Blog: How to Fix Your Narcissistic Character: Orual From Till We Have Faces (Spoilers).

Till We Have Faces is probably one of C.S. Lewis’ lesser-known works. When I first saw the book when I was checking off the list of books that I had for my 8th grade year, I had had no idea that it even existed. Then I read the description of the book and became very excited to read it because it was based off of the Eros and Psyche story, which is one of my favorite Greek myths. While the actual story wasn’t super close to the actual tale (which makes sense since it was from someone else’s point of view) and I’m still not completely buying the idea that Eros is a good figure to use to portray Christ’s love for His people having read the actual myth, the character of Orual is who I want to focus on today.

Orual is an interesting case when it comes to analyzing characters. Not only does she have an insane amount of character growth and development over the course of the story, but mentally, she seems to shift from being unstable to constantly fighting herself. As I delved into her story, it became very clear to me that the main point C.S. Lewis wanted to make was that God can heal your wounds and answer your questions if you just trust in him. He does this by making Orual’s feelings clear to the reader. 

Throughout the Part One of the book, Orual comes off as a cynic towards the gods. She believes that they take and give nothing back to the people. In fact, the book starts off with her saying, “I accuse the gods, especially the god who lives on the Grey Mountain. That is, I will tell all he has done to me from the very beginning, as if I were making a complaint about him before a judge. But there is no judge between gods and men, and the god of the mountain will not answer me.” I believe that this a combination of hearing the Fox say that the gods were nothing but “lies of poets”, and then watching the people in the kingdom worship the goddess, Ungit. I think Orual believes that the myths about the gods being good are lies and can only see the bad things about them. It also doesn’t help that her father demands that Ungit be worshipped by sacrificing Psyche – Orual’s youngest sister who she loves a lot – to the Shadowbrute. 

Speaking of Psyche, one of Orual’s character traits is that she has a selfish love for Psyche that leads to her resenting her sister. Because she’s the big sister, she originally gave her attention to Redival, the middle child, but when Psyche came along, Orual forgot about Redival and doted over the new princess. Several times in the book, Orual goes so far as to wish she had been the mother of Psyche, since she brings beauty to everything. This mindset seems to consume Orual to the point where, instead of seeing Psyche as a person, she sees her sister as an object to be possessed and protected from their abusive father. She seems to hope that if she can keep Psyche, that she’ll then be beautiful. She would rather die, even, than see Psyche given to the Shadowbrute, Ungit’s son. “If only he had killed me! If only they would take me instead of you!” she says when she meets with Psyche for the last time before she’s sacrificed. Psyche tries to reason with Orual, but Orual is at the end of her wits, hating her calmness and wishing to be the one comforting Psyche. This is the first time where we can see that her selfish love for Psyche has become toxic and is giving way to resentment and bitterness. Orual becomes angry at her sister, saying in the book, “She made me, in a way, angry. I would’ve died for her (this I know is true) and yet, the night before her death, I could feel anger. She spoke so steadily and thoughtfully, as if we had been disputing with the Fox, up behind the pear trees, with hours and days still before us. The parting between her and me seemed to cost me so much and her so little.” After Psyche is sacrificed, Orual falls sick and starts hallucinating and raving about Psyche. She becomes paranoid that Psyche is out to hurt her, making it clear that her selfish love for Psyche has become corrupted. Without her sister, Orual becomes mentally unstable, even after the illness has passed. She seems to treat Psyche as her lifeline – perhaps as a distraction from her abusive father – and without her, Orual seems to be mentally lost. She tries to remedy this by looking for Psyche, but what ends up happening is she seems to cause more damage to her mental state. 

Orual finds Psyche and immediately starts to guilt trip and try to coerce her into coming back. Her sister once again tries to reason with her, saying that she’s happy and is married to a god, but Orual will have none of it and continues with the guilt trip continues: “‘Oh, Psyche’ I sobbed, ‘you’re so far away. Do you even hear me? I can’t reach you. Oh Psyche, Psyche!  You loved me once…come back. What have we to do with gods and wonders and all these cruel, dark things? We’re women, aren’t we? Mortals. Oh, come back to the real world. Leave all that alone. Come back where we were happy.’” Psyche continues to refuse and Orual tries one last time to get her to come back. She takes a dagger and stabs herself in the arm, threatening to kill Psyche and herself if she didn’t come back. Psyche doesn’t believe her and Orual ends up leaving brokenhearted. This is an example of how mentally unstable and desperate Orual has become if she is willing to inflict harm to herself just to prove a point. While her mental stability does improve as the story goes on, she still fights mentally between hating and loving Psyche, holding a grudge against the gods as she does so. She seems unable to accept the idea that her sister is happy, because she can’t seem to let of her past thoughts that Psyche could only be happy with her. 

However, while Psyche being taken away from Orual helps her mature more by teaching her that she can’t just cling onto people for mental support, it also causes her to become more depressed in her attempts to hide her sadness. At first, Orual grieves, then becomes resentful, but still can’t help but love Psyche. When she becomes queen, Orual demands that everyone refer to her as just “Queen”. The reason why she does this is so that she can try to suppress her memories of Psyche and their abusive childhood. She uses this new name as a way to try to fix herself and while it works to some extent, it also seems to hurt her more as she becomes more aware of her flaws to the extent where she covers her face all the time because to hide her ugliness, a flaw she has always been aware of. This, of course, is a bad way to deal with your trauma – in my opinion – but she still does it, not realizing that she is only hurting herself more. This is shown because, as the book goes on, she blames the gods more and more, not realizing that some of the things in her life are caused by her own decisions. When she takes her complaint to the gods at the end of the book, she says, “I was my own and Psyche was mine and no one else had any right to her” and “Did you ever remember whose the girl was? She was mine. Mine. Do you not know what that word means? Mine! You’re thieves, seducers. That’s my wrong. I’ll not complain (not now) that you’re blood-drinkers and man-eaters. I’m past that…” While she is right that the gods took Psyche from her, she lets go of all the sadness she’s been holding in and blames the gods for it even though she could’ve learned to accept Psyche’s sacrifice. This also goes back to her selfish love for Psyche and how she’s been corrupted by it. At the end, though, she is finally sent to be judged by Cupid, (Psyche’s husband) and immediately regrets her hatred of the gods. At the end of her life, she realizes that she was – in a way – the bad guy of her own story. Most of her torment came from her own cynicism. It is only when she stands in the presence of Cupid that she has her questions answered and is finally at peace. 

Orual grows a lot as a character. She goes from being self-righteous, cynical, and selfish during Part One of Till We Have Faces, to finally finding peace and understanding at the end of Part Two. As the story moved forward, she suffered much hardship, but finally accepted the gods and was able to see Psyche again. The story of her mental fight was amazingly crafted and is a testament to how even the most selfish of characters can still grow into heroes.