English, Literature, and Modern Languages Faculty Publications

The Pagan Sacrament: Venus and Eros in C.S.Lewis's Till We Have Faces

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Fall 2015

Journal Title

Renascence

ISSN

2329-8626

Volume

67

Issue

4

First Page

295

Last Page

311

DOI

https://doi.org/10.5840/renascence201567421

Abstract

The gods in C. S. Lewis’s novel Till We Have Faces are often supposed to represent the God of Christianity, yet Lewis’s nonfiction suggests that the gods, Ungit and her son the Shadowbrute, should be understood as Venus and Eros, who represent the sex act and romantic attraction, respectively. Throughout the novel, the narrator, Orual, struggles against both sexuality and romantic attraction, and therefore against both deities. By the end of the novel, Orual has reconciled with her sister Psyche as well as with the god Eros. Although there are parallels between Orual’s final visions of Eros and Christian visions of God, the details of the novel tend to undercut the Christian typology that readers have come to expect from Lewis’s fiction.

Keywords

C.S. Lewis, Venus, Eros, Christian typology

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