C. S. Lewis and Myth 2020

  One thing I found interesting in the book Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis in Part 2 chapter 3 when Orual began to read her complaint and did not recognize it.   She stated, “I looked at the roll in my hand and saw at once that it was not the book I had written.   It couldn’t be; it was far too small.   And too old- a little, shabby, crumpled thing, nothing like my great book that I had worked on all day, day after day, while Bardia was dying…It was vile scribble-each stroke mean and yet savage, like the snarl in my father’s voice” (289).   After reading it over and over Orual finally recognizes the truth and how she has no reasonable complaints against the gods.   “At last the judge spoke, ‘Are you answered?’ he said.   ‘Yes,’ said I” (293).               Orual’s wrestle with the writings, being separated from it and not recognizing it as her own, but then finding truth from it relates to the...

 Rounding off my posts on Narnia, I would like to briefly return to Susan Pevensie as a character. Her attention is enraptured by boys and all manner of pretty things as she has grown, regarding them as much more real than Narnia. At a point, she even chastises Lucy for holding so strongly to their childhood games. Part of me does wonder if she was given a chance to read Chesterson's Ethics of Elfland  if she would have joined her siblings in Aslan's country. Chesterson works to break down the conflation between necessity and fact. Fact to him is an example of 1+2 making three. It cannot be imagined otherwise. Necessity, on the other hand, is another concept entirely. He submits to the reader the idea that trees do not need to grow fruit. In fact, not all trees do. The Eastern Hemlock tree, for example, produces cones instead. He says this can also be shown because a person can imagine candles growing from trees. An example I myself would submit is the idea of money growing on...

 I would like to make one final note on Ransom's interaction with the fruit and tying it to Gadamer's writings on Heidegger's inquiry into the nature of art. Gadamer writes, "What sets the beautiful apart cannot be exhibited as a determinate knowable property of an object, but manifests itself in a subjective factor: the intensification of Lebensgefuhl  (life-feeling) through the harmonious correspondence of imagination and understanding" (219). Later down the page, Gadamer talks about how the judgment of taste is not knowledge, yet it is not arbitrary. This phrasing perfectly mirrors the interaction between Ransom and the fruit. His "common reason" tells him to taste the fruit again. It practically begs him to, but something he cannot put his finger on triumphs over this impulse and moves him to back away. To further add to this, when tasting the fruit, Ransom is at a loss for words, describing an experience of a new genus of pleasures, something so far...

 Rounding out the illustration of the transcendent concepts of beauty, we come to the fascinans illustrated in the scene where Ransom eats the fruit. "His reason, or what we commonly take to be reason in our own world, was all in favour of tasting this miracle again; the child-like innocence of fruit, the labours he had undergone, the uncertainty of the future, all seemed to commend the action" (28). Here Ransom finds himself engulfed with the fruit he has just tasted. The book initially describes it as a new genus of pleasures that have been made known to him. For a few brief moments, his existence revolves around the fruit. He begins engulfed in the mystery and miracle and finds himself drawn to it again after experiencing it. If perhaps no other, this episode truly demonstrates the transcendent concept as Ransom is drawn to the fruit, repelled from it after experiencing it, and beholds it like a miracle and having a child-like innocence. It is so far beyond him it raptures...

 Throughout my reflections on this course, I've come to think a lot about how it is that we find ourselves pulled into stories and myths. We experience new worlds and lands, meet new characters, and learn new lessons. We grow. And this capacity for growth and change is one that I think many of us would often associate with the life of the child; the child is defined by their Becoming. As adults, there is this idea that we have to "arrive" somewhere (which is a false narrative), whereas the child hasn't yet "arrived".  Narnia focuses on children, namely the Pevensie children plus Eustace and Jill. Narnia as a place seems to be one of growth and change itself - it is a liminal place for the children who embark on grand adventures there. Between their entering and leaving, the children are in this state of Becoming. But what if Narnia wasn't just a fictional place that provides a setting for the children to adventure in? I wonder if Narnia is a representati...

 I had one main issue with Perelandra : how can someone know sin without having committed a sin themself? When the Green Lady and the King are both saved from the fall in their being taught about evil by Maleldil, this supposedly saves them from becoming "bent" like humans are. Lewis challenged my own understanding of knowing in relation to experience here; personally, I don't think you can really understand and know the abstract as the concrete until you have the added experience.  But Lewis might have an out in this situation. Maleldil is a God figure, so it could follow that Lewis is making a statement about the power wielded by Maleldil as God. Christ is able to help his followers understand things about the world and God that they have no business understanding, so Lewis' use of Maleldil as a teacher could be a reflection of his own understanding of Christ. But it doesn't completely solve the issue for me.  I suppose that the role of myth in human relationshi...

 Continuing off my previous post, I would like to continue speaking of Rudolph Otto in concert with Lewis's writings. In the scene where Orual reunites with Psyche, one of the men accompanying Orual falls to his knees and puts his forehead to the ground screaming about the bride of the goddess. He was overcome with what Orual remarks as a holy fear, which she remarks she does not feel. This particular episode is quite interesting in comparison with the previous description of Psyche's beauty. Here she is said to be, "tanned by sun and wind, and clothed in rags, but laughing — her eyes like two stars, her limbs smooth and rounded, and (but for the rags) no sign of beggary or hardship about her" (49). Orual recognizes Psyche's being as properly beautiful, comparing her eyes to stars and noting she seemed to have no hardship about her. Perhaps it was her intimacy that drove the fear from her. Maybe the tremendum can be overcome even in the face of the divine through ...