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In 1956, Clive Staples Lewis wrote an intellectually deep book, which he titled "Till We have Faces. " It is considered one of his best works although it is not one of his better-known works. This particular novel provides one with many ways to interpret. There are so many symbols, metaphors and at times the mythic retelling can appear to be an allegory. Till We Have Faces is a wonderful retelling of the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche. In this myth, Psyche is not allowed to see her husband, Cupid, at all. However, Psyche is coerced into stealing a look at her husband and in doing this, her world falls apart.
C. S. Lewis takes a brilliant twist and tells the story from Psyche's older sister's point of view. The older sister's name is Orual. It is Orual who convinces Psyche to cheat a look at her never-been-seen husband and therefore is the instigator of the pain that Psyche experiences for the rest of her life. Orual becomes the Queen after her father, the King, dies.
She hides her pain until she dies. It is interesting to hear different interpretations and then to remember where that particular interpreter is coming from. With this particular author, C. S. Lewis, the most obvious background to associate with this novel is that of the church.
This association is made because C. S. Lewis was a brilliant Christian theologian. From this background (also mine) one might see issues of faith in God or salvation from death and inheritance of Heaven. Another person, perhaps an atheist, may see it as a desperate plea of a Christian to defend his faith. Yet another Atheist may see in this story, an extended metaphor for overcoming one's undesirable qualities, as is the case in Orual becoming beautiful Psyche.
A college student may glean out of it that we (Orual) are at war with methods of thinking. Orual is caught between the logical, realistic, "Occam's Razor" type thinking of the Fox, the religious beliefs in Ungit reinforced by the Priest, and the simple, "hands off" thinking of Bardic the soldier. So one can see how different groups are influenced to see things that may or may not be there; that may or may not have been intended by Lewis when he wrote this particular novel. The duration of my time reading this book I interpreted different things in different ways because of my biased ways of looking at the world: biased in that I have worldviews that influence my interpretations. My Christian influence is the first worldview to be considered. Because I am a Christian, I will look at different aspects of the story, such as what it is that the character of Orual represents within the contexts of Christendom.
I may ask why is there a contrast in appearance in Orual and Psyche, Orual being very ugly and Psyche not having any ugly in her at all. However, Christianity is not my only worldview. I am also a play director and connoisseur of any art form. Because of my theatrical interest and knowledge, I look at the play in another way.
I ask what is the character of this person and why is it that way. Common questions of characterization are, "Where is that person coming from and where are they going?" and the other big question is "What is their motivation?" As a director and actor, I am interested in the motives of the character, who they are and why they are that way. Also, as an artist, I am interested in the beauty, balance and message of the artist or author creating the work. As a Christian, I saw an unfolding retelling of God's plan of salvation and also saw how much God loves us as humans. Orual represented humankind and how ugly people are where Psyche, in contrast to the latter, represented Christ. However, you can't read the book as if it is an allegory as I was tempted to do quite often.
One reason that you can't do this is because "Till We Have Faces" is a myth-based story. You really can't read too much of an allegory into a myth because they are two different types of literature. An allegory is a story that has a much deeper meaning than what appears on the surface of the story, whereas a myth is a story that explains how something came to be or why it came to be that way. I kept on looking for some type of deep story-form representation of God, humans, Jesus, the cross, his disciples and anything else that goes along with the story of Christ.
The meanings that I assigned to the characters and events constantly changed. So, I quickly learned in what ways to look at the book. For instance, at first I saw Psyche as a whole representation of Christ. This is due mainly to the appearance contrast between Orual and Psyche, in that Orual is ugly and Psyche is beautiful. Because Psyche is beautiful, she must represent Jesus, God's beautiful gift to us. A gift to us would be a gift to Orual if Orual represents humankind.
The people of the village saw Psyche as a gift and were always coming up to her and asking her to bless them as if she were a god. All of Game (the name of the kingdom where they live), every single person whether servant or Lord, was convinced that she was a goddess. In one part the villagers call to her, " A goddess, A goddess!" (pg. 32) and further on they say that she, "is Ungit herself, in mortal shape. " All of this had me convinced that she was an allusion to Christ. When they sacrifice Psyche to the God Ungit, my views were reinforced when the sacrifice worked and all of their troubles were on the decline immediately after "the Accursed One " was sacrificed. I got confused after they found her alive (which convinced me of a resurrection) she was banished from the "Mountain Castle" which I thought to be Heaven. So what was she?
My final interpretation was to make her a representation of love from there on out. She was Christ and now she was love and perfection in the end of the book. She was the beautiful person that we all will be when we get to Heaven. Not only that, but Orual when she met with Psyche again, was made beautiful. She was transformed into the beauty that comes from having the knowledge of self-truth and love.
Orual was shown the truth or her devouring love and was therefore made beautiful for she knew the truth. With the worldview of a director and actor, I looked at motivation of character mostly. The biggest question and most intricate to plot was, "Why is Orual doing that? What is her motivation to act in this way?" When starting the book, Orual appears to be a caring individual, however, her character goes through a change (as do all lead characters in a book, if the plot is a good one). Orual begins to look at the world and people though a self-centered view of everything, especially Psyche.
She refers to Psyche as her daughter at one point proving that she feels ownership of Psyche. She is so jealous of the Mountain God that marries her sister that she goes out to kill Psyche if she doesn't betray her current faith and loyalty to her husband. Why does Orual do all of this? It is because she feels insufficient in her homely appearance and needs Psyche there, with her and her alone, to be a boost to her self-esteem. She says at one point in the book that "She [Psyche] made beauty all round her. When she trod on mud, the mud was beautiful" (p. 22).
She obviously feels that Psyche does the same for her. She lives her life in beauty vicariously through Psyche which is evident in the assumption of the veil after Psyche's exile. It...
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