Stephen F. Austin State University SFA ScholarWorks Electronic Theses and Dissertations Fall 12-11-2020 To Reach the Unreachable Stars: Reexamining the Shared Arthurian Vision of C. S. Lewis's Science Fiction Trilogy and Raymond Chandler's Marlowe Novels Hollis Thompson [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/etds Part of the American Literature Commons, Christianity Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, Medieval Studies Commons, and the Modern Literature Commons Tell us how this article helped you. Repository Citation Thompson, Hollis, "To Reach the Unreachable Stars: Reexamining the Shared Arthurian Vision of C. S. Lewis's Science Fiction Trilogy and Raymond Chandler's Marlowe Novels" (2020). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 352. https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/etds/352 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by SFA ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of SFA ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To Reach the Unreachable Stars: Reexamining the Shared Arthurian Vision of C. S. Lewis's Science Fiction Trilogy and Raymond Chandler's Marlowe Novels Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. This thesis is available at SFA ScholarWorks: https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/etds/352 TO REACH THE UNREACHABLE STARS: REEXAMINING THE SHARED ARTHURIAN VISION OF C. S. LEWIS’S SCIENCE FICTION TRILOGY AND RAYMOND CHANDLER’S MARLOWE NOVELS By HOLLIS THOMPSON, Bachelor of Science Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Stephen F. Austin State University In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts STEPHEN F. AUSTIN STATE UNIVERSITY December, 2020 TO REACH THE UNREACHABLE STARS: REEXAMINING THE SHARED ARTHURIAN VISION OF C. S. LEWIS’S SCIENCE FICTION TRILOGY AND RAYMOND CHANDLER’S MARLOWE NOVELS By HOLLIS THOMPSON, Bachelor of Science APPROVED: ____________________________________ Dr. Kevin West, Thesis Director ____________________________________ Dr. Kenneth Untiedt, Committee Member ____________________________________ Dr. Ericka Hoagland, Committee Member ____________________________________ Dr. Troy Davis, Committee Member ____________________________________ Pauline M. Sampson, Ph. D. Dean of Research and Graduate Studies ABSTRACT Although Raymond Chandler and C. S. Lewis seem to be a rather strange pairing, the ways in which they both borrow from Arthurian literature and use the myth to speak to their cultural moment are strikingly similar. Following T. S. Eliot’s use of the Grail quest in The Waste Land (which set a standard for the use of such material in Modern literature), these authors use Arthurian elements as a means of exposing hidden connections between the fragments of the literary past and the present within Chandler’s Marlowe novels and Lewis’s science fiction trilogy. Both men present Western identity as fundamentally dialectical, with every nation and individual struggling between an idealized and corrupted system of values. By making their heroes modern version of Galahad the sacred knight and exploring their conflicts with twentieth-century culture, both authors suggest that the Western world must move beyond corrupted moral codes like chivalry and accept a higher standard of moral idealism in order to escape from this dialectic and destroy the evil that threatens to consume their world. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Though listing all the people who made this thesis possible would take up many a parchment of medieval manuscript, I must acknowledge my debt to those who have invested the most in it. First, I must give gratitude to my family, who not only put up with my obsessions with King Arthur and C. S. Lewis, but actually encouraged them! Vanessa Thompson deserves credit for teaching me to read and write and for allowing me to chase my dreams while growing up. Scott Thompson gets the credit for being my first and most generous patron. I thank Rhett and Grayson Thompson for being my first fans. Finally, Chris Manzo deserves the credit for making reading C. S. Lewis a generational tradition in the family. Next, I thank my brilliant and beautiful wife, Haley Patillo, for the massive amount of work she put into helping me edit this entire study and for supporting me through this rigorous and exhausting process. She deserves the credit for supporting me through many a breakdown and anxiety-ridden day. I love you! Next, I must thank the amazing members of my thesis committee. Thank you, Kevin West, for being my thesis director and for your tireless efforts to ensure that this thesis became the best that it could be. You also derive the credit for introducing me to some of the key Arthurian texts for this study, like Wolfram’s Parzival. Thank you, Kenneth Untiedt, for your constant mentorship and for teaching The Big Sleep in my first ii graduate course (which gave me my first chance to write about it). Thank you, Ericka Hoagland, for ingraining MLA 8 style in me during your Bibliography and Research class and for helping to fuel my obsession with fantasy and science fiction. Thank you, Troy Davis, for joining me on this scholarly journey, your enthusiasm about the topic, and your ensuring that I commit few mistakes regarding the history of the twentieth century. I must thank every teacher who ever worked to show me how to read and write about literature. In particular, I can never give enough gratitude to Brian Billings and Craig Nakashian. Dr. Billings, thank you for introducing me to Chandler’s work and for being my mentor. I would not be the scholar nor the person I am today without you. Thank you, Dr. Nakashian, for introducing me to the classic Arthurian texts and explaining the concepts of chivalry to me; this thesis owes much to your teaching. My fellow graduate students at Stephen F. Austin State University have been a second family for me. I want to thank Andrew Markus and Athena Hayes, in particular, for the many conversations we have had over the topic of this study and the proofreading with which you both helped. Andrew, you also deserve a lot of credit for putting up with me in the program for two and a half years. Thank you for being such a great friend. Athena, thank you for your encouragement and support on this project; I wish you the best with your thesis next semester. Finally, I thank Yeshua Messiah, the Lord to whom I owe allegiance and to the glory of whose court I dedicate this thesis, for His inspiration, love, and constant iii compassion on His knight. Though this knight is often more scared than sacred, You never have forsaken him. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: “These Fragments I Have Shored Against My Ruins” ................................. 1 Modern Arthuriana .......................................................................................................... 1 C. S. Lewis and Raymond Chandler on the Dialectic of Chivalry................................ 15 Literature Review .......................................................................................................... 24 Methodology ................................................................................................................. 29 The Induction to Knighthood: The Evolution of the Sacred Arthurian Hero in The Big Sleep and Out of the Silent Planet..................................................................................... 33 The Evolution of the American Knight: Philip Marlowe as Hard-Boiled Galahad ...... 33 The Journey into Faërie: Elwin Ransom’s Martian Romance ...................................... 51 A New Round Table: Ladies, Combat, and Brotherhood in The Lady in the Lake and Perelandra ........................................................................................................................ 65 Band of Brothers: The Lady in the Lake and Fellowship in World War II ................... 65 The Green Lady of the Waves: Perelandra and Cosmic Combat................................. 80 The Fall of Arthur: The Long Goodbye and That Hideous Strength as Retellings of the Destruction of Camelot ..................................................................................................... 96 Vanishing Knights: The Long Goodbye and America’s Farewell to Marlowe ............. 96 Logres and Britain: That Hideous Strength as the Battle for England’s Soul............. 113 Conclusion: “My Name Also Is Ransom” ...................................................................... 132 The Figure of Galahad................................................................................................. 132 Marlowe: Galahad as Tragic Outsider ........................................................................ 138 Ransom: Galahad as Camelot’s Redeemer ................................................................. 141 “He is the Hero. He is Everything”: The Messianic Roles of Marlowe and Ransom . 145 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 149 Vita .................................................................................................................................. 158 v INTRODUCTION: “THESE FRAGMENTS I HAVE SHORED AGAINST MY RUINS” Modern Arthuriana Literature scholars of the past few decades have routinely considered