An Analysis Of Orual's Suffering In Till We Have Faces

C.S.Lewis was a British novelist,Christian apologist and literary critic in the20^th century.In comparison with abundant researches which have been conducted on his works in the Western world,scarce attention has been paid to him in China.Till We Have Faces is Lewis's last novel and is taken as his most mature one.Taking into consideration the protagonist Orual's life filled with pain,and Lewis's two other books on the topic of suffering?The Problem of Pain and A Grief Observed?,it is clear that suffering can be an important perspective to interpret the novel and an analysis of Orual's suffering would throw light on how suffering constructs her concept of self and how suffering works on humanity in general.Chapter one gives an account of the suffering experiences of Orual.She first suffers from the loss of her beloved sister Psyche.Then haunting fear from a god's words about her destiny puts her into a desperate state whenever she is troubled in her queenship.And the unbearable revelations of her inner ugliness lead her to the brink of committing suicide before she is stopped by the god.Chapter two explores the process of her suffering overcoming.First she denies the experience of the loss of Psyche.She depersonalizes herself under the veil,trying to escape from her shame of leading to Psyche's banishment.Then she is led to act out the experience of Psyche's exile again,and her evils are re-presented in a series of revelations.But she cannot work out herself.Finally,her writing helps her emotionally with therapeutic benefits and cognitively with a clear idea of her evils.However,her final deliverance is achieved in her substituted endurance of Psyche's hardships from all her tasks.Chapter three analyzes the redemptive effects of suffering for Orual.Orual needs redemptive suffering to become good due to the limitation of her reason and self-idolatry.First her suffering works to break her illusions of all-being-well,including her limitation of reasoning about the supernatural and love.Then it works to break her illusions of self-sufficiency from love.But she can never love others properly due to the evils in her love.Finally pain helps her know her true self and eventually surrender to god.Chapter four focuses on the mystery of suffering both in the novel and in the real world.In the novel,Orual's last-moment deliverance before death and the suspenseful ending of the novel echo Lewis's notion of suffering as mystery in his A Grief Observed.In the real world,the problem of suffering is still of mystery in both the religious and secular world.While God's omnipotence and goodness in a world of suffering arouse controversies,the widespread pessimistic view of suffering tends to negate human effort.But religion might offer a more comprehensive response to suffering in its wider range of considerations,and gods'power and goodness can offer horror-defeating sustenance and strength.On the whole,the novel shows the danger of self-idolatry and the value of suffering in the construction of identity.Lewis's thoughts can surely contribute to further studies of the problem of suffering.