Orual’s wrestling is paralleled in James 1:6-8 (ESV):īut let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. She selfishly demands an answer, and it must come in the way she chooses.

Her prayers are based on herself, not on a sincere relationship with God. Orual wants things her way because she only understands how to do things, to make things happen, in order to get something else.

When we look at her in those moments, we can see that she is likely manipulating her religion. Yet Orual hears and feels nothing after hours of prayer. Hope might also spur her to pray and ask the gods for their help after her first visit to the Grey Mountain. This is not just a sensitivity to nature, but a means by which God can speak to her.Īs her audience, we too hope that she might know God. In spite of the errand of grief, her heart is responsive. When she ascends the mountain with Bardia, her heart delights in the beauty that surrounds her. She “strives to change for the better the ugly and undesirable situation around her.” And there are moments of hope. Gwyneth Hood asks us to view her as an admirable heroine. But does this make her a lesser character? Orual’s long-term obstinacy and manipulation is offensive to us. Yet the same thing that brings joy to Orual also brings the most pain, and we begin to dislike Orual as she denies the truth of Psyche’s sincere faith and even the god who revealed himself to her. In spite of her abusive father, she can now care for Psyche and be loved in return by Psyche and the Fox. By the time Psyche is born, it seems that Orual now has a purpose in life. At the beginning of the tale, she is practically an orphaned girl without love or looks, and so we naturally pity her. Perhaps one of the most exasperating characters of all of Lewis’s novels, Orual is an unlikely blend for a central character. Therein lies one of the trickiest elements in Till We Have Faces. Most fiction features at least one appealing character-the one you cheer for, stumble with, return to.

Lewis were to tell us a tale of how pain and doubt were inevitable and unavoidable in a life of belief in God, who would willingly listen? It’s one thing to share personal experience or to preach a lesson, but in fiction, an author and his audience might just be left with a moralizing and probably unlikeable character instead.

It takes all of Orual’s life to come to this point of faith and cleansing, and now she can love herself and be loved by God fully.Ĭoming to Christ is no panacea, but if C.S. Once Psyche gives her the gift of beauty, and the God of the mountain appears and speaks to her, her ugliness is washed away. In the midst of a dream, Orual’s doubts are finally answered by the gods.

Till we have faces review