by David » March 17th, 2006, 2:23 am
Just getting into this discussion, I want to say something on the character of Fairy Hardcastle. I think she is put in, as a lesbian character, to illustrate the perverse nature of the N.I.C.E. Here we will run into objections on the "perversity" of lesbianism but let's just say that the topic is another debate and that Lewis would have seen it as perverse.
The disjointing of sexuality is a major theme in the book. Jane does not want to have a child. Fairy is a lesbian. Filostrato is refered to once as "an Italian eunuch." Straik is called an "obscene senility" (we would assume that his days of potency are long past). And when Merlin comes on the scene he talks about the "uses of Silva," which seem to be sexual sterility.
The N.I.C.E. wants to turn the world into ashes, wants to have, as one of the characters says, "oxen and geldlings." There is conspiracy against fruitfulness and childbearing. So Fairy would be only one example of human sexuality gone wrong--one among many.
As to Stan's remark about Lewis sort of liking her, the book talks about "an honest thief," and contrasts people who are just criminals, who have consciously violated moral law, to those who are so far gone in evil they don't even know what morality is. To some extent, the Fairy seems to be a little bit in the first category. She does not seem evil in the same way Straik, Wither, and Feverstone are evil. She at least seem to retain a modicum of her humanity.
The way, the weather, the terrain, the discipline, the leadership. --Sun Tzu
