are their own part of the history and not another. We

, , ,

are on this side ~f the wave and they are on the far side. AlI

is new" (p 1 56) 1 _ Ransom has earlier detected wi thin himself the

'compUlSio~ to re~eat an intense pleasure. 10 He is still in the

proeess of learnlng to let a plea~ure die in.to memory in order ,

that he may then enjoy it 'full,grown' (OSP" p.84}j only having

done sa, may he proceed with, expectation ta the newi It is in

this way that the creatures of bath Malacandra and perelandra

are able to let go Dl .the'Ïr first life, when i t has a ttained

maturity, ana enter in""o"'the second/and better. In Perelandra.

Tinidril and, Tor look for~ard ta the timerof their ripeness,

when they will be changed 'and made free o} Deep Heaven (p."196) 1

In' Out of the Silent Planet, Hyoi anticipates the pleasure of \ -:

~life which he will savour as a full-grown memory when he lies "

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down to die. That will be-thé 'best of drinks', he tells Ransom,

even "Death i tself in _-the day Ir drink it and 'go to MaIeIdiÎ"

-\ (p.8?).

In these in&tances, Death ls clearly 'servan~·. It is

not preceded by dreaa' nor followed by corruption (OSP, p .186) .

On both planets it is as predictable as birth (OSP, p~185; Per,

p.19?) and a welcome means of rebirth. A~ s~ch, death provides: •

release fram the limi ts of the first, mortal life. ' Tinidril . '

. does not expect her body always ta be baund ta the low worrds.

When Hyoi dies on Malacandrla at the hand of WestoR and Devine",

his fellow hrossa participate in his' release by assenting to' i t

in their dirge. Wh.iIe their sorrow, is real ("he was a hnakra­

pUTtt and a greatl poet and the loss of him is heavy, Il Hyoi t S .

brother tells o~arsa, OSP, p.146), still the hrossa are able ta

turn from the' good expected- (the lifespan aIIotted to Hyoi) to

the given good (his premature death). In their song, they ,

-usher H~oi into his second life: ..

Let it go hence, dissolve and be no body. Drop it, release it, drop it gently, as a stone is loosed from fingers drooping oyer a pool. Let it gQ down, sink, fall away. Once pelow the sur­'face there are no di visions, no layers in the water yi~lding aIl the way downj aIl one and aIl unwounded is that element. Send it voyaging; it will Not come, again. Let i t go down,- the hnau, rises from it. This is the second life, the other beginning. Open, oh coloured'world, without weight, without shore. You are second and better; this was first and feeble. (p.1S))

When Ransom cpmes to Malacandra, he brings with him his

bent concept of death. In contrast to the Malacandrian attttude, ,c

the prospect of death ls a source of terror and dismay to Ransom •

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This fear governs his flight dur'ng the first nalf of the .'

novel. ,When Ransom finally appe rs before the Oyarsa in

Meldd..lorn, t)1e latter tells' him, "'you have taken many vain ,

troubles to, avoid standing wher you stand now" (p.142). For

Ranso~, surrendering himself to the Oyarsa constitutes a sub­

mission to death in that he bellaves he will be made a human , :

sacrifice for the Oyarsa. En route to Meldilorn, the petrified

forests which Ransom must pass on his jo~rney mirro~ the inevi­

tability of death. 11 It is only in submitting to the Oyarsa

that Ransom finds deliverance from the oppression of death.

Rather than being ill-treateq, he is received honourably by the .

'Oyars~ in a holy place. Oyarsa's first words invite release \

from Ransom' s agony l "Wha tare you so afraid of, Ransom of

, Thulcandra?" (p.138). , ,

Ransorn quickly learhs that the Oyarsa, far frorn~being a ~

bloodthirst~ ogre, is a~ administrator of justice and goodness.

He als9 learns that his fear of death is a response to manipu-,

lation by the Dark Eldil of -$arth who has rendered people' "wise

enough to see the death of, their kind approaching but not wise ,

eno,ugh to endure i tU (p.16J). The Oyars,a explains to him:

The weakest of IDy peoplè does not fear death. It is the Bent One, the lord of ybur world, who wastes your lives and,befouls them with flying from what you know will overtake you in the end. If you were

? subjects of Maleldil you wouJLd have peace .12

In' submission to the Oyarsa as a repre'sentative of Maleldil,

Ransom dQes find a healing peace. Listening to the dirge pver , , Hyoi • s body, a sense of Il eternal sorrows eternalJ.y consoled,

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of he knew not what and yet what l'fe had l:H)Vays known" awakes

in him and "bow[s] down his spirit as if the gate of heaven

had opened before him" (p.lSJ). ) .

The radical-change within Ransom is evidpnt on the

retum journey to Ea~th. Like the Malacandrians,' Ransom now

perceives death ,as an opportuni ty of release rather than as a

threat. He and Weston and Devine think it unlikely that they

will reach Earth, but unlike his feverish companions, Ransom

is steàdy 1 and expectant"

Sorne moments of cold tear he nad: but each time they were shorter and more quickly swallowed up in a sense of awe which made his personal fate seem wholly insignificant. He could not feel that they were an island of life journeying through an abyss of death. He felt al,most the opposite--that life was wai ting outside the li ttle iron' eggshelL in 1

which they rode, ready at any moment to break in, and that, if it killed them~ it would kill them by excess of i t't:l vitali ty'. He hoped passionately that if they were to perish they would perish by the 'unbodying' of the space-ship and no\.by·suf­focation. To be let out, to be set free"l;to d)ts­solve into the ocean of eternal noon, seemed to him'àt certain moments a consummation even more desirable 'than their return to Earth. (pp.170-1)

"

The orientation to positive death renders Ransom

capable of opening himself to new levels of obedience and \

responsibility. As such he ~ pFepared for a deeper exper-

ience' of self-sacrifice on th~ planet Perelandra. Ttiis

second and greater death journey has' redemptive value not

.. only fÇ>rj Ransom, but vicarioU'sly for Perelandra as weIl. .

The thern'e ,of death and rebirth is manife'st from th~

'beginning of th~ novel, where Ransom, lia tall', white, shiver-

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~ ing, weary ~carecrow of a man" (per, p.24) is enclosed in a

'coffin-shaped casket' in which he travels to that "warm,

maternaI, delicately gorgeous world" of Pereland'ra (P.JO).

Priar to the narration a~ tne adventure itself, the reader

~ is informed in advance that Ransom returned from Perela~dra

dramàtically transfarmed:

l' was silent for a'moment, astonished at the form which had risen from the narrow house--al­MOSt a new Ransom, ,glowing with health and round­ed with muscle and seemingly ten years younger. In the old days he had been beginning to show a few grey hairsi but now the bèatd which swept his chest was pure gold. (p.25)

~

••••••••••••••••••••••• <' ....................... . , j

~ne thing is certain, that he came back from Venus even more changed than he had come ,back from Mars.' (p. 28)

. The ordeal which Ransom faces on Perelandra is the

formidable task of killing Weston, who has become Satan's

representative to that V/orld. As the Un-man, Weston is a Q

'''living Death" (p. 14). To-grapple with it, Ransom realizes,

is to embrace deatl:t--" to g'o voluntarily into thos,e dead yet

living arms" (p.l)4). The Un-man! when'physi~ally attacked,

turns ou't to posse ss only J the strerrgth af a middle -aged man'.

Ransom finds his own energy redoubled by a torrent of lawful

hatred toward this embodiment af evil and decay which he desires"

furiously to annihilate. When the Un-man flees combat, maimed,

°Ransom pursues it, determined to complete the horrendous task. , '

The PMrsuit takes Ra~sam across the high seas te the

darkened, waste plac,es of Perelandra~ So far away fro,m Tinidril

and her familiar beasts, Rausom is tempted to,think his whole

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., mission i~relevant and absurdo In the inscrutable solitude he

refl~cts, "It ~as aIl yery weIl ta talk of lVlaleldil: but wher(:!

was Maleldil now?" (p.151). In this dàrk night of the soul . -

Ransom, Christ-like, traces the steps of the greater 'Ransom',

enduring an ,agonizing helples'sness and a1most overwhelming ..

sense of abandonment as was first r~alized in the remembered '" ,

cry, "EI(;>Ï, eloi, lama sabacnthani" (p. 140). In Ransom's

. baptism ~nto this arche typaI death, he is :litera+ly buried

under the Perélandrian waters and descends into the very bowels -

of that planet. Therej in a dark and fiery subterranean pit,

he conquers, once and for aIl, the demonic Un-man. At the

sa~e time he severs any,means of enchantment by which the ~

Enemy has been able to influence his own imagination or reason.

AlI the d~tortions,which were menacing him up to this point

"died that moment: died utterly, as hh:1eous, music çlies v~hsm

yo1"l switch off the wirelesso" .(p.168). The. 'old' Ransom whic)l

could be manipulated by the.Enem~.' dies with the Un-man. The

mind of the new Ransom is .opaque to the machinations of- evil. 1)

Wishing as well as fearing become "modes of consciou~ness for

which he seÇ!med to have lost the facul ty" (p.174). ).

-4to

R;;msom',ls ~mergence from .the caves is synonymous with the

birth'of the ;new Ransom. He finds himself suddenly ?aught by

a spasm of,warm, swift-flowi~g water and :rloais helple~sly 1

out of blackness into ~reyness and then into an inexplicable chaos 'of semi-transparent blues and greens and whites. • . • A moment later and he was' rushed out into broad daylight and air and warmth,'

- and rolled head over heélsj and deposited,' dazzled and breathless, in the shallows of a great pool. (p.171)

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Ransom weakly rolls out of the pool anto a sweet, blue turf ,

'where he lies

ea ting and sleeping and wakÏ'ng only' ta ea t and sleep again. . • • It was a time to be remembered only in dreams as we remember infancy. lndeed it was a second infancy, in which he was breastfed by the planet Venus berseIf: unweaned till he moved from that place. (p.l?2)

When Ransom is s~rong enough to move about and take ~Qte " \

of the surroundings, ~e ab~erves that he is resting on a high '-.

mountain top encircled by rose-red cliffs. He is astonished ~ ff

at the brightness and fantastic steep~ess of the slopes around ..

him, unti1'1,l-i t oceurs to him that he is "in a young world and

that these mountaQns mi~, ge910gically 'speaking, be in their

infancy" (p.l?J). Wi th the reborn Ransom, Pere'landra cornes

fully to birth. Onc,e again a' pending menace has been' a means

of glory. On meeting the archons of Malacandra and Perelandra

Ransom ls told that this is the morning day: "The world is

born today" (p.182).

,As Ransom's 'struggle with death on Per~l~ndra is both

spiritual and physical (in a way not conceivable on Earth

where body and soul became d~sjointed at the Fall), so t~e ,~

results of that e6nquest ~ffect the whole maQ. Ransom dis-

covers, when climbing the mountains, that he is, no longer \ "

wearied by physie~l exerelse, nor is he disposed towards

loneliness or,fear. That Ransom is no longer sub~eet to physic­

al deteJ;ioration becomes plain in That' Hideous strength where

he has not grown a day or hour older sinee his return to Earth. . '

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. , When Jane meets him. she is struck by his ag~lessnessi he has

the fresh skin of a ,boy, yet the full, golden beard of a man.

He is an embodiment of splidity and strength beside which / '

Grace I.ronwood appears "shrivelled ~nd pale--a thing you

cou;Ld Mve bloWlf Xayll (p~84). The only flaw in 'Rqnsom's

redeemed body is a wound on the heel14 where he was bitten by o /.,

the Un~man, and which can only be healed beyond the seas of

Lur in Perelandra. At .the close of That Hideous strength it

is expected that Ransom will be shortly transported to Lur

_because he is now beyond the workings of natural dea~_ .

In RansQm, Lewis portrays the regress aIl Qut completed , ,

in a specifie individual. Wi thin the cOll.lpany of st. Anne'.St

Ransom exists in semi-Paradisal conditions;- He is alert and , ,

" , receptive to the Divine, interacting with the powers of Deep

Heaven and subjecting himself to the will of Maleldil. Yet in

this self-abnegating role, he is recognized as a distinctive

individual within the company. As the pendragon he rules with , - -

authority over those given to his charge. Even the animaIs

are subject to him. Ransom is the truly Christ-like Adam,

consciously en~cting the creaturely role that is true to tJ

unfallen and redeemed nature. '

Î

, The principle of growing more solid, .more 'like the'real

thing', is key to Lewis's conception of rebirth. At the con­

clusion of the science ficti~ trilogy, Ransom, on the eve of

his ascension, remarks how terrestrial life, even with its pain,

8eems like a dream (THS, p.239). On the pQrder of reality itself, ., ,

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Ransom begins to perce ive the chime~ical quality of earthly

existence! For Lewis, the present life of bbdy and s~irit

represents only a dim foretaste of the resurrection life.

"Think of yourself just as a seed patiently wintering in the 1

earth; ~aiting ta come up a flower in the Gardener's good '-

time, up into the real world, the real_wakMig," he writes. 15

In The Last Battle~such'an awakening greets the children, who,

passing\rnrough the door of death. find th~S i~ t~e 'real'

Narnia, of which the first has only been 9-' COpy) IrAnd of course A' ~

i t is different," says Lord Digory, "as\ different as a real

thing is from a sh,adow or/a.s waking life is from a dream" 1

(Battle, p.154)'. Deligï' and joy pervade this' perfect world

.. as each crea~~re discove s that this is,\the place where he 'truly

j>elongs. "The term i6 ver," announces Aslan, '~the holidays ,

have begun.' The dream is ended 1 this _ is the mor~ing" (p.l.56) '.

At present, Law s explains in "The Weight of Glory",

while the spirit of a reborn individual receives its life ! directly from Gad, the body ,and mind are nourished bY'Him

, '

indirectly through nature and many other eiemepts.' The physical

pleàsures, we now enjoy are but the "taint and fàr-;ff r1sul ts

God's créative rapture implanted'in matter: 1 \ ,

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and'even thus filtered, they'are too much f6r'our present management. Wha,t would it be to tastê at ' V1

the fountain-head that stream of which even these lower. reaches proves sa fntoxicating? (p. J2) ,

. This speëu~ation takes sh~~e in'The,~eat Divorce where

Lewis portrays what i~ might be like for people in their natural,

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" unredeemed state to arrive in the Real World. Where the ghost~

, people could imagine themselves as replete beings in the

·Shadowlands, on the threshold of Heaven they barely materia·l-. ize. The concreteness of such things.as grass, flowers, -and

1

1 rain in this Hi,gh Country prove ,tortuous to their' phan tom

~~lves. "Reality is h~rsh to the feet of shadows, '1 remarks

one of the Solid People (Divorce, p.40). These, in contrast

to the ghosts, are bright, substantial persons, under whose

4 tread even th~t firm ground tremblés. In prayer, Letters to , 1

. (

Malcolm, Lewis I!lentions -that "when Dante saw the great apostles

in heaven they affected him like mountains" (Malcolm, p.15; " ...

original italics). Here the effect is sYmilar. Lewis, 'as one .

of the ,ghosts on this excursion to Heaven, is struck by "the r

massive grandeur of muscle and t,l1e radiant smoothness of (Lesh'"

of th~e huge, Bright People (p.29). They are obviously àt

home in Reality.

" The only hope of the phantom selves being made fit for , ,

, 16 . 1 1

this intense, divine order lies i~ acknowledging their insuff-

iciéncy ~nd calling on the Bleeding Charity. In each instance " ,

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the choice involves consenting to the death of the il~usion of . ,

;:~f~n ::d::et:a::y::nt:;~n::::n:::;l;:::~:s:::e:t:;g:~:s against Tragedian), a~sorPt~~n/.i10 oblivion' C:Hell) i's granted •. A

happier lot is chosen by another Ghost shouldering a red lizard

(lust) which rules him. An Angel'o~fe~s to destroy the lîzard

if the Gh'ost will grant permission. , . )

Aft~r mucl:r evasion, . the

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Ghost subp;lts, whimpering, "God help me. God help me" (p.92).

The Burning One seizes ·th~ reptile in his crimson hands and

kills it. For the Gh~~t, the operation is painful but short~

A minute later; 'Lewis o,bserves the consequences as the Ghost

~erializes into an' immense mah, not much smaller than the

1

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Angel (p.9J). Moreover, the murdered lizard gradually cornes to >,

life as a great and shining st8:llion--wha t he was meant to be.

As Lewis gazes on in astonishment, Gebrge MacDopald, his Angel-

'Mentor, reminds h~m that the trarysformation did require death:

Nothing, not even the best and noblest) can go on as i t now is. ,Nothing, not even what is lowest . and most bestia"1, will not be raised '·again if' i t submits to death. It is' sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual bo'dy. Flesh 'and bloed can-" not come, to the Mountains. Not beqause they;are tao rank, but because they are' too weak: (Divorce, p. 95),

. That the mystery of death is the very formula of realit~

(Mir, p.151) ls'~estated in Till 'te Have Faces.' 'Psyche."sen~es intuitively thâ.t the only way that shé can go to the GQêl of _

l, the Mountain ls' through death, and she aubmi ts willingly. '

Orual, on the other han J, .refuse·~ to understand how the loving

and the devouring on the part of the gods can be one and the

sa me :thing. She cannot concei ve of 'good' ~ath, ev en when she'

'meets Psyche' after- the. G~eat Of'fering 'brightfaced 1 and stronger ,.. ~ .... ~ ,

tlian jpér before (pp.l02-)). f.l Furthermore-, Orual is Uhable to

. participate in the reali ty of Psyche' s new life .. ; rather she -Cl • ." , '

choosgs to clin~ to'her own'world of il~~si~n.

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, Wh en Orual finally determines to search out the truth

,

about ,the gods (in response, to their, wooing), she too must , ., follow the wayof descent and re~scen~. In a'vision, she

descends, unveiled, into a deep" black hole where she is led

ôy her father ta a mirror. Looking into it she sees the face

of Ungit and recognizes h~r devouring self. Rathe~ that dis-,

caver more about herself--" l might be the Shadowbrute also, Il

she reflects (P.278)-~she decides to commit sùicide. But on ,

- the brink of the river the god mercifully' stops herl "Do not l

do it. You cannat escape Ungit by going to the deadlands.

She is there also. Die before you die. There is n6 chance

,aftèr" (p.279).

Determine'd to set herself right anq to transform her ;.

ugly soul into a fair one, Orual sets up what she perc~ives

~o be-a respectable scheme of death. This consists of the

, practi~a of 'true wisdom' which ,Socrates once said was 'the ,l'

skill and practice of death' (p.281). "By the death whl.ch is

wisdom I supposed he meant the death of our passions~d desires -,. ~ ~ J 1

and vain opinions" (p.28l). _ Orual ;urpos-es ea~h mornlng -Ifo be

calm. and wise in a11 thoughts and ac'ts. only ta find herself - ,

consiste.ntly bitter, 'angry or S"ullen •. "1 -could mend:my soul

no more than rny face," she concludes (p.282~. , _

Gradually Orual acknowledges,th~t sne is powerless to'

help herself.

she sets out to

~ ,. This is reinforced by several 'visions in which, , '

accomplish thre~ dif~eren~ t~Sk.--.9rting ~edS'

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gathering wool and collecting water--and each time is cru shed ,

under the sheer. effort. In the final task she cannot collect '

the water of deat~,for Ungit not only because her way i~ barred v

by serpents and scorpions, but because her hands are occupied

w1th a book--her complaint against the gods--rather than ah

empty receptacle. It is not until Orual empties herse If of

her false sufficiency that/g~,is able to receive her 6 ~ .

identity as a person.

1

Ultimate death to self for Orual consists of humbly

acceptirig Psyche's ~acrificial death. This acceptance pr9ves , 1

appropria\ion of gr~ce. Orual vividly re-experiences to be the ,

that death journey in a vision in which Psyche descends into ) .

the Deadlands to seek the casket of beauty which' will render

Orual-Ungit beautiful. Orual denies her natural self as she

'~ watches Psyche belng entreated .by the wailing Or~al to pause ~ • \

from her quest. "1 trembled, for Psyche ••.• 'a great gods,

1 d,efend he,r,' l said to myself., ' ,1 Hurry, hurrr her past "' (p. JO)) .

Emptied of' self., Orua,l is ready to be uÎlited with the Divine

Nature and te receive her true form. As the god approaches

her, Orual is pierced through simultaneously with terror, joy

and overpowering sweetness an,d f~els that ~s being un,madfl

(p.)07). No longer does she feel herse If or ev en Psyche as

central to her existence. ' Whatever counted "was for another's

sake. The earth and stars and sun, aIl that was or"will'be, ,

existed for his sake" (p.J07) • The re born Orual is joyously , . ,

oriented to the So~rce of awe and joy. "

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,'In The Prolllem of Pain Lewis writes,

The thing you long for summons you away'from the self. Even the desire for the thing 1ives ohly if you a bqndon i t. This' is the ultima te law--the $eeçl dies to live, the bread must be cast upon\,~ waters, he that loses his soul Will save ~(pain, p.1J?) ,

l '

. Orual loses her ugly soul and body, only ta ~iscover her trMly " -

beautiful self. She i8 given ~ 'distinct identity as a person

c re90rn (p.J08). For Lewis, this means that she reflects a

unique aspect of the infinite God in'whose image she-was' ma~e.17 - . Such is "thE! eternal distinctness of each soul--the secret which

makes of the union between each soul ~~d. a species in i tself','

(~, p.1J9} • .'T"individualism that,Orual Was striving vainly

,1

• 'to aéquire was only a parody or sh~dow of her eternàl and inviol-

, "

jable pe:rsonal~1;y-, \ Like,.MacDon5Id' s ,~OdOSJ she may

Jto seek her Ideal, but sn~ may rejoiôe to have lost

~*= have set 01-her 'Shadow. 18 ,

Death thus becomes a necessary ingredient in the life of .

the cr~ature, who dies,to self in order that he May mirror God 4, '\

more completely apd '50 glorifi Him. Lewis suggests that SQme-

thing analogous to seif-conquest,may never be entled,' a~d that

eternal life may also be eternaL dying (Pain, p.1J9). If so, •

rio memory 'of 1 bad' death will" linger l "Heaven, once attained, i," ~

will work backwards and turn even t'ha t' agony into ~a glory'"

(Divorce~ p,.62).

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Notes to Chapter Three

1. dL' An expresSlon of Keats frequently use by eWlS. See "Weight of Glory", p.29 and Pain, p.64.

2Austin Farrer, "The Christian Apologist," in Light on C:S'. Lewis, ed. Jocelyn Gibb (London: Geoffrey Bles, 196.5), p. 37. . j

3Miracles, p.152.· See ~ls; Gen.iL17 and Ro~. v.12 J

4Mere Christianity, p.56. See ~lso ~9. \

5C•S: Lewis, The Horse and his Boy (1954, rpt. Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, 1965), p.1rO. . ,

6 ., Miracles,' p .135. Deri ved from Jn. xii. 24-25.

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7C•S • Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952; rpt. Habnondsworth,"Puffin Books, .1965), p.99.

Be.s . Lewis. "Two Ways with, the Self", God in the 'Dock, !l'

Ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970)" pp.19J~5 • .

90Sp , p.116'. Augray's explanation ;para'llels t1!.at of Jewel to Jill in The Last Battle where he tells her that "aIl worlds draw to an end;, except Aslan ',s own country" (p. 52) •

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10See per.· PP.~36-37, ~h'er~ Ransom is tempted- to rei terate the pleasure of tasting a P.erelandrian goùrd, not because he is' either hungry or thirsty, bll.t "in the teeth of desire and in obedience to a spurious rationalism. Il •

/ ~ .

. 11"Wi thin the archetypal theme [of death] the petrified forests of Mars image Ransom's death as the man he has been." w.n. 'Norwood~ Jr. "Unifying Theines in 'C.S. Lewis' Trilogy";' Critiquel Studies in--Modern Fictl0r, 9 (1967). 67-80.

" ,

120Sp , p.16J. In The Pilgrim's Regress, Chfipt,er Six of Book Nineis enti tled "Nella sua Voluntade" from cDante' s Paradiso. 'iii. 85: "nella sua voluntade e nostra pace" --in

-His will is our peace. Lewis carries this" idea into 'the triÏogy: to do the will ~f Maleldil is to have peace, within oneself.

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lJThe idea of opaqueness is derived from Tnat Hideous Strength where Jan~'s mind, once she has voluntarily placed herself under the authority of st. AnneYs, is rendered opaque to ths\Belbury inquisitors (THS,'p.144). ,

\

14In the Biblical.accotint of the F~ll: the serpent is ' told: "He (the seed of the woman), shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his. heel" (Gen. iii .15). Ransom kills the Un-man, Satan's representative, by smashing his head; Ransom, as a man enacting Christ, is bitten on the heel. As the~wounded Fisher-King in That Hideous Strength, RansQm continues to suffer until the waste-land of Britain is healed. Again, this requires the ultimate destruction of a head, this time the Saracen's Head in Belbury. Further comment on Ransom as the . Fisher-King can be found in Charles Moorman, Arthurian Triptych (New York: Russell &·RusselJ., 1960), pp.~12-126.. J

15unpublished lett~r (28 June t96J). Clyde S. ~ilby, ed. A Mind Awake: An AnthologY of O:S. Lewis (London, Geoffrey Bles, 1968), p.,18?

16Daniel Kuhn, ~!The Joy of the Absolute,: A Comparative" Study of the Rômantic Visions of William Wordsworth and C.S. Lewis," Imagination and the syirit, ed. Charles Huttar ' (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971 , p.206.

17 . Pain, p.1J8. See also GeorgetlMacDonald, "The New' Name", Unspoken Sermons, First Series (London: Lcngmans, Green & Co., 188?),' pp~ 'lOO~ll?. This. discovering of one's t.rue identi­ty 'is also articulated in The Honse and his Boy. There Shasta, ,in a death-to-life journey, crosses the desert and arrives in Archenland to find himself not a slave, but the son of a 'king. He is given a 'new name'--his o~iginal on~--Cor.

18George MacDonald~ phantastes (1858; rpt. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), p. 182 • .

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Chapter Four

Hierarchy, Gender and Coinherence '"

Man's creaturely role is exercised first in resp~nse

to his Creator j and secondly in interaction wi th ",other '"creatures.

For Lewis, these are hi,erarchical relationships basad not -on

equ~lityj bu~ on love and obedience. For Lewis's characters,

abando~ing self an~ acquiring personhood requires acknowledging

one's place in the hierarchy and stepping oQediently,into pos-.

ition. Dying q~îIy in this sense signifie~ suffering oneeelf

to be fitted into that place for which one was,originally des­

igned. Thereby one attains not only the peace that cornes from . ~

abiding 'in God' s ovm will', but aiso the pleasure ,which arises ,

from contributing to the harmony of the hierarchicai body.

In the science fiction trilogy, the Oreator-creature

relationship is established within the cosmic hierar0hy.l ,

Maleldfl has created aIl the worlds and is acknowledged as the

universal ruler: Under him are the Oyeresu, who function as ,

tutelary powers over the spec.ific p,lanets. Each Oyarsa in turn

has elâila to serve him in his sphere. 1

These watch over and

direct the hnau--rational, planetary creatures such as the hrossa, )

seroni ,and pfifitriggi of Mars; the King and, Queen of Venus; and . the humans of Earth. The ~au are responsible for the dumb

beasts under thèm.

<!l

The successful operation of this cosmic structure lies

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not in enforced obedience, but in willing subordination oJJthe

part of t.he 'subject, an,d condescending2 authori ty on the part of

the ruler. The love behind the inequality is the key. Discuss­

ing this in Miracles, Lewis says ~ "It is indeed only love that

makes the difference: aIl those very sarne principles which are

evil in the world of selfishness and necessity are good in the t

world of love and understanding", (Mir, p. 124). Towards those .J

below thern in the hierarchy, each being is a conductot of

agape or sup~rior,lovel towards \hose above thérn, each being

affords an eros or inferior love (Preface, p. 75). At the

centre of the hierarchy is the Divine energy of Love, pouring

Himself out to creation.

In Lewis, renouncing one's èrêaturely role is equivalent

te rejecting th~s pattern of le~ing inequality, and apdicating

one's position in the hierarchy. This is how the Earth's

isolation is accounted for in Out of the Silent Planet. Its

A sirnilar conclusion ~s drawn in Thq,Last Battle where the Ape

,pretends to wieÙr"'the power' of A Ellan'. The whqle order of Narnia

'is upset às the Talking (rational) beasts are treated as the "

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...... . .. . - ----,. --.... ............ _----"'--~"'-_. ~--

dumb and the k~)g is

and ignoranc~ beJome

85

stripped of his authori ty',

rampant;

Brutali ty

Thro1fghout That Hideous Strength, Lewis emphasizes; the

altern~ti~es of hierarchy and tyranny'by contrasting ~he company ~ ti.~

of St. Armets with that of the Belbury Institute. The first ' '--

operates in accordance with the principles of love and obedience, !'

the, second according to contempt and brute fqree, Ransom, as'

J Director of st. A.1y1e's, submits 'ta the will of Maleldil whose'

wishes are tra~smitted to h~m bY,eldila. (These are able to

"penetra te the sphere of' Thulcandra because the Dark Eldil has

interf~red in the realms of Malacandra and Per,elandra 1 thus

ending his own isolation and pulling Deep Heaven down upon him.)

~ 1 J In Beloury, Wither is merely a DeputY Direct0r; his mind i9'

manipulated by the evil eldils, or Macrobes J and his real

responsibilities, like everyone else's in Belbury, are virtually '> •

non-existent. ' Where Ransom' 8 authori ty' as the Pendragon i8.

recognized at St. Anne's (even by the sceptic MacPhee), each

of the initiates in Belbury is secretly vYing for headship and

qestroying the other •. Th9se not of the, inner ring in Belbury

also l'ive under a certain terror. Individual positfons and

duties are uncomfortably undefined J and unauthoriseh collabora-I

tian or int'erference between members can prove 'disastrous t

(THS, p.75). In contrast, ·t~ase who jain the compan~ of st.

Annets are able to participate by sharing their knowledge and 1/'

*_ 1 •

talents., In'this diversity of function and per80nalitYJ èach

meffiber is enabled to ~ulfill his unique !olevwith the loyal -, .

,. r - li , 1&Jj1iG4BL·itiJ'!iiiE~:liJ 2Zi6~~~:.~",,',

J

" .'

o

86 (- >'\

support and encouragement of theïhers ..

j , .' ~ / As Belbury is a microcosm of terrestrial

is a microcosm of,the celestial harmony. fhe Anne 1 s have as·sumed. the position ç1esignated to

the angels who are our eIder brothers, an the

evil, st. Anne's

membel's of St.-

man, "between

beasts who are

our jesters, ervants and playfellows" (THS, p. 248). Wi thin

'the re is order and interdependence. It is compar-

able to a body in which Ransom acts as the _head (·THS, p. 73),

and the rest a e parts, cooperating wi th the head and wi th one

another. Lewis frequently uses this Scriptural metaphor4 to 0.

~ i"llustra te hier rchy and interdependence. God reveals Himself

"to men who are body, loving one another, helping ,

one another, sh Him to one another. For that is \'lhat God .

meant humanity be like; like players in one bang, or organs 1

, p.14o). It is significant Lhat in Belbury,

the goal is to spose of the complex organs of the body and

"to be come aIl p.157). For this reason, the

'mas·se.s' are to isappear, and an intellectual nucleus, as a

self-sufficiert echnocracy, is to replace the human race.

In an address enti tled "Membership", Lewis explains how

the Pauline sense of members of a body accommodates the rea~ity

ai inequalitj: .... ,.",y members (,uiJ.7'l) he [St. paul] meant what we 1

should calI organ~, things essentially differerit from, and / ,

complemen~ry to, 'one another: things d'iffering not only in

structur and function but also in digni ty. ,,5 This quali ty of

members

.'---.. /

/

the vertical and hor~zontal structures

tll;

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l 1

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~- -----,--------.----

87

-of the cosmic hierarchy. The vertical pyramid of Maleldil,

Oyeresu, eldila, hnau and beasts exhibits sueh a differentiation ,

of function'and dignity. Within the horizontal plane of any

particular vertical layer, ~here also exists the variety of

complementary roles. On Malacandra, three species of rational

"hna:u live in unison, each differing in function and none sub­

sérv i'ent to the others. The hrossa are honoured as the "great

speakers and singers" of tha t wor Id (OSP, p .~3) ;' the sorns are

respec~ed for their knowledge and the pfilftriggi 'for their

tec~nieal skills. ,. .

Together the three form lia unlty 04' unlikes, 1

almost of incommensurables" ("lV1.empership". p.)8).

In That Hideous Strength, the element of ehoiee that eaeh

pet'son faces, to surrender to the good or'to eomply witn evil, ,

can be seen in terms of accepting b~ refusing his unique place - -~

. in the hierarchy. For Jane ,Studclock, recovering her 'unlikeness' -

and particips,ting .in this 10ving inequali ty is a difficul t step.

She has heretofore been acqua~nted primarily wi th",the diseased

and perverted manifestation of terres~r~al hierarchy: that

which insults and expl?its. She has no guarantee that this

experienoe will prove to be dilferent; when Camilla Denniston .. insists on Jane 1 s joining them, her husbanC\ admonishes her':

(.:

"No, C~m, don't .••• Mrs. studdock must come iJl freëly .... We are, in fact, asking her to take a leap in the dark." He tut'ned to Jane. Il It -­is like that," he said, "like getting married, or becoming a mcmk. You don',t know what it's like until you take ,the plunge." He did not perhaps know the complieated resentments and resistances which his choice of illustrations awoke in Jane. (p. 73)

,

o

o. , .

,\ ,

... ,~t _, _,' 1'"

88

What Jane ,discovers to be inherent in the hierarchy,

and what she resists, is the inequality of the masculine and

the feminine. In terms of 'gender ~ 6 "everything tha t 'exists is ...

masculine relative to those things which are below it in the

chain of being, feminine ;elative to those which are above it.,,7 , -

Jane resents that part of he~ whlchis_not self-sufficient, Q

~---,

which seeks love and support, and which she pe-jora tiyely des-

cribes as "running for comfort to male arms" (p~ JO). Ran~ôm

'- tell's her:

Your trouble has been what old poets called, Daungiet; We calI it Pride. You are offended by the mascul~ne itself .... The male you could have eséaped," for it exists only on the bio­logical level. But the masculine none of us can escape. What is above and beyond aIl things is so masculine tha t we are aIl feminine in relation to i~. ' (p. 194)

To lI'espond, to God as the absolute, begetting Masculine

is to be restored to creaturely--recept~ve--Feminini ty. 8 ' The' ,

~tmospherB of st.'Anne's strongly lndicates creatureliness in "

this sense. Firstly, the company is awai ting orders, which

suggests receptivity; secondly, a large part of th~ waiting

c0!1sists of tending the gard.en, suggesting fec'undi-ty. As a

fertile sanctuary, St. Anne's prepares to receive and nurture

the issue of ~he Masculine which will redeem Britain. The

atmosphere and' philosophy of Belbury, on the o~her'hand, negates , ~

any such creaturely femininity. In contrast to the lush

v~~e~ation b'f st. Anne' s, the Insti tute is c6mposed of an .out­

growth of .buildings in cement. FilistratQ, one of the N.I.G.E.

scient~sts, idealizes the inorganic as he detects it in lunar

"

1

j!. ~

", '. q,n

6 '

)

(:)

'-

o

89

,

condi tions and wishes i t fol(' Earth: "thousands of square miles

of polished rock with

lichen ••. "(p.10)).

phere of Belbury can

1

e blade of grass, not one fibre of

rms of gender, the s~iritual atmos­

her ascert~ined by its ~ymbol--

a muscular male nude grasp ng a thunderbol t--as ~ell Jas i ts v

representative feJ.!lale, the masculinized. "Fairy" Hardcastie.

/ For Jane, initial su miS.sion to the Mascul~nê is enacted

. by ~èr placihg herself in beçlience to Ransom. After her' ffrst " ,

, -meeting wi th', him, in which shë is overwhelmed by his inherent

~uthority and power" she f nds hers.elf "simply receptive of

the nirector" '(p. 89), havi g surrendered wi thout terms. Rans0m, . as a· representati ve of Mal accepts Jane's obedience but

,

tells her, "This is the co tesy oI: Deep Heaven:, tha t when·

you mean weIl, He always t :fè:es you to have. meant better than "..0 ,

you knew. , . It will not be nough for always. . • . He will have

you for nO,one but Himself in the .e],'ld" (p.l)'8). Later Jane'

does en,counter Reàli1ïY "wi h no veil or protection between" -

(l>:196) •. In that Presence "the ·little idea of herself which

she had hi therto called mg" vanishes, and she f'inds 'herself' "a

person (not the person she Jhad thought) yet also a thing--~ \ ,1

made thing, 1l!Çl.de to please tn0ther •.• ,,' (p.197). She dïs-

covers both her -inequali ty ~ef'oreo th,~ Masculine an~' her own

.\ , oP

1

1

Jane t s spiritual f'emin';i.zation is mirrored in, her amended, , ." \ ' ~ ~ \

attitudeltoward her husband Mark,- to whom she desires 'to' give

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4-'!.

... ,] p - .... ~ .... ~""r....,.,.._ ........ c· ..... r'-'~ ...... > ".._~".

"

herself

-----.J

90

conclusion of the novel, ,,'descending the lad der ,

othumility" (p.251). As,male and female, Mark and Jane are ....

'in themselves limi ted representatives of the Masculir;le and

Fem~nine. While Lewis perceives "t,hat every created thing is, , .

, in i ts deg,ree, an image of 'Go~" 9 and can lead to Him, he iEi

, also aware that. each is 'merely an Lmage and must not be regarded '

'. as the reali ty in i tself. ~his is the affirmation of images and

the rejéctiQn of images--a useful formul~ which Charles Williams

summarized in the maxim, "This a'}so 1s Thou; nei ther is' this " .

Thou" (Torse, p .151) . It is itl·thi~ light that Jane and Mark's " 1

conjugal love can be' apprecia ted. 'In the act of love,' ther are

representati ves in whom "aIl the masculini ty and femi~in]ty of , . / ." . the world, aIl that lS assallant and responsive, are mome~tarily'

,

'focused" (Lovés, p. 95). .A-y tne sarne time,. they are ,engaged in"t

a~ ri tuaI in which .they are merely·,playing raIes, and each (, \ .

must ,.be' aware of being seriousJn, the wrong way: " .

Il ~ . • -

A woman' who accepte'd as li t,erally her own this extreme self-sur.:render would be an idolatress

l' ,

offering to a man what belongs only to God .. And a man would be . . • a blasphemer, i~ he arrogated

,to himself, as-the mere pers,on he',is l" the sort of' ,

&OvereigntYft9 which Venus for a moment exalts him.' Bu·t wha't:~annot lawfully be yielded or , claimed can be lawfully enacted. Outside this ri t1lal or drama l).e and she are two immortal soulf; ~ two free-born adûlts, two citizens ..•. ·But with­i'n the, ri te • • . they' become a god or goadess betreen Vlhom there is no. equali ty--who1e relatIons' are; asymmetrical: (Loves,' PP.95-6) .

! ,' 0 , .

1

,1 1. i

1 .i

The pro~~o{ spiritual feminization 'can ?lso be traced '. ~. , ~

within the theme of the creaturely response in -Till We Have Faces. , o 1· ..

" 9

'~.r t'

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) "

'. t;;;\ ~~J

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91

Psyche, as the,' anima na turali ter Christiana', responds

readily to the Divine love and give.s <:herself to Him uncompromis­

ingly. Orual hardens -herselt' against the god, and rejects His' ,

wooing. "Her graduaI unveiling or seîf-opening is rewarded by

the god' s coming to her and accepting her as His bride. The'

i'ace that Or~al acquires is a feminine one--like Psyche' B in

that i t is that oi' a goddess and' a real and beautiful woman

(p. 306). Orual' s comment--UHow can' they [the gOds] meet 'us face

to~ce till we have faces?" (p.294)--.suggests" in this conteJ;Ct,

that one must become fully feminine in order to be united wi th

the Masculine.

In this sense, all of creation is i'eminine in relation

to tne Greator. The paradisal world of perelandra is appro­

priately described in terms of tenderness, warmth and matern-­

ity (~, p.jO). In The Pilgrim's Regress, john is tOld, that...(

the Lady (that is, the Virgin Mary), as the archetypal- case

wi thin crea tfon,

spol\e and acted for aIl that bears, in the presence of aIl that begets<. .'. for matter as against forro and -patiency against agency. IE not the very word Mother akin. to Matter? Be sure that the whole of 'this land, wi th aIl i ts warmth and 'w~ness and ' fecundi ty . . • spoke through her lip when she .

. said He had regarded the lowliness of is handmaiden. (Regress, p.184)

The feminin~ty,of creation rend ers ,possible the Incarnation,

and thus the Redemption. As the planet Perelandra nur~ures J

i ts redeerner Ransom, so Earth, through. a willing and re,sponsive

creature, receives ~nd nurtures its own savlour .. In this.

, ,

" l

92 ~ '1

1 , g!'and miracle of the Incarnation (Mir, pp. 1)1-1.58 ) , Omnipotence

humbles Himself to -be succoured ~y His own creation {Pain, pp. - -

)8-9}. The Divine Ward becomes f.lesh. In this way, feminized

creation is united with, and participates in, the Godhead. 10

,This participation is ~ade possible by largesse which

pervades' the hierarchy. In accordance with this courtesy of ~

Deep Heaven, a superior being may humble himself to aid an

inf'eri,or or, to raise him in glory. Thus, in the cosmic trilbgy, , .'

Maleldil "prepared for Himself, a body 4and was ooi ted wi th the

Dust and made ,it glorious for ever" (Per, p.199). In this

sense also, the Oyarsa of' Perelandra surrenders the direction of

that planet into the hands of the King an.d ::aise4"" him to Tor­

Oyarsa. - In turn, Top anticipates new means of exchange betw.een

himself and 'Tinidril as rulers in their world when he says, in

reference to their gaining new knowledge, "It may be that in

this matter our natures are reversed and i t is you who beget .,.

and l who bear" (per, p.19b). It i8 through such means of

exchange or substitution that agape love is Most ~ully

demonstra ted wi thin the hierarchy.

The exercise of ex'change or substi tutxon in the cosmic

d • l k . h . 11 Th" .. l or er ~s a so nown as COln erence. .. J.S ~s a prJ.nc~p e

which Lewis found enriched in the' wri tings and friendship of

Charles Williams. 12, As an interchange among separate iden~ities, ~

coinherence represents the epi tome of hartnonious interdependence.

Summarizing i ts basic idea., L~wis wri tes 1 ,

J

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93

'He saved others. himseif he cannot save' 'is a definition of the Kingdom. AlI salvation, every­where and at aIl times,' in great things or in ' little, is vicarious. The courtesy of the Emperor has absolutely dec~eed that no man can paddl@ his own canoe and eve~y man can paddle his fellow'sf so that the shy offering and modest acceptance of' indispensable aid shall be the very form of the celestial etiquette. (Torso, p.123; ,original italics)

In Perelandra, Ransom is awed to discover that after Tinidril'sJ

su.ff'ering and striving, Tor accepts ,t'he world" for his reward.

The King, realizing. that Ransom ~oes not perceive justice in-

this ac~,. explains the celèstial etiquette in terms of substi­

tution,'

AlI is gift. l am Oyarsa not by His gift alone bùt by our foster mother's, not by hers alone but by yours, not by yours alone but my wife' s-­nay, in sorne sort, by gift of the very beasts and birds. Through many hands, enriched with many different kinds of love and labour, the gift cornes to me. It is the Law. The best fruits are plùcked for each by sorne hand that is not his own. (p.194)

This principle of exchange is' also at work in Till We

Have Faces1) where the love of the gods transcends human just-,

ic~. In this instance, Psyche" and Orual coinhere as Psyche

1

/ J

perf'orms the tasks that liberate Orual, " and Orual carries.· the

burden of' P§yche's suffering. In the dream of the grain-sorting,

Orual su.f~ers utmost frustration while on Psyche's face there

is no trace of anguish (Faces, pp.256-7; 299). 'In tpe. second

dream, Orual is butted and trampled on by the rams as she fails

to' gather their golden fleece 1 lea,ving Psyche to glean wi thout . . ,

effort a rich harvest (pp.28J~~; 299:-JOO). In the vision in

which Orual crosses the burning sands to fill a bowl w~ the~

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94 ,

.J'

water of death, she suffets the scprching sun and the terro~ ,

of scorpions and once again -fails i,n her que st; meanwhile Psyche ~ " merry:and in good hea"rt, ob tains the water (pp.285-6; 300).

Reviewing the, procession of tasks in the form-of staries ~ainted

on the w~lls of a great ehamber, Orual is mystified by Psyche's

apparent tranquillity and, wondering at the justice of her own , . suffe,rü1g, questions the Fox 1

":eut how could she--did she really--do suéh things ~d go ta sueh places-~and not • • . ? Grandfather, sne was aIl but unsca thed. She was almost happy. Il

"Anot~er bore nearly a~l <he anguish."

"I? ls it possible?"

"Tha t was one of the true things 1 used to say ta you. Don't you remember? We're aIl limbs and parts of one Whole. 'Hence, of each other. Men and gods, flow in and out and mip.gle. • . • You bore the anguish. But she,achieved the tasks. Would you rather have had justice?" (pp. )00-1)

In a final vision, Psyche suffers for Orual by descending into

the Deadlands ta reeoVer the bea~ty which Orual cannat obtain

for her'self. Orual' s acceptance of the gift of her redemption .

culminates the two-way exchange. She 'becomes' Psyche,

completing the pattern of the coinherence.

For Lewis, as for Williams, self-suffieiency i~ the

anti thesis of coinherent exchange, and as such i t is, a joyless 1

state. Orual' s earlier insistence on'-self-autonomy ("we want , ' ,

her ta be o~r own t} keeps her for many years from the delight of , 1

interdependence. In The 'Pilgrim's Regress, the epitome of this , ,1

barren state is'portrayed in the figure of Superbia, or Pride.

C· :

; . i

..

95 h 1

This famished, skeleton-like çreature has scoured the rock on

which she lies of any earth 50 that though she starves of hunger

she will not eat anything common: or unclean. Not 9nly will she

receive nothing; she will give nothing of herself. She has tom . '

from her breflsts --she Y'las formerly an udd'ered. beast-':"her own

child. Thus she 'claims:

So l, borrowirig nothing and repaying No'thing, nei ther grow1ng nor decaying, ' Myself am to myself J a mortal God, a sel{-contained Unwindowed monad, unindebted and urtstained. (Regress, p.183) -

Superbia and the ~ady thus stand in stark contrast to each other

in The Pilgrlm' s Regress. As L'ewis states in Arthurian Torso, ,

"What the Coinherence means is best seen ~n the instance of' the ~

Blessed Virgi~. Christ is 'born (and borne) of herl she is barn , .

(and potne) of Christ" (Torso, p.143).

The Nàrnian equivalent of Superbia's self-con~ained atti-. "

"tude is the 'high and lonely destiny' chosen by Jadis of Charn.

This Lili th-like amazon destroys her entire world in order to

:~ontain ali power in herself. In Narnia, her reign as the ~lhite

Wi tch is a harsli and sterile one; joy is banish-è~ from this land

where,' as long as' she rules supreme, i t is always winter and

• ' .. 'l'lever' Christmas. .

Aslan's coming brings spring-to Narnia1 and

his .'redemptive act of substitution restores order and" delight.

There is' laughing and dancing as, the deadly-whi te statues, '

. tra~sfi~e'd bY the Witch" are summoned back 'to life ..

The e{ements of 'Pleasure' and joy inherent in "self-o •

"

/ .

giving are successfully evoked by Lewis through the cQ>mpr,E!!hensive

1

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Il 1. iIL.U US. Il Il litt m. Ut ba_ t .:œ - FFI

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..... 96 • 1~

image ,

1

of the Great "Game or Great Dance. In the .dance. the

descending and ascending movements of hierarchic~l exchange ,

,comprise a harmonious patte,rn. Maleldil-Christ, "the gr,eat

master Himself, leads the reve~ry, giving Himself eternally, " l ,

to His c~eatures in: the generation, ,and back to Himself in

the sacrifice, of the· Word" (Pain, p. 141). "Ransom, in the : . 1 -----

éoncluding ceremony of pere'landra, f'inds, himself transcending

his limited human perceptions of equalit,y and justice as he 1 .

is caught, up in the Great Dance. Here, as' in rnembership ,in

~ bOdy~J '--

aIl Is righteousness and there is no ~quali ty. Not as when, stones lie side by side, but as

1 when stones support and are supported ln an arch, sueh is His order; rule and obedience, begetting and bear ing, hea t, gl~ncing down, life 'growing up. , (Per, p. +99)

\

At the centre of the Dance is Maleldil, and because each

creatu:r:e is with Him, each is also at the centre. "There is

no way out of the centre, save into the Bent Will which casts'

i tsel:!' o,into the Nowhere" (p. 201). Equali ty of exist~rlce and

"ineQ'Lla1i ty of fUnction, t as principles fully cornpr-ehended: and

celebrated, form the basis of ,th~ ,coinherence s 1

1 Thus each ,is equally at the centre and none are ~here by being e9.uals, but sorne by giving place and sorne by re ce 1 v ing i t, the small things by their smal1ness ana. the great by their grea tness, and aIl the patterns link'ed and looped together by the" unions of a kneeling wi th a sceptred love.

('Per, p. 201)

To acknowledge one self as al creature is to .enter the

dance and assume one 1 s unique position. Affirmation of self , '"

.' \.

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idKUbJtkI t. LJ l' SIl! 'BU 1 IL

97

is swift1y ~ol~owed by ecs~atic self-s~render as one

traces the master-movement. At 'each kneeling cme finds in.

his new subo,rdination a significané,e greater than" that , '

a

ab~icated (Per, p. 202). This is the pattern of the creature1f

reaponse--the etern~l danoe "which makea-, heaven drowsy with the ~

harmony" (Pain, p. 141).

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Notes to Cha}2ter Four ~

1Mar jorie Wright, "The Vision of Cosmic Order in the Oxford Mythmakers," Imagination and the Spirit, pp.259-276.

21 use the wo~d ' conde scend' here . in i ts older sense: "tO' come down voluntarily". 8r to willingly come down f~om a, posi tion of pride or digni ty' (See The Oxford English Dictionary, condescend. 1). As such i t implies not a patronizing air but an atti tude of self-giving. It lis in this sense that Milton uses it (Paradise Lost VIII, 644-651), as does Lewis, who refers to i t as} a "beautiful word which we have spoiled" (Preface, p. 79) •

JI owe this observation to Richard L. Purtill, "That Hideous strength 1 A D'auble Story," The Longing for a "F"ëirm 1

ed. P.J. Schakel (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1977), p.100.

41 Cor. xii.12-27; Eph. iv.15-16. .. ... 5e.s• Lewis, "Membership," Transposition and O'ther

Addresses, p. J7. l'

60n Perelandra, Ransom learns th;t "gender is a reality, , and a more fundamental reali ty than sex. Sex is, 'in fact, merely the adaptation to organic .life of a fundamental polàr-' ity which divides aIl created beings. Female sex is simply , one of the things tha t have feminine gender j there are many others, and Masculine and Feminine meet us on planes of reali ty where male and female would be simply meaningless. Masculine is not attenuated male, nor feminine attenuated female. On the 7

contrary,: the male and female of organic creatures are ra ther faint and blurred reflections of masculine and feminine. Their

, reproductive functions, their differences in strength' and size, partly exhibi t, but par'tly also confuse and' misrepresent, the real polarity" (Per, p.186).

?N~rwood, "Unifying Themes," p.78.

8Edward .. G. Zogby, S.J. devotes a large part of his article to this theme in "Triadic Patterns in Lewis' s Life and Thought," The Longing for a' Forro,pp. 20-J9.· ~,

9C• s. < Lewis and Charles Williams, Arthurian Torso (London: Oxford Uni versi ty Pre ss, 1948), p. 151. Hereafter ci tE\d as Torso.

98

-/

J

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0.

'.

99, ..

10 - - , . Loves-, p.122;.. -Malcolm, p.?3.

, , 11The concept of coinherenc~'ls der~ved from tne Latin

'circumincessio' and emerges in patristic thought té express the mutual', indwelling of the three Persons in the !Prini ty. G.L. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought (1936; London. S.P.C.K., 1952), pp.266-301.

<,

12CharlèS Williams explicates the principl~ of coinherence in The Des~nt of' the Dove (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1939) and in He Came Down frDm Heaven (London, Heinemann, 1938), pp.1l4-1J3. It ïs also illustrated in his novel, Uescent Into Hell (New YOI"k: Pellegrini & Cudahy;' 1949) and the poem Talliessin through Logres' (London: Oxford University Press, 1938).

/

, ,,) 13This aspect of Faces has been examined by several critics. See Nathan Starr, C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces (New York: S~abury Press, 1968), pp,16-l7: Clyde S. K~lby, "Till We Have' Faces: An Interpretati.on," .The Longing :for a Form, p.180; . ,and Jas. ,R'. Christopher, "Archetypal Patterns in Till We Have .-Fa~es,:' T~ Longing for a Form, p~.206-9.'

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary ,Works by C~ S,' Lewis

The Abolition of Man, or Reflections, on Education wi th "

Special Reférence to the Teaching of English in the

Upper Forros of' Schools. New' York) MacMillan Publishil1.€;

Co: .. 1947,

The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition,

Oxford: Clarendon '-Press, 1936. '- '

(Wi th Ch~rles Williams). Arthurian Torso: Containing the

"Posthumous Fragment of the Figure of Arthur by Charles Williams and a Commentary on ;the Arthurian:' Pèems ·of

Charles Williams by C.S. Lewis. London: Oxford " University Press, 1948.

Christian Reflections. ed. Walter Hooper. Grand Rapids:

Eerdroans Publishing Co., 1967.

The Dark Tower and Other Stories. "ed. Walter Hqoper.

New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977. ,. ,

The Discarded Image i' An Introauction to Medieval and

Renaissance Literature. Cambridge:, Univer.sit,r Press,

1964.

Dymer. London: J.M. Dent and Sons Ltd., 1926.

, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama.

, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954.' · )

1 Tl1e Oxford Hlst'ory of English Li ter:ature, vol. III.

(Jdite~ wit~ a prefac~). Essays pre~ented to Charles Williams .

. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans P~blishing Co., 1966,. :

An Experiment'in Criticism. Cambridge: University Press, , 1961.

"The'Four Loves. 1960; rpt. ',London:' Fontana Books, 196).

100

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(Edited, wi th ,a preface). -George M~cDonaldl An Anthology .•

London: Geoffrey Bles, 1946.

God in the Dock, . Essays on Theol0tW" and Ethics, ed·. Walter

Hoope:r. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1970.,

The Great Divorce. 1946; rpt. Glasgc;>wl Fontana Books" 1972 •. •

A Grief Observed. London: Faber and Faber .Ltd., 1961 ..

The Horse and Hi s Boy.

Books Ltd., 1965. 1954; rpt. Harmondsw,orth: penguin

" The Làst Ba'ttle. 1956; rpt. 'Harmondsworth: Peng;uin Books Ltd.,

1964.

Letters of C.S. Lewis. ed. W.'H. Lewis. London: Geoffrey

Bles, 1966.

Letters to an Ameriaan Lady. ed. Clyde S. Kilby. 'Grand

Rapids: E~rdrnans Publishing 00.,1967 . . The' Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. 19.50; rpt. Harmondsworth:

penguin Books Ltd., 1959.

The Magician I·S Nephew. 1955; rpt. Harmondsworth: Pengl:ün ' Books , Ltd., 1963,"

Mere Christianity. 1952; rpt. London: Fontana: BOoks, 1955.

Miracles. London:, Geo!ftrey Bles, 1947: J

Narrative Poems. ed. Walter Hooper. London: GeoffreJ Bles,

, 1969.

Of Other Worlds.: Essays and Stories. ed. Walter Hooper.

New York: Harcourt,'Brace and Worid J 1967!' j

Out of the Silent Planet. 1938; rpt. Lond~m; Pan Bookd Ltd.~ . 195? .

(Wi th E.M. W. 'Tillyard'). 'The Personal Heresy r A Controversy ...

London, OXford'University Press~ f965.

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The Pilgrim' s Regress: Ah A11egorical ApoloGY for Christiani ty,

Reason and Romanticism. rev. ed., London: Geoffrey Bles,

1943.

Poems •. ed. Walter Hooper •. London: Geoffrey Bles, 1964.

Prayer: Letters to Malcolm. 1964; rpt~ Glasgow: Fontana, 1966.

A Preface te Paradise Lost. Paperback ,ed., Landon: Oxford

Universi Gy Press, 1942. ,

Prince Caspian. 1951;. rpt. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd.,

1962.

The Problem of Pain. 1940; rpt. London: Fontana Books,_ 1957.

Reflections on the Psa1ms.

1967.

i96l; rp't. Lqndon: Fontaria Books, n

Q ,

Rehabili ta tions and Other Essays, London 1 Oxford Uni versî ty

Press, 1939.

The Screwtape Letters. 1942; rpt. 'London: Fontana Books, 1955. -

Screwtape Proposes a Toast and Other Pieces. London: Fontana r; ...

Books, 1965.

Sele cted Li terary Essays. ed. Wal te r Hooper., Cambridge:

Universi ty ,Press, 1969.

The Silver Chair. 1953; rpt. Harmondsworth; penguin Books' Lid., 1965.

. Spenser's Images of Life. Cftmbridge: University Press, 1967.

Spiri tg in Bondage: A Cycle of Lyrics. Under the pseudonym

of Clive Hamilton. London: William Heinemann, 1919. Il

Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Li terature. Cambridge:

University Press, 1966.

Studies in Words. Cambridge: University Press, 1960.

Surprised by Joy. 1~55; rpt. London: Fontana Books, 1959.

That Hideous strength. 2nd ed., 1945; rpt. London: Pan --Books Ltd., 1955. -

1

~""'.3R4J B •• UUMf&U 1111 ' IJ lU • .w

,t

, 1

10)

, 1 .' They Asked for a Paperl - Papers and Addresses, 'London:

, '

... Geoffrey Bles, 1962 •.

Till We Have Faces: A M.yth Retold. _ 1956; 'rpt, Grand ~apids 1

Eerdmans, 1966 •

. Transkosi tion' ~d Othger Addresses, London: Geoffrey Bles, 1949', -The Voyage of 'thé Dawn Treader'. >195~: rpt .. Harmondsworthl'

Penguin -'Books Ltd., 1965.

Voyage to Venus '(Perelandra). ,., , " .

. '

194 J ; rpt. London: . Pan Books

Ltd •• J1953,

The Wor1d 1 s Last Night and Other Essays.

J, •

Brace & World • .1952. {\>

. ;

New York 1 1 Harcourt,.

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Secondary Source s

\ ,

"Augustine, 'St. The City of Gbd. Tfans. G.E. McCra,cken,

7 vols. The Loeb ClasBic~l- Library. Lo~donl He innemann ,

1957.

ConfeS'Sions. . IJ.lrans." ,R. S. Pine -Coffin.

Harmondsworthl penguin Books Ltd., 1961 •

Barfield, Owen. Saving the Appearancesl A Study in Idolatry.

New York: Harcourt 1 B,race & \vorld, 1965 . . .

B~van, Edwyn. Symbolism and,Belief. London: George,Allen

& Unwin, 19J8. \ Boethius. The Consolation of Philosophy. Trans. tiLT." (1609).

- - .. ___ -1"

rey. ij.F. steward. The Loeb Classi~~l Library. London: ~---Heinnemann, 1936. ~--

Carnell, Corbin S. Bright Shadow of'Reality: C.S. Lewis an,d , -

- the Feeling Intellect. Grand Rapids: Eerdlllans 1 1974. ; a

Gibb, Jocelyn, ed. Light on C.S. Lewis,. New York: -Harcourt

Brace, 1965.

Gilbert, Douglas and Kilby, Clyde S. C.S. Lewis: Images of

His. World. ,Grand, Rapids: Eerdmans, 197J.

Green, Roger L. and Hooper, . Wal ter. C. S. Lewis 1 A BiogrÇl12hy. 1>

London: William Collins, 1974. ,

Hamm, V.M. "Mr. Lewis in Perelandra." .. 271-290.

. + Hannay, Margare t. "Orual ; The Seatch

Mythlore; 2, No. J (1970), -5~6.

Thought, 20 (1945'l. ,

for Justice."

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- Higgins, James E. BeyOnd Words: M.ystical Fancy in' Childt'en-' s '"

Li terature.'. -New York: Columbia University Teacher 'r s

College Press, > 1970. "

Hi11egas, Mark. Shadôws of Imagination; . The Fantasy of IL S.

, . Lewis, J.R.R .. Tolkien ~d,Charles Wi11iàm~, Carbondalei

Southern Illinois University, Press, 1969.

:104

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Huttar, Charles, ed. Imagination and the Spirit:

,Literature and the Christian Faith Presented

. Essays in

to Clyde S',

'-Irwin, W.R. "There and Back Aga in 1 -The Romances of Williams,

Lewisr- and To1k~en," Sevlanee Review, 69 (1961), 566-78,

Kilby, Clyde S. The Christian World of C.S. Lewis~ Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964.

Kranz, Gisbert. C:S. Lewis: Studien .zu Leben und Werk • •

Bonn: Bouvier Verlag Herbert Grundmann, 1974.

Law, William. A Serieus CalI to a,Devout and Holy Life. . c

Ldndon 1 . J., Richardson, 1729. -'.'-. 1

The Spirit of Prayer. ,'London:' Mo;' RichardS9!lt _~749. " ---.-

~indskoog,_Kat~ryn. The Lion of Judah in Nevet-Never Lan~

Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973,

MacDonald, George. Phantastes and Lilith. 1858; rpt. Grand

Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964.

-' Unspoken Sermons. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1887. . Montgomery, John W; My th,' Allegory and Gospel: An Interpreta-

•

tion 6f J.R.R.' Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Charles

Williams. Minneapolis: Bethany Fe11owship, 1974 • .

Moorman, Charles. Arthurian Triptych: MYthic Materials in

Charles Williams, C,S. --Lewis and T.S. Eliot. New York:

R~ssel1, and Russell, 196~" . ( ,

Morrison, John. "Obedience and Surrender in Narnia." Bulletin "

of the New, York C.S. Lewis Society, 7, No. 12 (1976), 2-4.

Noel, Henry .

Bulletin

4-16.

J'

liA Guide't6 C~S. Lewis's The Pilgrim's Regress.»

of the. New York C.S. r;ew~sSociety, 2,. No. 4 (1971),

Norwood, w.n. "Unifying' ~hemes ~n' C.S. Lewi~ ~rilogy:." Oritigue: Studies in. Modern Fiction,.9 (1967), 67-80.

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Otto, R~dolf. The Idea of the HOly. Trans. J.W. Harvey, 2nd. ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1950.

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London: 1:)

Purtill, Richard. Lord of the Elves and the Eldils. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974.

Reilly, Robert J. Romantic Religion: A Study of Barfield, Lewis, Williams and Tol~ien. -Athens: University of 'Ge~rgia Press, 1971.

Schakel, Peter J. The Longing for a Form: ~ssays,on the Fiction of C.S. Lewis. Kent: Kent State University Press, 1977.

Shideler, Mary M. The Theo1ogy of Romantic Love 1

the Wri tings of Charles Williams. New York: . '

A Stug,y in Harper, 1962 •

Shumaker, Wayne. ,"The Cosmic Trilogy of C.S. Lewis." Hudson Review, 8 (1955), 240-54.

Starr, Nathan C. C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces. New York: •

Seabury Press, 1968.

Tolkien', J.R.R., The Tolki~n Reader. New York: Ballantyne, 1?66.

Urang, Gunnar. Shadows of Heaven: Religion and Fantasy in the Writing of C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams and J.R.R. Tolkien. London: SCM Press, 1971.

Walsh, Chad. ",C_. ,;;:;S.,:.' -=L;:;.ew=i.::;.s..;.: ........::A;.::.'p'"'"o;:;..;s=-t=l;:;..;e~t.;;.;o"--t;.;;.h=e;.....;:;S=k;;.;;e'-"p~t;;.;;i;..oc'""'"s • MacMillan~ 1949.

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New "York~

White, Willi~m L. The Image of-Man in C.S. Lewis. Nashvillel Abingdo'n Press, 1969.

, Williams, Charles. Descent, into Hell. 19371 rpt. New York:

Pellegrini & Cudahy, 1949.

The Descent -br ;the Dove 1 A' Sho'rt' History of the Holy ~pirit in the Church. 'Londonl Longmans, Green & Co., 1939.

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Press, 1938. \

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London: Oxford ,University

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