Volume 18 Number 4 Article 3 Fall 10-15-1992 C.S. Lewis and Narrative Argument in Out of the Silent Planet Jim Herrick Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Herrick, Jim (1992) "C.S. Lewis and Narrative Argument in Out of the Silent Planet," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 18 : No. 4 , Article 3. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol18/iss4/3 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 Argues that “Out of the Silent Planet is principally an argumentative effort in which Lewis is exploring and exploiting the persuasive, argumentative potential of narrative, and in particular of the science fiction genre.” Additional Keywords Argument in Out of the Silent Planet; Lewis, C.S.—Use of science fiction genre; Lewis, C.S. Out of the Silent Planet; Narrative in Out of the Silent Planet 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/vol18/iss4/3 CPyTHLQRe Issue 70 - Autumn 1992 Page 15 C .S . L a o is and Nflawarivc AiRguimcra: in Out oF the Silent Planet Jim HeRRicK . S. Lewis' Perelandra Trilogy presents the reader with The enigmatic character of these works, and especially Ca literary enigma. Out of the Silent Planet (1937), of the first, has led at least one critic to allege literary Perelandra (1943), and That Hideous Strength (1945), are offense on the author's part. Donald Glover finds in Out o f thematically related and share some characters, but each the Silent Planet a competition between what he terms novel stands strangely unrelated to the others in style, plot, "information" and "the deeper imagination" and and, apparently, purpose. Because they deal with concludes that "there is no adeQuate fusion of the imagina­ religious, moral and social themes in an interplanetary tive and didactic elements" in the novel.13 Finally, as if to setting, the books are difficult to classify. Sir Hugh collect all of the views expressed about Lewis' science Walpole calls Out o f the Silent Planet, for instance, "a kind fiction, A. N. Wilson has recently written of Out of the Silent of poem," but Marjory Nicolson holds that "Mr. Lewis has Planet: created a myth" in this first work of science fiction, a view [It] is a book in which the author is firing on all cylinders. shared by J.R.R. Tolkien.1 Chad Walsh writes as well that all It brings together Lewis the scholar, Lewis the voracious three of the books "were issued as 'novels/ but in reality are reader of anything from medieval schoolmen to Italian three installments of one myth."2 Kathryn Lindskoog notes epic to modern science fiction, Lewis the Christian that "not all science-fiction enthusiasts enjoy Out o f the Silent apologist, Lewis the Irish satirist in the savage tradition Planet, partly because it includes nothing about technology of Swift, Lewis the failed Romantic poet.14 or science," and finds the work to be "in reality a moral or A survey of critical reaction to Lewis' space trilogy, and religious fantasy."3 Hedging his bets, Joe Christopher sees especially to its first installment, may leave a reader Out of the Silent Planet as "science fiction romance."4 wondering what exactly Lewis was up to in these books. The purpose of these intriguing books is also in ques­ Was he writing as poet, myth-maker, philosopher, satirist, tion. Wayne Shumaker finds a persuasive point to them, novelist, romantic, propagandist, visionary, or all of the writing that they "were intended to render both intellec­ above? Moreover, if the Question invites so many possible tually and emotionally attractive a whole complex of ideas answers, each with its several defenders, did Lewis com­ which pre-existed them."5 Similarly, George Sayer sees mit some fundamental blunder in writing these books? Lewis writing stories in which "Christianity is implicit," This paper focuses attention on the first book of the trilogy, and these books to be no different from "all of his fiction."6 Out o f the Silent Planet. Purtill has written that "those who On the other hand, Richard Purtill explicitly rejects the think Lewis intended his fictional works as arguments for notion that Out o f the Silent Planet, at any rate, was written Christianity obviously have little idea of what argument as an apology for the Christian faith.7 But perhaps is." (Purtill, 137.) Nevertheless, this paper maintains that Platonism and not Christianity is at issue in these works. Out o f the Silent Planet is principally an argumentative Robert Houston Smith interprets the planetary romances effort in which Lewis is exploring and exploiting the per­ as outworkings of Lewis' Platonism, a view shared by suasive, argumentative potential of narrative, and in par­ Christopher who sees Out o f the Silent Planet as presenting ticular of the science fiction genre. Out o f the Silent Planet the "Platonic-and-pre-Christian religious (or natural law) is here viewed as a narrative argument which addresses Utopia of Malacandra.''9 issues that could not as successfully or as readily be ad­ dressed using expository prose, propositional logic, or the Or, is Lewis not out to advocate either Christianity or natural language dialectic of works like Miracles or The Platonism, but rather to create an imaginary world or simply Problem o f Pain. This view of the book, it is maintained, to tell a good story? Peter Schakel affirms that the creation of helps to explain several paradoxes attending it, including what Lewis calls "atmosphere" is "a central aim in Lewis' why critical responses to it have been so varied. Evidence own science fiction books Out of the Silent Planet and to support this diesis is drawn from the novel itself, Lewis' Perelandra,"10 while Thomas Howard finds that "Lewis has own claims about Out of the Silent Planet, and critical for his first concern the telling a good story" and that his appraisals of the work. Before turning to the evidence, "central concern inO utofthe Silent Planet" is the development however, it may be useful to summarize the characters and of vision and image that verge on the poetic.11 Then again, plot of Out o f the Silent Planet. Gilbert Meilander holds that these three books taken together "provide . a good starting point for discussion" of Lewis' In Out o f the Silent Planet, Elwin Ransom, a professor of theory of pleasure, though he allows that they accomplish philology, is found in the midst of a walking holiday, a several other, more obvious, purposes as well.12 pedestrian tour of some part of England. At the end of a Page 16 Issue 70 - Autumn 1992 CPyTHLORe long day of hiking, he is disappointed in his efforts to find long valleys and vast plateaus, its unnaturally thin and lodging for the night. Walking on as the sun sets, he steep mountains, its warm canals, its vegetable and animal encounters a woman who pleads with him to find her life. Of particular interest to Lewis are the intelligent mentally impaired son who has been working at a nearby species on Malacandra— the hrossa, som s, and pfifltriggi. estate for a mysterious scientist. Ransom agrees to inQuire The social life and vocational interests of these three about the boy, and, after several unpleasant turns, finds groups, especially the hrossa, are explored, as are their himself drugged and bundled on board a space ship interrelationships. The presence of three species, each with bound for Mars. The ship is manned by the greedy and distinct interests and abilities, is, no doubt, one reason that soulless Devine — who turns out to be a former school­ Smith, Christopher and others have found a Platonic mate of Ransom's — and Weston, an evil-genius physicist theme in the book. who has developed the space craft in which the three are As striking as is the imaginative work of Out o f the Silent travelling. Planet, this vision of another world is apparently only Devine seeks only riches by risking the journey to Mars background for another and more important task being — the planet has an endless supply of gold. Weston seeks performed by the novel. The imagined details of the the extension of science and the human species by coloniz­ Malacandrian landscape, like the remembered topoi of ing Mars at the expense of the planet's natives. What is some ancient Athenian edifice, conceal arguments that initially unknown to any of the three is that Mars — or Lewis the skillful rhetor brings forth one by one in making Malacandra — is an untainted world inhabited by three his case. Four kinds of textual evidence in the novel intelligent species, and ruled by an angelic being who is suggest its fundamental argumentative nature: (1) the God's own representative.