Some More Introductory Character Development: The Fox

The Fox reminds me of Aristotle. He is inquisitive and bright-faced, and he seeks to learn everything about Glome—right down to the land’s flora and fauna. Aristotle, likewise, was a master of plants and animals and cataloged them his whole academic life.

Two of the Fox’s first lines, pithy little sayings he uses to cheer himself, are the following:

No Man can be an exile if he remembers that all the world is one city.

And

Everything is as good or bad as our opinion makes it.

Now, I don’t remember the exact wording Aristotle uses, but he makes a point similar to the latter saying by explaining that there is a life which men should pursue because it is a truly human life, the only one worth living. Since we are different from animals in that we have reason, the life worth living must be a life devoted somehow to an intellectual development. As an educator, the Fox surely had this in mind for his educational charges, Orual and Redival.

He set about teaching philosophy, reading, and writing—though he would occasionally recite a line of poetry to Orual, who relished these moments. Often, the poetry would be followed by the line, “All folly, child.” The Fox was certainly attentive to reality, and tried to pry Orual away from all things mythical, poetic, and musical, except to sate her curiosity every so often. He wanted her to learn the “real” stuff of education.

As we’ll see later, however, this dis-emphasis on myth and deity might not be correct.

All is not folly.

-Chris

An Opening Thought

In the opening paragraphs of Till We Have Faces, Orual, the narrator of the story, gives us her reasons for writing the tome. She burns with complaints against the gods of her land, and since her life is nearly over and her family secure, she feels she can finally voice these complaints. She writes her story, she says, “as if I were making my complaint of [the god on the Grey Mountain] before a judge.” She starts from the beginning and lays out the case against the local deity, for reasons we will presently see.

Orual refrains from writing in her native tongue, however. She had been taught Greek from a young age, so she writes the story in the hopes that a Greek speaker will bring her story to that land of free speech in the future.

Perhaps the wise men will know whether my complaint is right or whether the god could have defended himself if he had made an answer.

As we read through this novel, my personal favorite of Lewis’, let us keep this plea in mind. The above quote is one of the opening lines of the novel, and it seems as if Lewis is asking us to do the same.

Is Orual justified in her anger? Have the gods wronged her family? Is she overreacting? Why is she so angry? What is the significance of the veil, of the idea of faces?

These are questions astute readers will ask. I have not read this in several years, so I will be dusting out the cobwebs, as well. I hope we can read this together and come to some intellectual stimulation and growth in the end.

Onward and upward!
-Chris