E. DuBose Post 3: Till We Have Faces 1

15APR12

Can One Blame The Lonely For Not Knowing How To Love

Till We Have Faces is an extraordinary tale of a myth retold.  And the story isn't just a retelling or the same story told a different way.  It is a parallel story -- or the story beneath the actual story, if you will.  It's another perspective of a myth or even the true story behind the myth.

Orual's life was as much a myth as Psyche's.  One would pity Orual much more than Psyche once reading this story by Lewis.  For at least Psyche knew what it meant to love and be loved.  Poor Orual had no concept of such.  She hadn't known what it meant to love or what it felt like to be loved in return.  Orual's story seems much like many tales of the lonely rich and powerful that you here about today.  With so many people obligated to be "yes men" and to follow your every order on one side and then to have people adore (or despise) just for one's wealth on the other inhibits a lesson of love for many. 

Had Orual not known of her ugliness, might she have known what it meant to love?  Had she not been so sure that beauty was the only means to be loved by, could she have realized she was loved?  Other people's opinions of her because of her distorted appearance hampered and distorted her beliefs on love.  At every moment, even when proved wrong, Orual felt that everyone was against her.  The world was against her in her mind because she felt cursed since she thought she was incapable of having beauty.  It did not matter what the gods thought but what others thought of her appearance.  Orual lived life as a puppet, believing she had no agency to change her fate.  She held tightly to her books and what she thought she knew and refused to explore other possibilities even when proved that there were other possibilities.

Orual's passion for Psyche led to her tunnel vision on all life and practicality.  I don't know if she was jealous but she was selfish--the very epitome of selfishness.  There is no selfishness in love, in fact, love is the lack of loving one's self.  Orual loved herself more than others but her low self esteem and neediness for the graces of others led to her sucking everyone around her dry.  So many loved her and she never in return loved them back.  She realized her grave mistake but by then it was too late, they were all gone.

Perhaps my favorite bit of the book was when Orual realized that there was an answer to her claims.  That like many of the people in the Bible's parables, Orual realized that she consistently asked the wrong questions and there for thought that there was no answer.  Orual realized that the gods were the answer.  And it was on this page of the book that she wrote that, that I realized what myth is all about.  Myth is truth.  You see, I believe all this book has to say because of the symbolism within it.  The language and fantastic imagery gives way to my imagination to make sense of the symbols and relate them to my own life.  It is irrelevant whether or not the happenings of this story actually happened -- what's history except just one person's perception (which is often misguided).  What is relevant is the idea of the story and the symbols within that create meaning.  This story created much meaning for me.  You see, for me, God is the answer.  In my life, in the here and now, I can read this story and see the truth in it and discard the folly.  To understand myth as fact you cannot look at the myth as a word for word truth but you must take it as a whole and realize the truth there.  Therefore, like this story, the details can change -- the names and places can change-- but the story remains the same, the myth remains true.  We should not focus on the foolish question "are these people and places factual" for that is asking the wrong question.  Just like in the Bible, and today, the pharisees (and ourselves) often ask the wrong questions.  In other words:  "A silly question receives a silly answer."  And a silly answer the pharisees got (actually, Jesus didn't answer their questions, He tells them what they should ask and then gives that answer) and so will a silly answer go to the one who looks to see if a story is historically accurate.  What is the point of making it historically factual?  Does that evidence make the story more or less true?  No, no it doesn't. 

In other thoughts:  I was unsure what it meant when Orual thought she was Ugnit and a bit confused as what the god meant when he said that Orual, too, was Psyche.

I thought it was also fascinating how Orual was not put to death like in the old myth but she was punished to bear the suffering of Psyche without knowing it.  She bore the pain, affliction, and sin that she placed onto Psyche when she tricked Psyche into obeying her.  And Orual, by no means was innocent in that.  She knew that she should not have used her manipulation to get Psyche to obey her but she did it any way -- and that is the definition of sin:  doing something you knowingly knew you shouldn't.  Her selfish need to be desired by psyche and her obsession with Psyche lead to her ultimate jealousy of this mysterious husband of Psyche's.  Orual didn't care for Psyche's well being but only that Psyche be returned to her as if Psyche were an object of possession.  Orual thought to love Psyche was the same as caging a bird in her palace just to hear it sing every morning or to hug an kitten so hard that it suffocated in her arms.  And where did she learn such a love?  Even though she was loved, why couldn't she see that she was?  She was so blinded by others repulsion to her, it didn't seem to matter that Psyche and Fox were never repulsed.