Orual felt she was ugly and unworthy, and that drove a lot of her decisions and actions. It was the practice to sheer the hair of the daughters after the mother’s death, and when her older sister, Redival’s, hair was shorn, they said, “o what a pity! All the gold is gone!” Yet she points out nothing like that was said for hers. Orual begins part one with her mother’s death because it was the moment when she realized her ugliness, a wound that significantly impacts her, and she would carry for the rest of her life. We see a love that is infused with the divine and able to love appropriately. Further, throughout this journey, we see the opposite of possessive love in Orual’s sister, Psyche.

Ultimately, Lewis says ‘Till We Have Faces is a story of a possessive and jealous love that is eventually transformed by the gods, but we get to see the journey that leads to that end. In the second part of the book, we see a transformation happen within her that allows her to perceive the events of her life very differently and the effect she had on other people through this distorted love. We learn first-hand how she viewed situations, the way circumstances and experiences shaped her, how individuals influenced her worldview, and how those circumstances ultimately brought her to living life from a perspective of distorted love, thus effecting the decisions she made and the way she treated those around her. The first part is the life of Orual and her journey. Orual is writing to set the record straight with the gods about the story of her sister Psyche’s life and death. TWHFs is Lewis’ retelling of the ancient myth about Cupid and Psyche from the perspective of Psyche’s older sister, Orual.

In Season 3 of our podcast, we are going through the book in great detail if you are interested in learning more.

Rather than writing a brief summary for each post, we will link to this as a reference point for any readers. As we write blog posts, we will frequently be referencing parts of the book. This post is a summary of the book Till We Have Faces (TWHFs) by C.S. SPOILER WARNING: If you don’t want to know what happens in Till We Have Faces, come back and read this post when you’ve finished the book!

Cs lewis until we have faces