by jo » March 28th, 2006, 6:15 pm
Hi Chris :)
Rereading THS I am struck anew by how much I dislike Fairy .. I know we all used to joke to Stan about his 'obssession' with her and I can see why she is an interesting character but not at all that she is a likeable one (to do Stan justice, he never said that he LIKED her, just found her fascinating). But there's a sort of inhumanity there, that's shown in the way she arranges the murder of Hingest and the torture of Jane.
I wonder if it was a mistake for Lewis to use her obvious homosexuality and distasteful appearance to make us dislike her more, though? That's not a judgement of mine, merely a question that I don't know the answer to. Everything about Fairy's appearance is calculated to cause a shudder, from the way she stands and sits to the way she chomps on her cigar - presumably an emasculating metaphor. Could the disgust not have been subtler, better accomplished, if the physical had not been so obvious?
"I saw it begin,” said the Lord Digory. “I did not think I would live to see it die"