Orual’s concealment of her true self is symbolized by the veil she begins wearing after Psyche’s exile. But she lacks the self-awareness to understand the selfishness fueling her actions. But in Lewis’s retelling, Orual is not jealous of Psyche she is jealous of the god of the Grey Mountain. In the ancient Greek legend that Till We Have Faces is drawn from, Psyche’s older sisters are jealous that she has the good fortune to wed a god. Convinced she is a victim that the gods have unjustly robbed of all joy, it takes Orual the journey of her whole life to gain the self-knowledge to see her own culpability in her fate and Psyche’s. Psyche is exiled and heartbroken, and Orual must return to Glome alone with the knowledge that she has destroyed her sister’s happiness. Orual, partly motivated by disbelief and partly by a desire to draw Psyche away from her lover, manipulates Psyche into disobeying her husband. Psyche claims that the god is her bridegroom, and they live in a sumptuous palace that Orual cannot see.

When Orual makes a journey to the mountain, intending to bury Psyche’s bones, she discovers Psyche herself, healthier and more beautiful than ever. When famine strikes the kingdom of Glome, the priest of Ungit (the Glomish Aphrodite) calls for Psyche to be sacrificed to the god of the Grey Mountain, Ungit’s son. But to reach redemption, she must own her failures, and she will need supernatural grace to do so.Īn unattractive, motherless daughter with a cruel father, the young Princess Orual loves her beautiful younger sister Psyche. Through her confession, she journeys from self-deceit to true contrition, does penance, and is absolved. In a sense, the entire novel is the confession of the protagonist Orual, older sister to Psyche. As I have re-read this book year after year, I’m struck by the theme of redemptive confession mirroring the sacrament of Reconciliation. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces, a retelling of the Greek legend of Cupid and Psyche, will always be my favorite of his fiction writings. Although I was raised on The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S.

We have faces