Samuel Swenson-Reinhold --- Out of the Silent Planet as a Myth

 C.S. Lewis really had to write both himself and J.R.R. Tolkein into Out of the Silent Planet, didn't he? At the end of the first book of the Space Trilogy, when Ransom (Tolkein) and Lewis (presumably Lewis) decide to write the story of Ransom's visit to Malacandra and distribute it as fiction, this was a perfect example of the use of myth to tell truths. 

The use of a fictional format mirrors in many ways what we've been talking about in class. Ransom's intentionality in publishing the story of his trip to Malacandra is one that is rife with educative purposes. Ransom wants to promote ideals and lessons that he took from his adventures and communicate them via myth to an audience that will hopefully be impacted by the lessons that Ransom himself took from Malacandra. But C.S. Lewis, despite his not having gone to Narnia (obviously), does a similar thing. He packages the stories in such a way that the lessons contained within the fiction of the Chronicles of Narnia can subliminally send messages and lessons to his audience. 

This ties back into my blog post about The Name of the Wind, when Skarpi mentions that you can't be too honest when you tell a story, otherwise the facts confuse the story. The same principle applies to Ransom's sharing of his story as a fiction - knowing that it'd be scoffed at, he packages it in a way that will effect people without their knowing. It's similar to how many large companies market their products when they sneak their logos on to football fields and basketball courts. If asked to hear a pitch from a company, most people would say no. But if you can do a sort of "trojan horse" which your message, you might have a lot more luck.