Til We Have Faces
Please answer one of the following questions from the Study Guide here.
Option 1: "Why must holy places be dark places?" (p.50 and 249). According to Orual, the gods have no answer (p.3-4 and 250). Are the gods deliberately silent as she maintains? If so, why don't the gods answer? If not, what is their answer?
Option 2: Look at the times Orual is veiled.
a. the king's marriage (p.11)
b. trips to the mountain (p.93 and 154)
c. to wear her veil permanently (p.180)
Why was Orual veiled? What might the veil symbolize? Consider also Exodus 34:33-35; 2 Corinthians 3:13-18; and chapter 4 of Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer. What effect did her veil have on Orual's life? How did people react to her veil?
Remember, provide your answer to one of the questions and then interact with your other classmates at least twice.
All posts must be in by November 14th.
I’m going to be talking about the second question, about the veil. The study guide points out 3 main times her bing veiled was key. The king's second marriage, the trip to the mountain, and then put the veil on permanently. The first time she really did not have a choice. The kind made the decision for her. He was trying to show off and not scare off his new wife so he had all the women veiled. Then when she went on the trip to the mountain she used the veil to get her out of the castle unnoticed, which helped see her sister. Then when he decided to veil herself for the rest of her life. This was more of I’m sick of my father hating on me for my face. Case the “haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate; Baby, I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake.”(TSwift) While going to the next question why did she veil herself? She was tired of people talking about her face. She was insecure and tired of people bullying her for her face. I think it symbolizes us hiding our true self from other. Not showing our true imperfections and things of that nature.
ReplyDeleteDon't you think she felt "free" initially after she decided to always veil her face?
DeleteCool thoughts! I think that you are totally right in the sense that she got completely exhausted of people commenting about her face. she was scared that because she wasn't "beautiful" that people wouldn't love her like they loved people like psyche. I think one of the lessons that Lewis might be trying to teach here is that true beauty is found inside. for instance, yes psyche was beautiful however she is even more beautiful because of her heart attitude. oral on the other hand had no self-confidence and was very condescending about psyche being kind to those who don't "deserve" it.
DeleteQuestion 2:
ReplyDeleteLooking at the times in this book that Orual has veiled it becomes pretty clear that this 'veil' has meaning. Looking a bit deeper into it we first have to address the issue of why was Orual veiled? The very first sighting of this particular covering was at the king's wedding. The king commanded that she should be veiled in hopes that his new bride would not be horrified at Orual's "ugly" face. Here we can see almost certain symbolism presented by the veil. While this book is not meant to be an allegory I think that it is very much plausible to relate the veil to the covering of something not so beautiful. From a Christian point of view, this could represent the constant shame of our sin and our mistakes, the brushing under the rug of our ugliness and mistakes. However, even from a secular view-point this rule still applies that no matter who you are a one time or another you will have a desire to cover up any "imperfections" shown in your life. So in short, I believe that the veil represents the desire to cover-up anything that is considered imperfect and alarming to an outsider looking in upon your life.
Yes, when the king asked her to veil her face he was definitely sending her a message that he did not love or accept her.
DeleteI completely agree with you. The veil seems to be talking about hiding parts of our life that might not be the best but help shape us into the person we are truly are. When we hide these aspects of our life people don't get to know the true us. Like in the book they start to make up stories about what the veil is hiding. People then start to believe in lies about the person.
DeleteGreat thoughts. Could it also possibly be a symbol of freedom and salvation? As the story goes on, she feels more free when she is wearing her vail. The fail, essentially, covers up her mistakes, much like what Christ does for us, and it allows her to live a life of freedom. Great post.
DeleteOption 1!
ReplyDelete"Why must holy places be dark places?" (p.50 and 249). According to Orual, the gods have no answer. Are the gods deliberately silent as she maintains? If so, why don't the gods answer? If not, what is their answer?"
There's been a lot of imagery in the story so far. The first part of the prompt is about "darkness" - at a basic level, darkness can symbolize blindness and mystery. I was reading that old Hebrew קָדוֹשׁ "qadosh" indicates "otherness" (as in singled out, set apart, unique). It's translated as "holy". Holy things can seem alien and creepy to those who don't understand them. Ungit has this "other" nature, some kind of connection beyond the physical realm. Some blindly follow her (the king), others seem aware of her sinister aura (Orual) and some simply don't give the "goddess" any credit (Fox). I think Lewis may be using darkness to convey how we can't understand some things because of our human nature. How this intrigues us or drives us away is what the rest of the story explores.
Continuing that line of thought, the communication between holy beings and humans also will be "dark". Dark as in not always obvious. I honestly don't have a grip on what the mountain may symbolize, but I am beginning to think that it's an example of something that is "there" and doesn't need a reason to be there. God doesn't owe us an explanation for his nature, he is simply "there".
This is Kristen btw
Yate's "Basics of Biblical Hebrew" was referenced for the word study, along with http://www.ancient-hebrew.org for the text.
My thought on the idea of why "holy things are dark" was the idea that we can not fully understand anything that is holy. There is a greater plan with holy things that us as humans can not understand
DeleteMmmm I think that is such a good point Caleb! I completely agree with you that holiness and wonder is hidden from us and that we cannot comprehend it.
DeleteDefniing dark is key for this quesiton. Thanks for adding the Hebrew translation of darkness. All interesting components of the question.
ReplyDelete“Holy places are dark places. It is life and strength, not knowledge and words, that we get in them. Holy wisdom is not clear and thin like water, but thick and dark like blood.” CS Lewis
ReplyDeleteQuestion 2
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that on of the main themes of this book Is disordered love. Even though the book is from the perspective of Orual the story might suggest that Orual could display such disordered love towards Psyche because the king projects such disordered love towards Orual. In light of this I believe the veil might represent rejection and sort of pushing away. Orual wore the veil because of the disordered love that she felt from the people around her and because of this disordered love she saw herself as ugly and unloved so she hid her face. The veil might also be a way that C.S. Lewis brings out the theme of disordered love. It is a tool that he uses to show the feeling of rejection along with showing what we can do to ourselves if we feel as humans experience disordered love.
yeah, I totally agree with that. I think it does all kinda go back to love. I even think that Orual is guilty of giving disordered love toward psyche. I really like how you compared the veil with a tool of rejection!
DeleteQuestion 1
ReplyDeleteI wasn't totally sure what I thought about this idea that "holy places are dark", but I think Caleb said it pretty perfectly. I definitely agree that some of the holy or aweful things in the world are hidden from us. God has given us some degree of knowledge and the ability to discover and speculate. But at the same time, He leaves things unknown for us to wonder. If we knew everything, we would be God. I also think that God enjoys the fact that we are so perplexed and thoughtful about the things He has created and the ideas left unknown. When it comes to Orual, the fact that the gods are hiding answers from her, I think is true to an extent. I think that they may not audibly be speaking, but the answer is found in her life if she looks for them in new ways and also in how events turn out. I think that is also the same with the Lord, where we ask for an answer, but He may not always respond the way we think He should or in the way we want. Sometimes the answer is just given, but we are blind in the moment as to what the truth is.
I definitely agree. I think that the idea of holiness being so closely linked to darkness in the book is one that closely parallels Orual's travels throughout the book, and our travels as humans. Like you were saying, the answer could be found if Oraul looked for them. This is so true throught the book because Orual "wants" to believe Psyche about the house, but she desires Psyche's love more. This led her to continue in her "ignorance" about the gods, when she actually could have understood them, if she looked for the correct things.
DeleteQuestion 2: Why was Orual veiled? What might the veil symbolize? Consider also Exodus 34:33-35; 2 Corinthians 3:13-18; and chapter 4 of Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer. What effect did her veil have on Orual's life? How did people react to her veil?
ReplyDeleteThere are two parts to this line of questions: First, what purpose did the veil serve for those around Orual? and, second, how did the veil affect Orual and her way of living? So, the purpose that the veil served for others, in my opinion, was a sheltering the people from something that, if they saw, they could not handle. This is how Genesis describes the Israelites when they were with Moses after he had been with God. They were unable to look upon his face, so the veil was for their own "protection" so to speak. the second part of the question, like I mentioned earlier in one of my responses, can possibly symbolize a covering of sins. This is a different perspective than most of the people on the blog who talked about how it literally covered up her imperfections in an attempt to make her have a false, perfect self. I think that the veil could be a symbol of a perfect covering of sins through Christ. When Oraul puts on the veil, she is no longer concerned about her imperfections, and is able to live her life freely, thanks to the covering of her imperfections. Jesus can symbolize the veil, and us sinners as Oraul. When we are found in Christ, our identity, or face, ought to be Him. This is where we should be finding our comfort, just as Oraul finds her comfort in the veil. We are sinners, but thanks to Christ's sacrifice, we are able to live freely through him, no longer held back by our sin.
I love how you said that "Orual finds comfort in the veil" and its interesting to think about the veil in a good light. I had always looked at the veil as a negative thing.
DeleteWoah that's a interesting take! Especially the concept in taking comfort in the veil.
DeleteAre our sins "covered" or knocked right out of existence when we are saved?
Looking at the second question, about Orual being veiled, we run into one of the, if not the most key aspect in the story. The goal of her veil is to hide her face, to keep the world from seeing who she truly is. This not only keeps the world from knowing the true "identity" of Orual, but we also run into Orual's struggle with identifying herself. Her face being covered is a huge parallel with the title of the book "Till We Have Faces" Orual for most of the story has no face, she is hidden and then hides herself. The veil representing her struggle to identify herself, is her identity in her ugliness, in her fathers cruelty, in her sisters beauty? Or is it something deeper? The veil, while possibly representing some very deep and philosophical it is also possible that the veil simply points to Orual hiding her identity just as she hides her face? I believe that the veil is a tool used in the story show a time when Orual is not positive in where she finds her identity, when we reach the end of the story we see Orual's unveiled head lay down upon the freshly placed ink on her page when she finally finds her true identity.
ReplyDelete~M
Those are good points. Do you think there's anything modern day people use as "veils"? If the book was written about contemporary times, what would that be...?
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