Chapter 20-Part II: How has the myth of Cupid and Psyche been retold in this book?

Title: Till We Have Faces – A Myth Retold    Author: C. S. Lewis

Chapter: 20-Part II

Question: How has the myth of Cupid and Psyche been retold in this book?

As I near the end of the book – being more that half way – I find myself thinking of how has the myth of Cupid and Psyche been retold in this book; how has C. S. Lewis retold the story? Has he told it from another character’s perspective? Or has he taken an artistic license into hand, and the story that he tells in his book is only partially based on the classical myth?

After writing the questions above, I did a little research and discovered the basic story of the classic myth. I found that the answer to the the questions above are all pretty much ‘yes’, and the results are quite interesting and clever. C. S. Lewis does decide to tell the myth from another character’s perspective (Psyche’s eldest sister), however, he puts a twist in the midst fo this. [THIS IS LIKELY A SPOILER!!!!] Once Orual becomes queen, she decides to take a tour of the country side of which she has never seen. Near to the end of her journey, she comes across this temple to a goddess. The old priest there tells her the story of the goddess, and Orual is surprized to find that the story is that of Psyche and how she came to be with Cupid and how she lost Cupid. All in all, C. S. Lewis retold the myth of Cupid and Psyche from the point of view of one of Psyche’s sisters, and the way he twists the story is that the myth that the priest tells makes out Orual to be bad and jealous, like the third sister, Redival. When according to Orual’s (C. S. Lewis’) argument that she makes against the gods in this book, Orual was a victim of the the gods. So this book can only be partially based on the classical myth because, it was told from a different character’s viewpoint, where the story is being told how it was supposed to.

Chapter 18-19: Interesting Observations about Death

Title: Till We Have Faces – A Myth Retold    Author: C. S. Lewis

Chapter: 18-19

Question: Interesting Observations about Death

Reading through chapters 18 and 19, I found a common theme running of which was death. The reason as to why C. S. Lewis decided to put death in these chapters is obvious – it was just the natural progression of the story, but that is not what I am aiming to get at in this blog. What I found most intriguing was how ‘close to home’ the subject of death hit in these two chapters. By ‘close to home’ I mean, when Lewis talks about death, he really hits the nail on the head concerning the human condition (by the end, this should make sense), and what makes that so striking is that it’s talked about in a fictitious novel about a classical myth.

the smallness of death

The really striking parts about death in these two chapters, seem to consist of the smallness of death. By this time in the story, the king is on his deathbed and Orual (the main character and narrator) is taking control of things as the Queen. “We went into the Pillar Room (my father’s eyes followed me terribly) and had the herald in.” What is striking about this passage is the part in parentheses. It shows that the king is frightened about multiple things: that she might come at some unexpected time and kill him, what are/will be the consequences of her becoming Queen, what comes after death (and by him being frightened of death, answers the question; he thinks that there is no afterlife), and will he die alone and uncared for (tossed by the wayside)? Lewis expresses this well with this, “Yet I have often noticed since how much less stir nearly everyone’s death makes than you might expect. Men better loved and more worth loving than my father [the king] go down making only a small eddy.”

In another occasion, where Orual is about to dual a prince of another land, she thinks, “It was the strangest thing in the world to look upon him, a man like any other man, and think that one of us presently would kill the other.” I think that this expresses well that even though one may be a man of great stature in life, when death comes knocking, you’re just like any other man. And that’s when it hits them and you can see it in their face that, “‘This is death.’”

the insignificance of man and then to just die

death of personality in one character

Answers to 3 Questions Through Different Media

I just thought that I would get this overarching question out of the way what is color psychology and this is what I found:

While trying to understand what “color psychology” was, I decided to take a peek inside Wikipedia. What I found eased my mind greatly. There I found that there are actually two subjects under the name “color psychology:” “color psychology” and then there is phototherapy (or light therapy). I have finally found out that “color psychology” actually deals with one’s cultural association with a certain color. A notable example is the color white: while known in North America to note virginity and purity, in Asia, white was once the color of mourning. Moreover, although some might say that certain colors change your mood or outlook in certain ways, there is absolutely no scientific work that backs it up.

On the other hand there is phototherapy, which has been scientifically proven to be beneficial to one’s health, if one has a medical issue. One such case is the use of ultraviolet light to cure infantile jaundice.

Chapter 15-17: Why does C. S. Lewis have such succinct writing?

Title: Till We Have Faces – A Myth Retold    Author: C. S. Lewis

Chapter: 15-17

Question: Why does C. S. Lewis have such succinct writing?

As I read through this book, I keep on finding that C. S. Lewis has a real knack of being very efficient with words. One will find that when C. S. Lewis describes something in his book, it doesn’t take much space on the page. He is able to find just the right words in order to convey his vision of what the setting or characters should look like. What’s more, is that the words that he uses are not huge long words that one might find in the dark and dingy parts of the dictionary – pages where nobody has ever ventured. C. S. Lewis’ way he goes about the book is just very efficent. He has no long boring monologes, or descriptions like other fantasy or science-fiction books, who try too hard and invain to describe the wonderful, majestic land that they have thought up in their mind, which no man could surly re-imagine without their extremely tedious descriptions. This is why I would say that C. S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces is so much thinner than what other authors would/could have made.

So why does C. S. Lewis have such succinct writing? Well, I believe simply because he can – he just has a knack for it. Why write more than you have to to get the point accross?

Chapter 14: Why do dramatic?

Title: Till We Have Faces – A Myth Retold    Author: C. S. Lewis

Chapter: 10-13

Question: Why was this chapter so extremely dramatic?

As I read through this chapter, I couldn’t help but think of why it was so extremely dramatic? This in turn made me think of those dramatic love stories one hears when reading about classical composers or other people of that period. So this brings up the question of why on earth would someone act to dramatc. By dramatic, I’m talking about a Romeo and Juliet kind of drama, where they basically kill each other through their overwhelming love for each other, even though they have only known each other for a fewdays! It sounds almost like middle school! But whether or not such drama really happend, doesn’t really matter here. The question is why write with such extreme drama in this chapter (you’ll understand what I mean when you read the chapter)? I suppose the answer could be that the author just wants to really pull you into the story; have you feel what the characters are feeling. I guess you could relate it to hyperbole in order to make a point. The author blows the drama so over the top, so as to really drive home the point, and as I said before, make you feel what the characters feel.

Chapter 10-13: I Can’t Seem to Imagine It

Title: Till We Have Faces – A Myth Retold    Author: C. S. Lewis

Chapter: 10-13

Question: Why is there so little description for the setting and the characters?

I have noticed, being about halfway through Till We Have Faces, that C. S. Lewis really has not provided much description of the surrounding landscape, the people, or what their culture looks like, and so it makes the story feel old, gray and dusty in my opinion; much like a really old photo or stone tablet. More so, Lewis doesn’t help the reader conjure up an image of what is being talked about. All he gives is a general description. He doesn’t use descriptive words, phrases, metaphors or similes very much to describe anything. Perhaps, Lewis being an author of fiction, thus able to use artistic license, thinks the reader doesn’t need to know this descriptive information, because it doesn’t have much of an impact of the story or plot.

And so, I think Lewis does all this in order to place an emphasis on the emotions and relationships; perhaps to make it more like the stories of old, since this is meant to be the reworked myth of Cupid and Psyche (By ’stories of old,’ I am referring to the stories like that of Odysseus by Homer). I believe that Homer concentrated more on the emotions and relationships in the story, because he knew his audience, and thus didn’t describe his story’s setting in great detail. They likely being Greeks and Romans, would likely naturally have known what the setting would look like, being from the same area of the world. For example: did Shakespeare go into much detail about the setting of his plays? No, because he knew that the audience knew what a general setting would look like, for the audience lived in a similar setting.

Chapter 6-10: What’s With the Pointlesses?

Title: Till We Have Faces – A Myth Retold Author: C. S. Lewis

Chapter:6-10

Question: What is with the pointless paragraphs?

Every now and then as I read through this book, I come across some seemingly pointless things (some paragraphs, needless comments in parentheses, etc.) in my opinion , that C.S. Lewis decided was important enough to keep.

I suppose the needless comments in the parentheses adds to the character of the narration – makes the narrator more human. For example: ‘I would have died for her (this, at least, I know is true) and yet, the night before her death, I could feel anger.’ It’s almost like a little tangent to the story, making it feel as though someone really is telling the story to you. Because, who honestly peaks like the way they write in a book? In real life, people make tangents to their stories all the time -to add a little information here and there.

In talking about pointless paragraphs, they may not be entirely pointless as such, but rather are just needing to be shortened -at least for my modern grammar. Here’s the example: ‘”That’s women’s talk,
by your favour. You’d never say that again once you’d seen it done. Come. I’ll not leave off till you do.”

A big, kindly man, some years older than herself, can usually persuade even a sad and sullen girl. In the end I rose and went in with him.”

It’s the second paragraph that I’m talking about. I feel that Lewis needn’t have said all of that. He could have easily just have said, “In the end, he persuaded me and I went in with him.” So then arises the question: Why did he write it out in such a long format? Perhaps the simple answer is that Lewis wanted to add as much character to the narrator as possible.

Chapter 2-6: What’s with the Parentheses, Lewis?

Title: Till We Have Faces – A Myth Retold    Author: C. S. Lewis

Chapter:2-6

Question: What’s with the Parentheses, Lewis?

In reading through chapters 2-6 of Till They Have Faces I noticed many times over how  C. S. Lewis used parentheses. He certainly does not use parentheses like modern writers, of course, where you usually explain something about the story in the parentheses. However, Lewis uses them as though they are commas,  comma-splices, or even semi-colons (just goes to show you how much writing has changed in the last few decades). Here’s an extremely good example of what I’m talking about: “She slept (tiny was the sound of her breathing).” Why did Lewis put that part of the sentence if parentheses? Could he just have put a comma, or a semi-colon in front of slept instead? Moreover, one might even say that this sentence is very inessential – the sentences on either side hardly provide any cause for it to be there. Here are those other two sentences: “You wold have thought she made bright all the corner of the room in which she lay.” then the sentence with the parentheses, and the sentence after it, “But there never was a child like Psyche for quietness in her cradle days.” As you can likely see, the sentences before and after the sentence with the parentheses don’t really seem to support it. Well I suppose the tiny sound of her breathing kind of fits in with “quietness in her cradle days.” But you ususally don’t associate breathing in your sleep (which is usually quiet anyways) with being quiet in “cradle days,” where the baby is constantly crying for food, sleep, or something along those lines. Perhaps more of this more of this sentence structure/positioning/meaning next week.

Chapter 1: The first chapter is typically boring, why wasn’t this one?

Title: Till We Have Faces – A Myth Retold    Author: C. S. Lewis

Chapter: 1

Question: The first chapter is typically boring, why wasn’t this one?

In some books I find the first chapter can be boring, and yet, when I read chapter one in Till We Have Faces I was captivated! There was no intense action to speak of, nothing in the way of violence to pull the story along – like one might surmise to be in a movie – and very little dialogue.

You must be wondering, “What on earth, then, would motivate you to read that entire chapter?!” Some how C. S. Lewis was able to described the events that unfolded in the first chapter in such a way that obviously kept my attention. I think Lewis was able to keep my attention through a layered approach. For one of the layers, Lewis presents a situation in the story in which other characters, except the main character , understand the result. This leaves you wondering what everyone, but you, knows. This leads you on in the story by giving an annoying feeling that you must find out by reading onward. With that laid, he slowly reveals who the characters are, slowly revealing each trait; each revealment  being enough to carry on your attention.