Wondering why all 'evil' characters are women?

[Coyote Goodfellow]

[carol]

[jo]

[k-mann]

[gameld]

[Paul_Burgin]

[loeee]

[Paul_Burgin]

[jo]

[Stanley Anderson]

[Stanley Anderson]

I thought I would add one more thought to my previous post. This puts the story into a fairly simplistic symbolic formula, which I hate doing because the story is so much more than this, but perhaps after the fact, it can be stated as such to help get past the difficulty so that the other aspects of the book can be more fully appreicated.

So, simplistically, we can say that the gods are a picture of God the Father and Orual represents all of us fallen humans, her ugliness being a picture of our sinful nature which we, as Adam and Eve did in the garden when they covered their nakedness, veil in an attempt to hide our true nature. Psyche is Christ, unfallen and sinless, and therefore without that ugliness of sin that we all bear. She "takes on" our sins by "unveiling" the god of the mountain at night with the lamp and suffers the consequences of our intentions for us. That is the beginning of our salvation and our own eventual "unveiling". But just as Christ has born our sins for us on the cross, we must then also take up our cross and follow him to become "like Christ". And this is what Orual comes to realize as she "becomes Psyche".

Well, as I said, I don't intend to make it a mere "code" to be translated one-for-one into theological concepts -- there are lots of things that don't work out "neatly" in this symbolic imagery, but that is ok. As I've said before, the story is more like a hard diamond that is beautiful to look at in all its faceted reflections and sparkling glory. It is, in its diamond-like hardenss, nearly impossible to take apart in order to discover the root of that beauty. One can only really look at it in its wholeness to appreciate its richness. In the final analysis, we can only really say that the book is about what true Love is actually like, and how powerfully that Love has been bestowed on Orual. She is so richly blessed. How can the gods love her so powerfully (and, by the symbolic analogy, how can God love us so powerfully)? All we can do in response is to give Him praise and glory as Orual does before she dies.

--Stanley

[gameld]

stanley: very good analysis. not 'neat' as you said, but i congratulate you on putting into words what i've been thinking but unable to say.

[k-mann]

[Dr. U]

Was She a role model for Jadis the White Witch?

A different thread on this site is discussing what we know about books that Lewis really liked. (Could turn into a long thread!) Anyway, there's a book of reviews and literary essays he wrote that's available (ISBN 015-668-788-7) that gives us some books he definitely liked.

One of the riders he wrote about is Rider Haggard, a Victorian novelist who produced a series of Indiana Jones type cliff-hangers set in Exotic Locales with Big Themes. Lewis thought Haggard had a mythopoeic gift in storytelling, but was a mediocre writer. Partly because this really roused my curiosity, some years ago I read the Haggard novel Lewis praised the most in his essay - She. I really did enjoy it as a great beach book, although I donated it to the free book table in the faculty lounge at my school later that summer, because he was right, it wasn't so well written that I planned to read it again and again.


She is "She Who Must Be Obeyed", a mysterious, utterly beautiful but completely merciless African queen who found the secret of immortality thousands of years earlier, and has ruled a hidden empire in East Africa with an iron hand ever since. There is a British college professor studying Lost, Dark Secrets like this who is on the trail of the Secret of Immortality. It's not easy to get to Her Kingdom, there are Many Perils in the Journey, about one big one per chapter, and many Ominous Warnings. There is also the real but deadly temptation of falling in love with her if you do reach Her Kingdom. She is not usually very grateful or impressed by men who do.

Besides the strong resemblence to the Indiana Jones movies, it just struck me a week ago how strongly She resembles Jadis the White Witch. In case any of you go on to read the novel, I don't want to give any plot spoilers, but I will say that, also like Jadis, finding immortality of the flesh may not be as wonderful as one might think.


Has anyone else in this discussion ever read She, and, if so, what do you think about my idea, that Lewis, consciously or unconsciously, may have drawn part of the White Witch character from She? He certainly praised Haggard for the "Myth of She" in his essay - which then leads to the question, What was/is it about this that makes it a mythopoeic picture of powerful evil? (Or at least made it a powerful myth to Lewis.)

Having been around a few situations of nasty office politics in research institutions earlier in my life, I think I have observed that both men and women seem to fear and dislike when a truly beautiful woman is also ruthless in her ambition, although perhaps the dislike is for different reasons in men and women. Speaking as a man, I think there's an understanding of potential vulnerability to a woman's beauty, but if you also know that you cannot trust her, I think it creates some sort of inner conflict that's different than just with a mean man. Perhaps this is something like the atmosphere in She, and maybe captured by Lewis in how Digory and Digory's uncle and Edmund are each bewildered by Jadis, (some more than others), although Polly and Lucy and Susan are not taken in.

Just some thoughts, but I'm curious what others think about this re. this thread's discussion about Lewis and evil female characters.

[Stanley Anderson]