by a_hnau » April 16th, 2005, 7:23 pm
I think that there is a massive contrast intended between Belbury and St. Anne's in this last set of scenes. At Belbury, the animals are imprisoned and experimented on, and the ultimate objective (at least on one level) of the work at Belbury is to destroy all life on Earth. There is no genuine love or romance at Belbury, what there is (in Miss Hardcastle) is twisted and perverted. And the focus at Belbury, and at the banquet, is on sterile self-congratulation, with a horror in the basement. At St. Anne's, the animals are brought up to a human level (Lewis goes to great lengths to explain this and to personalise the animals, e.g. Mr Bultitude). There is genuine love and romance - Mark and Jane (eventually), Ivy and Tom, the Dennistons. The last scene at Belbury is the collapse into confusion (via the curse of Babel and the intervention of Merlin - this reminds me of Samson), whereas the last scene at St. Anne's (this must certainly have roots in classical and medieval works, tho' my knowledge is too limited to know what) is of order, completion, and union, both between the human participants and the animals (if you want a literary example, look at the end of A Midsummer Night's Dream, where the disorder of nature and of the human partnerships is all set to rights)...
Urendi Maleldil
