“I will accuse the gods.”
So begins the story of Orual, the protagonist of C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces. She writes not as a pleasant reminiscence, not as a neutral biographical account, but as an airing of grievances. She views her life through how she has been wronged.
The poor woman certainly has grievances. As a child, her mother died, her father abused her, and her nurse rejected her. The girl grows up with practically no human love. How could our hearts not break for her?
Eventually she finds affection with her fatherly tutor and becomes a pseudo-mother to her step-sister Psyche. But “the gods” take even that joy away from her when the town offers Psyche to the mountain god, a sacrifice either for the monster’s bed or for his meal. The townspeople don’t care which.
You can’t help but sympathize with Orual; she was given so little and even that was taken from her. I remember reading for the first time and, with the beginning of the book in mind, reluctantly thinking, “Maybe she has a point there.” Orual cared for Psyche and even fought to protect her step-sister. Shouldn’t her selflessness be rewarded?
But this is not the crux of Orual’s accusation. The gods’ true charge is not for making Psyche suffer, but for bringing Psyche happiness.
Orual expects to find Psyche’s corpse, but instead she discovers Psyche strolling through the field, clean and well-fed. Psyche radiates joy, gives Orual a cup of wine, and tells her step-sister about the life she now shares with her loving husband.
Not only does Orual resent their marriage, but she refuses to see it. She blinds herself to the beautiful palace and rages at Psyche for her supposed delusions. That anger grows into ugly threats until the gods—or could it be Orual?—destroy Psyche’s happiness.
Psyche had told the truth the entire time—but how could Orual have known?
Each of us has been Orual. We grow envious, fall into temptation, and hurt those we most love. We know that we cut deeply into a friend, a family member, our beloved. In these moments, we can choose one of two responses.
Either we reflect on our actions, find where our “love” masked our weakness, our envy, our need to possess the other. We stand before the beloved, even before God Himself, and confess our sins and brokenness. We recognize that my love is not enough.
Or we can accuse. We can find every reason why we couldn’t have known better, why someone else should have stepped in. After all, hadn’t we done our best? It was all done out of love.
Orual chose the latter approach, shielding her heart from redemption and allowing the poison to fester.
This same illness afflicts much of modern culture, especially the most “enlightened” spheres. Identity politics stems from this accusatory bent, encouraging us to find the culprit in our personal narratives.
This “skeptic disposition” gained traction during the twentieth century, a phrase which describes a default toward distrusting any previously accepted teaching and demanding that the other prove himself. Much of this cultural shift has its roots in academia.
In my public high school, my English teacher described all the different frames through which we could read literature: feminism, Marxism, postmodernism, the list goes on. All of these frameworks suggested a form of criticizing the work or of understanding how the work criticizes society.
My college professor, however, suggested the Shakespeare test. The idea was simple: when you read Shakespeare, Shakespeare isn’t on trial. You are.
This position of humility entertains the possibility that the greatest works of literature might have something to teach you. Of course, this does not mean that you should blindly accept anything a dusty old book tells you. But that moment of receptivity might give you insight into your own triumphs or—worse yet—your own faults.
We care when King Lear falls because we have fallen into our own temptation for flattery and shallow affection. MacBeth’s death resonates because we have felt our own hearts harden with pride and ambition.
But when Orual writes her book, she has no serious intention of understanding her own flaws. She can’t simultaneously reflect on her personal accountability and write a bullet-proof repudiation of the gods.
In reality, Orual needs a complete transformation to see the truth. All the time that she spent demanding answers meant nothing; she hadn’t wanted answers, she’d only wanted to project. When the gods finally granted her the opportunity to make her case, she saw her own pettiness. And only then does she realize, “How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?”
She had demanded to see the gods while simultaneously building delusions to hide the truth. She pushed herself away and then railed at their distance.
Despite all her resentment and failings, Orual’s journey ends in hope. Her last words before death were “Long did I hate you, long did I fear you. I might—”
The significance of these words can only be understood by its connection to St. Augustine’s Confessions. There, St. Augustine writes “Late have I loved you, O beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you.”
Lewis nods to this famous quote to indicate the final part of Orual’s story: confession. At her eleventh hour, Orual faces her own resentment and failings. Then—and only then—does she accept redemption and find salvation.
Instead of viewing life as a time to rail against the Divine, we can more properly see existence as a blessing. Not only does this work as a pragmatic approach to happiness, but it is also true.
While we could claim that civilization is a product of the patriarchy, racial supremacy, or a system for the bourgeoisie, perhaps we ought to see it as a gift. Perhaps our own reflection needs to receive the beloved before we face the world.
