Through the Lens of the Four Loves: the Idea of Love in Till We Have Faces

Inklings Forever Volume 8 A Collection of Essays Presented at the Joint Meeting of The Eighth Frances White Ewbank Article 24 Colloquium on C.S. Lewis & Friends and The C.S. Lewis & The Inklings Society Conference 5-31-2012 Through the Lens of The ourF Loves: The deI a of Love in Till We Have Faces Paulette Sauders Grace College Follow this and additional works at: https://pillars.taylor.edu/inklings_forever Part of the English Language and Literature Commons, History Commons, Philosophy Commons, and the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Sauders, Paulette (2012) "Through the Lens of The ourF Loves: The deI a of Love in Till We Have Faces," Inklings Forever: Vol. 8 , Article 24. Available at: https://pillars.taylor.edu/inklings_forever/vol8/iss1/24 This Essay is brought to you for free and open access by the Center for the Study of C.S. Lewis & Friends at Pillars at Taylor University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Inklings Forever by an authorized editor of Pillars at Taylor University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INKLINGS FOREVER, Volume VIII A Collection of Essays Presented at the Joint Meeting of The Eighth FRANCES WHITE EWBANK COLLOQUIUM ON C.S. LEWIS & FRIENDS and THE C.S. LEWIS AND THE INKLINGS SOCIETY CONFERENCE Taylor University 2012 Upland, Indiana Through the Lens of The Four Loves: The Idea of Love in Till We Have Faces Paulette Sauders Grace College Sauders, Paulette. “Through the Lens of The Four Loves: The Idea of Love in Till We Have Faces.” Inklings Forever 8 (2012) www.taylor.edu/cslewis 1 Through the Lens of The Four Loves: The Idea of Love in Till We Have Faces Paulette Sauders Grace College Till We Have Faces was published perversions of love. While the emphasis in 1956, four years before the 1960 of the novel is on Orual because she tells publication of The Four Loves. But this the story, much can be gleaned from novel contains many of the same ideas examining all of the main characters to about love and their perversions found in see how they reflect and personify The The Four Loves. Clearly, several of the Four Loves. characters in the novel personify the Redival, the second oldest various types of love and their daughter of Trom, King of Glome, is perversions presented in The Four Loves, beautiful, but “sensuous, superficial, and Lewis must have had these hedonistic” (Van Der Weele 189). From representations in mind when he finally the time she was a young girl, she did not collected all his ideas about love together want to be with her two sisters, but in a systematic way in The Four Loves. An constantly looked for male examination of Till We Have Faces companionship. To her maids, all she through the lens of The Four Loves is a talked about was love and men. By her way to better understand one of the teen years, she would sneak off with any themes of the novel while giving us more young man who came into the castle. examples to help clarify Lewis’s concepts When her father finally caught her with in The Four Loves. Tarin, a common soldier in the kingdom, In the novel, Till We Have Faces, he had Tarin castrated and ordered her published in 1956, C.S. Lewis presents the sisters and tutor to watch her constantly story of three sisters—Redival, Orual, and (Till We 25). Redival is an embodiment of Psyche—princesses in the pre-Christian Venus or sex without love. Redival also kingdom of Glome. Chad Walsh feels that serves as an example of the person who the central theme in Till We Have Faces is perverts Eros (romantic love) into a Queen Orual’s attempt “to make the gods religion of sorts. She worships “being in speak up and vindicate themselves” love,” and attaining it becomes her all- (Literary Legacy 161). He also says that consuming passion. the “central psychological theme” is “the Because Redival is so full of lust quest for self-knowledge” (163). Another and selfishness and desire for pleasure, critic, Evan Gibson, says the theme is she has no room in her life for affection Lewis’s attempt to show that “God is ever for her sisters or others around her in the seeking in all nations those who will turn castle. There is also no room for the to Him” (222). While these themes are gods—she does not rebel against them; definitely in the novel, I believe the she just ignores them (Kilby, “Till We: An central theme has to do with love— Interpretation” 180). She does use reactions to love, examples of love, and organized religion once when she 2 Through the Lens of The Four Loves · Paulette Sauders jealously runs to the Priest of Ungit to tell about her through her narration of the him that the people of Glome are story. She is so physically ugly that she beginning to worship Psyche instead of wears a veil over her face once she Ungit. She feigns an interest in seeing that becomes queen of Glome. The reader the gods continue to be worshipped, but it cannot help but feel sympathy for Orual— is merely a façade to cover her jealousy of she is ugly, motherless, and mistreated by Psyche. her father (Hannay, “Orual” 5). But from However, later in the story, when the time that her youngest sister Psyche is Orual meets Tarin, now a chief eunuch in born, Orual loses herself in her loving and another kingdom, Orual and the reader caring for Psyche. Orual gives the learn more about what caused Redival’s impression that she really loves Psyche, “Venus” and perverted Eros. Tarin tells with Gift-love, when she says that Psyche Orual that Redival’s constant attempts to is “the beginning of all my joys” (Till We get to know men reflected the fact that 20). She feels almost like a mother to she was lonely. Tarin says, “She was Psyche when her real mother dies in lonely… Oh yes, yes, very lonely… She childbirth. Orual loves Psyche so much used to say, ‘First of all Orual loved me that she takes her away from the nurses much; then the Fox came and he loved me and domestics as soon as possible little, then the baby [Psyche] came and (Howard 169). “I soon had the child out of she loved me not at all’” (255) So part of their hands,” she says—and into her own Redival’s problem could be blamed on (Till We 21). Orual’s lack of response to her need for Just before Psyche was born, King love. Trom acquired a Greek slave, nicknamed Lewis says in The Four Loves, “As “the Fox,” to be a tutor for his children. soon as we are fully conscious, we Once Psyche begins to grow up, she and discover loneliness. We need others Orual and the Fox spend all of their time physically, emotionally, intellectually” together. (Redival will not join them.) All (10). Redival readily illustrates this Need- of Orual’s memories of this time are love. When Orual leaves her pleasant ones of idyllic, happy days spent companionship for the Fox, their new in learning Greek ideas and frolicking tutor, Redival really feels left out since together out-of-doors. Orual’s love for she was “born without intellectual Psyche grows and appears to be full of capacities” (Gibson 240), and does not Affection and even Gift-love. participate in their mental pursuits. When However, when Psyche is chosen Psyche is born, Redival feels totally by the priest to become the offering to the robbed of Orual’s love. She expresses that gods so that the plague, famine, and need for love in her teenage years by drought will disappear, the reader attaching herself to every young man who becomes aware of a subtle change in the comes into the palace. Thus her Venus relationship between Psyche and Orual. develops from her unfulfilled Need-love. When Orual goes to Psyche’s chamber to Redival’s Need-love is finally try to comfort her the night she is to be fulfilled when she is married and has offered, Psyche does not express any fear children. Now she has several people who of death. Instead she speaks of her love her and need her. She dotes on them sacrifice euphemistically (as the natives (and they on her) and talks of nothing but of Glome did) as a marriage to the her children when Orual visits her in her goddess Ungit’s son, a god called the new home (238). Shadowbrute. Instead of comforting Orual, oldest daughter of King Psyche, Orual says, “Oh cruel, cruel! Is it Trom, is the most complex character in nothing to you that you leave me here the novel because the most is revealed alone? Psyche, did you ever love me at 3 Through the Lens of The Four Loves · Paulette Sauders all?” (Till We 73). Orual even admits that From this scene up to the very last when Psyche speaks bravely of the scene in the novel, Orual demonstrates an coming sacrifice on the Grey Mountain, enveloping, selfish love for Psyche. But Orual feels, amid all of her love, a Orual herself views it only as Gift-love. bitterness, a grudging against whatever Her motives toward Psyche seem good on gives Psyche courage and comfort (75). the surface (Van Der Weele 189). She When Orual sees that Psyche vows that no Shadowbrute or wild loves the gods more than her and is mountain man is going to destroy Psyche, anxious to go to them, Orual responds, “I her beloved sister; she wants to save her only see that you never loved me.

Load more