If you are looking for the beginning of the study for C. S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces then you can go HERE for a brief introduction. At the bottom of the introduction you will find the links to each section of the study guide as it becomes available. If you would like to see the growing list of book studies available for free on this site you can go HERE. Enjoy!
Virtues/Vices/Great Ideas: (Find these in the Text and Note them in the Margins)
Substitution, Love, Forgiveness, Justice, Light vs. Darkness, Beauty, Resurrection, Joy, Virtue
Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)
What did Orual say was “the answer” of the gods to her complaint?
What did the Fox say to the judge about who should be blamed, and why, for the things Orual said?
What did the Priest know “there must be” which the Fox had not formerly believed?
Why, according to the text, did the judge tell Fox to be at “peace?”
What did Orual attempt to do when the court released her and who prevented her from accomplishing her purpose?
Where did the Fox say he was to bring Orual now and for what?
What was Psyche doing which made Orual cry out “Do not do it. Do not do it?”
What task did Orual observe Psyche working at where “Ants were helping her?”
What was the next task Orual observed Psyche completing?
What did the eagle bring to Psyche?
What did Orual “give thanks” and “bless the gods” for?
What was “the last of the tasks that Ungit” set for Psyche?
What did Psyche bring back “from the Queen of Shadows” and where did the voices say she was returning to?
What did Psyche say “she went a long journey to fetch?”
How did the coming of the god into his house make Orual feel?
What did Orual see in the pool’s reflection when she cast down her eyes?
Why, according to Orual, did the Lord not answer her?
How did Arnom describe Queen Orual?
Logic Questions: (Interpreting, Comparing/Contrasting, Reasoning)
Orual said, of the gods, “How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?” What did she mean by that?
What did the Fox mean when he said, “I never told her why the old Priest got something from the dark house that I never got from my trim sentences” or “why the people got something from the shapeless stone which no one ever got from that painted doll of Arnom’s?”
What did the Fox mean when he said “the way to the true gods is more like the house of Ungit…oh, it’s unlike too…?”
What did the judge mean when he or she said “It is the gods who have been accused. They have answered her. If they in turn accuse her, a greater judge and a more excellent court must try the case?”
When the Fox said to Orual “Be sure that, whatever else you get, you will not get justice” from the gods, what did he mean?
What should be made of the fact that Orual saw Psyche tying her ankles and about to throw herself in the river? What about this incident is familiar and what is the story trying to communicate here?
How does Psyche’s task with the seeds connect with Orual’s dream at the beginning of Part II, Ch. 1?
How does Psyche’s task with the rams connect with Orual’s earlier vision and experience with the golden rams?
What is the relationship between the “water of death” which the eagle brought to Psyche and the “casket of beauty” which Psyche later brought to Orual?
In what way did Orual “take nearly all the anguish” out of Psyche’s labours?
What did the Fox mean when he said, “All, even Psyche, are born into the house of Ungit. And all must get free from her?”
Why might it have been necessary for Psyche to endure those three specific temptations on her way to “the Queen of Shadows?”
Why was the third temptation apparently the most difficult for Psyche to pass by?
The Fox said Psyche “had no more dangerous enemies than” he and Orual. What did he mean by this?
As the Fox spoke of the gods one day becoming “wholly beautiful” or at least finally being able to be seen as such, he also said “This age of ours will one day be the distant past. And the Divine Nature can change the past. Nothing is yet in its true form.” What did he mean by all of this?
When describing Psyche as she now was, Orual said “she was the old Psyche still; a thousand times more her very self than she had been before the Offering.” What did she mean by this? How was Psyche more herself than before?
What made Orual into another Psyche?
If Orual was as bad as she realized herself to be, why did Arnom say that she “was the most wise, just, valiant, fortunate, and merciful of all the princes known in our parts of the world?” Was this mere flattery or was it sincere?
Rhetoric Questions: (The Analysis of Ideas in the Text)
What are at least two different ways in which we see the idea of substitution ( the taking the place of another for some purpose) within this present chapter? What are some real life situations in which it might be necessary (or desirable) for someone to take another’s place? What are some motivations, either good or bad, which might move someone to take another’s place? What are some reasons why someone might object to one person substituting for another? How do we determine if a given example of substitution is legitimate or permissible? Explain your thoughts carefully.
How should we as Christians think about the pagan gods of old? Is absolutely everything about the ancient pagan religions false and evil or was there real good and truth in it too? In what way might God have taken pagan religion, with all of its ugliness and wickedness, and used it to bring about good? How might God even make something beautiful out of the old pagan religions without compromising the truth? How can Christians continue to transform culture and reclaim and redeem things for God’s glory today? Try to give a few examples of how God and his people (Christians) have and still can redeem culture and make it serve God as it ought.
Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)
Read Job 40-42 and relate it to this and the previous chapter of Till We Have Faces. How are they significantly alike? How are they also different?
Read Roman 3:10-31 and relate it to Orual’s life and situation (as well as the rest of us). What is the plight of all mankind before God and what do we all desperately need?
Read 1 John 2:1-6 and 1 Timothy 2:1-6. Connect the teaching of these two passages to ideas within our story.
Read Romans 5:12-21. How might we relate this passage to what the Fox said about being “born into the house of Ungit?”
Read Luke 14:25-33. How might we relate this to Psyche’s final trial?
Read 1 Corinthians 13:9-12. How might we connect this to the story of Till We Have Faces as a whole?