Frank Baxter: Till we have faces 1 (entry 5)

Frank Baxter: Till we have faces 1 (entry 5)

In “Till We Have Faces” there is an interesting aspect to the main Character of Orual, where she feels more like a man than a women, this is because she is ugly and she is good at fighting. Perhaps, why C.S. Lewis made this dilemma in this character is that C.S. Lewis is not female and therefore would be easier to associate with the main character that is female that feels like a male than a typical female. While he has written many books with lead females in them (Chronicle of Narnia, every book has one) they were never the main character. Orual’s story is completely from her perspective, so perhaps in trying to avoid stereotypes, he decides to alter the “normal female” to a female he can more associate with.

In particular there is a passage on page 220 (in chapter nineteen) that is quite interesting to analyze from the perspective I have describe in C.S. Lewis as having.  In the story Orual had just given Argan the mortal wound to his leg and she describes her reaction as, “I was scarcely out of breath even; most of my bouts with Bardia had been far longer. Yet I felt of a sudden very weak and my legs were shaking; and I felt myself changed too, as if something had been taken away from me. I have often wondered if women feel like that when they lose their virginity.” Now at first glance this may just seem that the character Orual is a virgin and is trying to find an equivalent to her feeling. And the base reading of that may be appropriate to the understanding of the story, but when we analyze the passage through C.S. Lewis we get something interesting.

C.S. Lewis fought in a war and presumably killed some one during that time, is this perhaps how he felt after the first time he killed a person? It would not be hard to imagine that killing another man, another human being, would  leave a man weak with leg shaking and it would certainly change him. It is further interesting that C.S. Lewis says its like a women losing her virginity, he doesn’t simply say it feels like any one losing their virginity. Perhaps this is because when a male loses their virginity it isn’t as profound? Or it might just be the character Orual trying to relate to other women and doesn’t think about relating to men.

Personally from my own experiences; losing my virginity was a lot less profound then it was for my partner. But when I was younger (around 10-13) my father took me out hunting where I shot a deer (the only one I have killed) and while it certainly isn’t killing a human, it did have a profound effect on me, in a similar manner to as Orual describes.