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The Use of the Vertical Plane to Indicate Holiness in C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy

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The Use of the Vertical Plane to Indicate Holiness in C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy Volume 34 Number 2 Article 3 4-15-2016 The Use of the Vertical Plane to Indicate Holiness in C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy Sarah Eddings Northern Arizona University Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Eddings, Sarah (2016) "The Use of the Vertical Plane to Indicate Holiness in C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 34 : No. 2 , Article 3. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol34/iss2/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Examines the contrasting symbolism and imagery of perpendicular structures (mountains, trees, built structures, and so on) and waves in the Space Trilogy as a whole. Eddings finds more than simple gendered symbolism in these clusters of images; verticality indicates reaching for the heavens and waves show submission to the will of Maleldil. These symbols are reconciled in the arches of the temple Tor plans to honor Maleldil in Perelandra. Additional Keywords Lewis, C.S. Space Trilogy—Symbolism This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol34/iss2/3 The Use of the Vertical Plane to Indicate Holiness in C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy Sarah Eddings In C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, Cambridge philologist Elwin Ransom travels to Malacandra (Mars) in Out of the Silent Planet , Perelandra (Venus) in P e r e la n d r a , and serves as an agent of heaven on Thulcandra (Earth) in T h a t Hideous Strength . Each planet's geographical features—the striking "perpendicularity" of Malacandra and the waves of the water world Perelandra—are at first glance very different. Michael Ward explains Malacandra's "perpendicularity" as "phallic imagery," emphasizing the archetypal masculinity of Mars, the Roman god of war (80-81). The waves of Perelandra are described in the book as a metaphor for relinquishing one's control and submitting to the will of Maleldil (God), and Sanford Schwartz explains this as an inversion of Platonic Being vs. Becoming (15). Useful as these insights are for the individual novels, they are presented as applicable only in the context of the novel in which they are found. I would like to suggest that all three books in the trilogy share O ut of the Silent Planet's emphasis on verticality and P e r e la n d r a 's use of the wave to indicate holy space. In each book, Lewis uses a number of vertical images, both spatial and social, to depict the vertical plane as well as one common image, the wave, to illustrate the spiritual state of each planet. First, I will demonstrate how positive (upward pointing) verticality and defiance of gravity indicates the acceptance of Maleldil and negative (downward pointing) verticality or submission to gravity indicates refusal of him throughout the trilogy. Then I will show how Lewis uses wave and water as a common example of verticality throughout the trilogy to indicate holiness and willing submission to Maleldil. In order to demonstrate the spiritual significance of weightlessness and the inclination to rise or reach toward the heavens, resisting gravity, I must start with Ransom's initial experience with space in the trilogy's first volume. In O ut of the Silent Planet, Lewis corrects the notion of space as a "barren" void, "an abyss of death" ([OSP] 34, 145), with images of the ocean and fertility explicitly linked to a "spiritual cause for [Ransom's] progressive lightening and exultation of heart" (OSP 34). The protagonist, Ransom, is kidnapped by physicist Edward Weston and opportunist Dick Devine and Mythlore 34.2, Spring/Summer 2016 33 Sarah Eddings taken to M alacandra as a sacrifice. W hen Ransom learns he is in space, he initially panics, but soon he is com forted by the feeling that "the very nam e 'Space' seem ed a blasphem ous libel for this em pyrean ocean of radiance in w hich they swam " (OSP 34). H e spends his tim e "basking," "totally im m ersed in a bath of pure ethereal colour" (OSP 34). W hat once seem ed to him a "black, cold vacuity, the utter deadness [that] separated the w orlds" he begins to think of as an "ocean" or "w om b" from w hich "the w orlds and all life had come" (OSP 34). Ransom , apparently unafraid of the ocean, finds com fort in this m etaphor. H e decides the "[o]lder thinkers had been w iser w hen they nam ed it sim ply the heavens" (OSP 34). A drift in the heavens, Ransom is anchored only by the slight gravitational pull of the spacecraft. In his return trip to Earth, Ransom w ould do aw ay w ith the ship itself, for "[t]o be let out, to be free, to dissolve into the ocean of eternal noon, seem ed to him at certain m om ents a consum m ation even m ore desirable than their return to Earth" (OSP 145). Before Ransom's adventures on M alacandra, in which he experiences a great spiritual grow th, and after them , R ansom feels m ore alive and spiritual than ever in this "ocean" that is the heavens, buoyed up aw ay from gravity as if on a w ave. "Falling out of the heaven, into a w orld" m arks the change in im agery from oceanic and drifting, in w hich R ansom felt spiritual peace, to vertical and anchored, in w hich creation seem s to long and reach for heaven w here gravity is not a factor and spiritual consum m ation is achieved (OSP 41). As the spaceship approaches M alacandra, Ransom experiences "disturbing sensations" w hich turn out to be the "w eighting] of his lim bs" (OSP 3 9 ) . T h e planet's gravitational pull draw s them out of heaven dow n, in a vertical line, to its surface. Once he gets his bearings, Ransom observes "the sam e them e of perpendicularity—the sam e rush to the sky" in hills, w aves, trees, and the first natives he encounters, the s o r n s ( O S P 49). H e concludes correctly that "he m ust be on a w orld lighter than the Earth, w here less strength was needed and nature w as set free to follow her skyw ard im pulse on a superterrestrial scale" (OSP 49). Ransom 's personification of nature suggests that all of creation, sentient and non-sentient, organic and inorganic alike, is w illfully and actively reaching for the heavens, "the w om b of the w orlds," from w hich it w as born (OSP 34). K ath Film er points out that R ansom 's first sight of M alacandrian trees suggests "a clum p of organ-pipes," and he describes the flowers on M eldilorn, the seat of O yarsa, M alacandra's tutelary spirit, as "taller than a cathedral spire on earth" (188). Film er concludes that this im agery contributes to R ansom 's "encounter [with] the num inous, a sense [also] conveyed to the reader," an effect carefully created by Lewis (188). This aw areness of the supernatural suggested by the various features of M alacandra is confirm ed by the inhabitants' clear spiritual belief in a creator called M aleldil the Y oung w ho 34 Mythlore 128, Spring/Summer 2016 The Use of the Vertical Plane to Indicate Holiness in the Space Trilogy appointed the Oyarsa to rule the h n a u , the sentient beings of Malacandra, and who can be found at Meldilorn, the spiritual center of the planet where grow the flowers "taller than a cathedral spire" (OSP 105) that reach for heaven. Despite the seemingly universal impulse of all things Malacandrian to ascend, to soar upward and away from the planet's surface, Ransom learns during his stay on the planet that in Malacandra's past lie unfortunate experiences with forces which compelled descent. A curiosity of the Malacandrian vocabulary is the term "bent" in place of bad (OSP 68). As Bettie Jo Knight explains in her dissertation " b e n t as the term for evil suggests Augustine's (and Luther's) use of the word c u r v a t u s with reference to the sin that moves man to turn from God [...] toward the world" (141). One can imagine something on Malacandra that initially points upward bending to become something that points downward, a clear revocation of heaven. Hyoi, Ransom's guide to Malacandrian society, has only heard stories of a few "b en t" h r o s s a (one of three sentient species on the planet), and he has difficulty comprehending the existence of a sinful creature.
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