Why C.S. Lewis considered this 1956 novel his most mature and significant literary achievement.
In short: C.S. Lewis spent decades obsessed with the ancient myth of Cupid and Psyche, finding the original characters illogical. His final novel, Till We Have Faces, reimagines the tale through the eyes of Psyche’s sister, Orual, transforming a classic legend into a profound exploration of jealousy, divine mystery, and self-discovery.
Set in the primitive kingdom of Glome, the story follows Orual, an ugly and bitter princess who resents the gods after her beautiful sister, Psyche, is sacrificed to an unseen deity. While the original myth by Apuleius depicts the sisters as seeing Psyche’s divine palace, Lewis makes the palace invisible to Orual. This choice centers the narrative on the theme of belief and the numinous—the human struggle to perceive the holy. Orual’s inability to witness the divine leads her to interpret Psyche’s experience as a hallucination or a dangerous delusion, driving her to intervene in a way that ultimately ruins her sister’s happiness.
The novel is structured in two parts, reflecting Orual’s internal transformation. In the first, she presents a scathing accusation against the gods, viewing herself as a victim of their cruelty. However, as she ages and faces her own mortality, she realizes her possessive love for Psyche was a form of consumption, mirroring the way the goddess Ungit demands sacrifices. Through a series of visions, Orual is forced to confront the truth of her own character. She discovers that her hatred was not born of love for her sister, but of envy toward the gods who possessed a love she could not claim.
The title, chosen by Lewis on February 29, 1956, stems from the realization that humans cannot encounter the divine while hiding behind masks of false personas and borrowed voices. To meet the gods, one must shed these defenses and reveal their true self. Lewis grounded this myth in historical realism, using specific geographical details to make the fictional Glome feel tangible. By synthesizing historical imagination with psychological archetypes, Lewis crafted a work that J.R.R. Tolkien and others regarded as his finest, moving beyond his earlier religious fiction to explore the complex, often painful process of achieving authentic self-awareness.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Till We Have Faces
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