Orual's Universal Struggle: Conflict and Development in Till We Have Faces Anonymous College

As some may know, Till We Have Faces is far from being C.S. Lewis’ most beloved work nor is it the most accessible. However with the central story of the broken protagonist, Orual, we get a glimpse into Lewis’s interpretation of how souls are often damned by their own excessive desires. For Orual, her main conflict seems to be her long journey towards reconciliation with the divine. Orual’s path to redemption parallels Lewis’ in real life in that they both sought out to gain a fuller understanding of the divine to reconcile for their wrongdoings. Lewis plays out the conflicts he dealt with during his life onto the character of Orual by making her deal with the pressure of rational vs. romantic and the moral flaw of too much self-love. Looking closely at Till We Have Faces, we see the way the character of Orual is portrayed and in turn she must learn that in order to understand the gods we must have true sincerity in our souls.

In Till We Have Faces, we learn of Orual’s romantic longing for her sister Psyche which is central to the novel. Ever since they were children, Psyche wished to live upon the mountain that overlooked Glome to encounter a world that was so different from her own. I believe this is where fault originates...