Regan Flieg: Listening to the Bad Part

        In Till We Have Faces, as Psyche tells her sister the story of how she came to live with her husband, the god of the mountain, after she was sacrificed to him.  When Oural tells her to “forget that terrible time” and move along because “there’s no time,” Psyche doesn’t accept this (Lewis 107-8).  Instead, she tells her that “you won’t understand the wonder and glory of my adventure unless you listen to the bad part” (Lewis 108).  

Psyche’s insistence that the “bad part”of her story in which was afraid and alone is reminiscent of Lewis’s sentiment on the relationship between joy and suffering that he learned from Joy in Shadowlands.  It is clear in Till We Have Faces (to the reader if not to Oural), that Psyche is tremendously happy as the god’s wife, living her amber castle, but her insistence on telling her story with the inclusion of the period before she met her husband and she was scared of what would happen to her reflects that her joy would not be possible without having experienced the “bad part.”  As readers, it is necessary for us to hear the bad part too.  As Fisher explained when laying out the groundwork of his Narrative Paradigm, it is stories that we use to “give order to human experience” (63).  Because stories are our means of making sense of our lives and experiences and suffering must accompany joy, it is essential that our stories depict this necessary relationship between joy in suffering.  In seeing how Psyche’s suffering led to her joy (even if the joy is later taken from her), the reader can begin to see how this speaks to her own experience as well and that suffering often opens the door to joy in our own world as well.


Fisher, Walter R. “Narration as a Paradigm of Human Communication.” Human Communication as Narration: Toward a Philosophy of Reason, Value, and Action, University of South Carolina Press, 1989, pp. 57-84.

 Lewis, C. S. Till We Have Faces:  A Myth Retold. 1956. Harcourt Brace, 1985.

Shadowlands. Directed byRichard Attenborough, performances by Anthony Hopkins, Debra Winger, and Julian Fellowes, Savory Pictures, 1993.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jack Snowdon: Danger in the Lake

I will readily admit that I may have procrastinated a bit much in regards to working on my blog posts, waiting for that perfect moment of inspiration to strike, when I should have been working to flesh out my own ideas rather than just letting them come to me. However, with that concession in mind, I am glad to say that something exactly like I had hoped for happened while reading the discussion between Ransom and Hyoi in Chapter 12 of Out of the Silent Planet . The discussion revolves largely around the concept and experience of love and appreciation among the hrossa, and sees Ransom struggling to understand how they can content themselves with valuing the memories rather than replicating the actions, as well as questioning why that can be the way it is with such dangers as the hnakra dwelling in the local waters. Though he does struggle to comprehend them, Hyoi has an answer every step of the way, culminating with the line, "...And I say also this, I do not think the forest woul...
Read more

Katelyn Joyce- The Magician's Nephew & Biblical Parallels

  When reading The Magician's Nephew, I am not sure why I was so shocked at all of the connections that can be made back to scripture. As this is a common occurrence in Lewis’ writing, it should not surprise and excite me as much as it does when I first grasp what is being said and I begin to make those connections. I think it will always catch me off guard and amaze me how intertwined the two storylines can be without them being identical. This is especially true in The Magician’s Nephew. You can see a clear parallel between this book and the book of Genesis in the Bible. Digory is sent to an area of Narnia closed off from the rest and surrounded by a golden gate to retrieve a fruit. He is tempted to use the powers of this fruit to his benefit, but he does the right thing and presents it to Aslan as requested of him. This is similar to the trees and the fruit in the Garden of Eden. There lies a tree with the power to give understanding to good and evil. Eve is tempted and takes th...
Read more

Samuel Swenson-Reinhold: Naming & Knowing

 Once again, I'm going to be referencing my favorite book of all time, The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. One of the key elements of Kvothe's character is his desire to learn the 'name' of things - when you learn the name of something, you have control over it. However, learning the name of the wind, for example, is something incredibly difficult. You have to understand the nature of the wind, you have to know it. So knowing the word "wind" doesn't mean you have power over it. It requires this almost Heideggerian conception of listening and knowing the world and nature.  Kvothe grows in his understanding of the world and at one point learns the name of lightning and the wind, allowing him to wield immense power. This particular aspect of Rothfuss' fantasy had me thinking about our conversations in class about how we 'name' and label things in the prosaic. We think we "know" something, but really we are making an observation. It...
Read more