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ornamental line

Graceful or Grotesque?

"'And you won't understand the wonder and glory 0f my adventure unless you
listen to the bad part. It wasn't very bad, you know'" (108).

 

Points for Reflection

C. S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces (1956), chps. 10-21

  1. what category of love best defines the type of affection shown Psyche by Orual in today’s reading?
  2. does Orual’s concern for Psyche's wellbeing outweigh her concern for everything else?
  3. can you locate any Christological elements in Psyche’s experience? Does she appear at any point to symbolize Christ, his disciples, or the Church?
  4. is Psyche suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder? Do her words, actions, and perceptions mark her as insane?
  5. Orual both calls herself honest and admits to an imperfect memory (117). How reliable is Orual’s narrative, and does her tale betray any moments of self-deception?
  6. how consistently do the human eyes reveal truth to Orual and Psyche?
  7. how important are eyes in perceiving the Divine?
  8. does the phrase “holy darkness” (124) sound like an oxymoron or a truism?
  9. in this novel, which proves to be the most powerful yet indirect, non-empirical mode of revealing spiritual truth: nature, dreams, or waking visions?
  10. does the Fox’s rational approach to life gain or lose credence in today’s reading?


an abstract painting of many lines and shapes with bright colors of reds, oranges, and yellows in the middle and shifting to darker colors of blues and greens around the edges
Paranonia (1935-36)
oil on canvas
Salvador Dalí


Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu