History Literature / TillWeHaveFaces

''Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold'' (1956) is Creator/CSLewis's last novel, and the one he considered his best and most mature. It relates the myth of Cupid and Psyche (found in Apuleius' Latin novel ''The Golden Ass'') from a very different perspective than the original.

As soon as she is back on her feet, Orual steals away with the soldier Bardia to give her sister a proper burial. Instead, they find Istra herself, alive and well in the valley of the gods. Orual's joy turns to consternation, however, when she realizes Istra has gone mad, believing that she is the bride of a god and that her forest home is actually a divine palace. Orual takes steps to disabuse her sister of her illusions; these end in a disaster that permanently separates the two sisters.

* BeautyEqualsGoodness, [[SubvertedTrope subverted]]

* DissonantSerenity: The sweet voice of the god of the Grey Mountain lacks any hint of anger as it announces that forces beyond control will torture his wife and that Orual will meet the same horrible fate. Orual compares it to "a bird singing on the branch above a hanged man."

* AllTakeAndNoGive: How Orual describes the goddess Ungit and by extension all gods, who seem to demand sacrifice from humans while giving nothing in return. [[spoiler:Much later, she realizes that this is what she has demanded of Istra.]]

* ScaryShadowFakeout: Discussed. The high priests of Ungit believe the Shadowbrute has come to the kingdom because a shepherd reported seeing an enormous shadow on the mountain in the light of his torch. The Fox points out that if the shepherd was shining a torch at night, then well of course there would be a shadow behind it, so it's [[Occam's Razor not reasonable to believe]] it was divine interference.

* SlaveLiberation: Orual did quite a bit, starting with the Fox. [[DeliberateValuesDissonance Appropriately for her time]], she never regards slavery as a bad thing; rather, she thinks it's just (and prudent) for a good mistress to give freedom as a reward to faithful and hard-working slaves, and she expects (and receives) gratitude in return.

* HealingHands: The people of Glome believe that Istra's touch can cure a plague; it's not made clear how true this belief is. (The plague victims do in fact recover after Istra touches them, but The Fox points out [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane it could just be coincidence]]. Istra herself contracts the plague and nearly dies.)

* HealingHands: The people of Glome believe that Istra's touch can cure a plague; it's not made clear how true this belief is.

%%* DarkFantasy

%%* LowFantasy:

%%* RealityWarper:

* PaintingTheMedium: The last paragraph of the book is in italics, signifying that it's in a different handwriting from the rest of the book, namely that of Arnom. [[spoiler:He found Orual dead, her head resting on the scroll she was writing the story on]].

* MindScrew:Orual initially believes that Istra is only playing a childhood game of pretend with her when she shows Orual around her mountain "palace," before concluding that her sister has gone insane. [[spoiler:Then she has a double-mindscrew when she realizes the palace was ''real'' and she simply lacked the ability to see it.]]

* InnocentlyInsensitive: Bardia is genuinely fond of Orual, and very impressed with her proficiency at swordplay. Unfortunately, he expresses the latter to her by saying "It's a thousand pities [the gods] didn't make [Orual] a man."

* DissonantSerenity: The sweet voice of the god of the Grey Mountain lacks any hint of anger as it announces that forces beyond control will harm his wife and that Orual will meet the same horrible fate. Orual compares it to "a bird singing on branch above a hanged man."

* DarkIsNotEvil: The god of the Grey Mountain is known as the Shadowbrute, may be a LivingShadow, hides its face in darkness, and can only be encountered in the depths of lightless caves and foggy mountains. Everything indicates it is either a sinister lie or an evil specter, except the Shadow saves Istra's life and makes her happier as its bride than ever before. Its affinity for darkness seems to more a result of humans [[YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm inability]] or [[IRejectYourReality refusal]] while it is an example of GodIsGood that is implied to become UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}}.

* TheBlank: The Queen's favorite InUniverse bit of WildMassGuessing about her veil is that she wears it to hide the emptiness where her face would be if she had one. This theory in particular helps her intimidate wily politicians and brave soldiers into ceding to her demands.

* {{Demythification}}: Despite what the old myths would indicate, Aphrodite here seems to just be an obsidian rock instead of a divine woman. Similarly, her son Cupid isn't an angelic archer, but a living shadow that Fox believes is just a shadow. While all this sounds more mundane, over time it becomes clear that the gods aren't less mythic than in the old stories, it's just that they're scarier and more obscure in reality.

%%* AllTakeAndNoGive: Orual is the Giver. [[spoiler:Or so she claims herself to be.]]

%%* BecomingTheMask: Orual.

%%* ItsAllAboutMe: The king.

%%* MindScrew

%%* UnreliableNarrator: Orual realizes she is one after finishing the first half of the book.
%%* VirginSacrifice: Istra.

* TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask: Orual.

* CutLexLuthorACheck: The King of Glome often sentences people who particularly displease him to hard labor in his silver mines. As Orual notes, his tendency to have them worked to death is incredibly inefficient for the purpose of actually mining silver. Even as be bewails Glome's ill fortunes, he never considers any kind of labor reform. When Orual becomes queen, she takes special care to make sure the slaves in the mines are well-treated and healthy, and in a few years the silver output skyrockets, becoming a pillar of Glome's prosperity.

* LiteraryAgentHypothesis: The book is supposed to have been written by Orual and preserved in the temple of Glome to be taken by a traveler to Greece.

* ChallengingTheChief: A complicated bit of international politics leads to Orual fighting as the champion of a foreign prince against his father in a duel to decide which of the two should be king of their country. The whole dueling bit was wholly Orual's idea as a way to prove her worth to the other kingdom, to establish herself as the queen, and to distract herself from her all-consuming guilt.

* AbusiveParent: The King has no problem calling his daughter ugly to her face and beats her several times for speaking out of turn. He has to fake concern when one of his children is doomed to die because he's too relieved that his own hide is saved.

* {{God}}: The Divine Nature is thought by Greek intellectuals (like Fox) to be a single, [[TheOmnipotent all-powerful]], and unemotional power who created all things and assigns their destinies. While Fox's logical proofs and scholarly arguments suit the needs of priests and politicians, the old Priest of Ungit maintain that gods must be found in mystery and sacrifice rather than writing and navel-gazing. Every worshipper in the novel affirms the Priest's criticism of Fox.

* ReleaseYourSlaves: Orual did quite a bit, starting with the Fox. [[DeliberateValuesDissonance Appropriately for her time]], she never regards slavery as a bad thing; rather, she thinks it's just (and prudent) for a good mistress to give freedom as a reward to faithful and hard-working slaves, and she expects (and receives) gratitude in return.