St. Paul states, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (Holy Bible: Placed by the Gideons, 1 Corinthians 13:12). Facing a mirror reveals one’s true self because looking at a reflection is looking into one’s soul. It is self-realization that shows the selfish or selfless love resting within one’s heart. For many centuries and still today, love is described as one of the best feelings on earth, a feeling that has brought about joy, as well as heartbreak. C.S. Lewis captures this intangible feeling through his writing. He devotes these two novels to show that love can be selfish yet selfless, and both aspects have a place in life. Through his writing, …show more content…
With gift-love, there is no expectation of something in return. Lewis writes, “The typical example of Gift- love would be that love which moves a man to work and plan and save for the future well-being of his family, which he will die without sharing or seeing, of the second, that which sends a lonely or frightened child into its mothers arms” (Lewis, TFL 1). A man works his whole life to provide his family with a livelihood, but by the time of his death, he will never see the impact he made because gift-love is given with no hopes of receiving anything in return. It is so powerful and so kind that the second it is lost, it affects all those who were touched by it. C.S. Lewis captures parts of gift-love through the Fox and Orual. The Fox acts like a true grandfather for Orual and Psyche and his love is unconditional. Orual says, “The Fox’s love for the child was wonderful,” proving that the effect his love had on Psyche and Orual was truly seen (Lewis, TWHF 21). Orual, as well, professes gift-love through her care for Psyche. Her life is consumed with Psyche and she enjoys every minute of it. Orual explains, “I lost more sleep looking on Psyche for the joy of it than in any other way” (Lewis, TWHF 21). As shown, gift-love plays a strong role in Till We Have Faces, along with …show more content…
Lewis explains that to grasp an understanding of affection, an image has to be depicted: the image of a mother nurturing her baby, the baby-talk, milk, warmth, and smell of young-life (Lewis, TFL 32). The mother gives birth to her child, along with protection, food, and love. The child needs the protection, love, and food to not only survive, but to live a good life. Just as mothers show their children affection, Orual shows Psyche affection. This affection transforms from a gift-love to a need-love. Schakel writes, “Orual took place of the mother Psyche never knew, and no child was ever better loved or more devotedly cared for” (Schakel 29). Orual was the maternal figure in Psyche’s life, but as this affection grew, the possessiveness increased. Orual says, “I wanted to be a wife so that I could be her real mother. I wanted to be a boy so that she could fall in love with me. I wanted her to be my full sister instead of my half sister. I wanted her to be a slave so that I could set her free and make her rich” (Lewis, TWHF 23). This need-love is brought on by Pysche who has beauty, grace, and ease all of which Orual does not have. Orual finds fulfillment in Psyche, as well as a purpose and love she has never experienced before (Schakel 29). However, Orual is not the only character to express affection, for the Fox does as
When we think about the force that holds the world together and what makes humans different from animals, one answer comes to our minds - that humans can love. Love is a state of mind that cannot be defined easily but can be experienced by everyone. Love is very complicated. In fact it is so complicated that a person in love may be misunderstood to be acting in an extremely foolish manner by other people. The complexity of love is displayed in Rostand’s masterpiece drama Cyrano de Bergerac. This is accomplished by two characters that love the same woman and in the course neither one achieves love in utter perfection.
Although Till We Have Faces draws its inspiration from the myth of Cupid and Psyche, which explores a number of human faults including jealousy, lack of trust and envy, the primary human fault C.S. Lewis explores is lack of faith. Like Mircea Eliade...
Many people have different perceptions of suffering. Some of them see sickness and trauma as the main causes of sorrow and anguish in a person’s life. Rarely does a person think that one’s physical appearance can be a cause of sorrow and misery. This is Lucy’s story. She recounts the events of her life in her book Autobiography of a Face. She developed cancer as a young child, and this forced her to undergo surgery and numerous sessions of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. She had to endure numerous stares and insults from other people. This was a trying time for the young girl considering what she had to undergo. However, it did not compare to her later years. She spent countless hours in hospitals trying to get the perfect face. She did not want to be different from everyone else. In the end, she realized that the beauty and satisfaction that she was looking for were deeper within her. She could not get what she was looking for in the mirror or in the approval of others. To Lucy, being different from others was worse than the cancer she had. Despite the numerous challenges she faced, Lucy remained resilient.
In the Symposium, a most interesting view on love and soul mates are provided by one of the characters, Aristophanes. In the speech of Aristophanes, he says that there is basically a type of love that connects people. Aristophanes begins his description of love by telling the tale of how love began. He presents the tale of three sexes: male, female, and a combination of both. These three distinct sexes represented one’s soul. These souls split in half, creating a mirror image of each one of them. Aristophanes describes love as the search for the other half of your soul in this quote: “When a man’s natural form was split in two, each half went round looking for its other half. They put their arms around one another, and embraced each other, in their desire to grow together again. Aristophanes theme is the power of Eros and how not to abuse it.
The meaning of love cannot be defined in one sentence or even in 16 pages. Every human has his or her own definition of what love is. People define love by their own experiences whether as true love or ending in heartaches. In Raymond Carver’s short story, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, he describes what love is, by depicting what it is not. He executes this by portraying the experiences of four people, while using their dialogue and setting in the story to describe how something so beautiful as love can easily become an awkward and repelling subject to discuss.
whole feeling of it, The Giver told him the feeling that was so strong in the room is love” (P.125).
The concept of love is a very ambiguous, controversial, idea that is nearly impossible to come to a singular consensus on. In this essay I will be describing and comparing two philosophical views on the concepts and ideas behind love. Through the works of Todd May and Plato, different approaches to the concept of love will be illustrated as well as determining the similarities and differences between the two perspectives.
This passage marks the first of several types of love, and gives us an intuitive
This face of the other, the stranger serves as an “indicative surface” to us. Lingis (1994) states “The face of another is a surface upon which one senses directions and directives that order me; w...
Love is often misconstrued as an overwhelming force that characters have very little control over, but only because it is often mistaken for the sum of infatuation and greed. Love and greed tread a blurred line, with grey areas such as lust. In simplest terms, love is selfless and greed is selfish. From the agglomeration of mythological tales, people deduce that love overpowers characters, even that it drives them mad. However, they would be wrong as they would not have analyzed the instances in depth to discern whether or not the said instance revolves around true love. Alone, true love help characters to act with sound reasoning and logic, as shown by the tales of Zeus with his lovers Io and Europa in Edith Hamilton’s Mythology.
Some may say love is just an emotion while others may say it is a living and breathing creature. Songs and poems have been written about love for hundreds and thousands of years. Love has been around since the beginning of time, whether someone believes in the Big Bang or Adam and Eve. Without love, there wouldn’t be a world like it is known today. But with love, comes pain with it. Both William Shakespeare and Max Martin know and knew this. Both ingenious poets wrote love songs of pain and suffering as well as blossoming, newfound love. The eccentric ideal is both writers were born centuries apart. How could both know that love and pain work hand in hand when they were born 407 years apart? Love must never change then. Love survives and stays its original self through the hundreds and thousands of years it has been thriving. Though centuries apart, William Shakespeare and Max Martin share the same view on love whether i...
When most people think of love, they imagine a beautiful concept, one of which is and should be a part of life. Some will imagine the unconditional love of God, others will picture a spouse or family members, and some may even think about materialistic things. While there are many ways in which love can be defined as, it usually has positive connotations. This is not necessarily the case in Lewis’ novel Till We Have Faces, at least through the character Orual. Love is a major theme in the novel and is portrayed in both a humanly and a divine way. The humanly love which Lewis displays is mainly shown through Orual and is demonstrated as a perverse love. The divine love is presented through Psyche and is portrayed as selfless. In Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis differentiates perverse love and selfless
First, to get back on track, it is important to look at the three separate levels of love, and it would make sense to first look at eros. Eros is a romantic love, the kind of love one would have towards a beautiful object, or person. It is that sexual drive that is most apparent at the early stages of a relationship. This could be considered to be the first definition people would think of when questioned about the meaning of love. In fact in a more layman attempt at understanding eros one can think of the feeling one has during a crush, where a person’s affections are aimed at a single individual.
The Symposium, The Aeneid, and Confessions help demonstrate how the nature of love can be found in several places, whether it is in the mind, the body or the soul. These texts also provide with eye-opening views of love as they adjust our understanding of what love really is. By giving us reformed spectrum of love, one is able to engage in introspective thinking and determine if the things we love are truly worthy of our sentiment.
One of the eight concepts is “Eros” or Erotic love, which represents sexual passion and desire— typically falling under romantic relationships. Eros is mostly based on sexual feelings and desires rather than anything else. The next type of love is “Philia” or Affectionate love, which describes the love of friends—especially ones that experienced hard times with each other. This type of love is free from romance, but mostly focuses on loyalty. In addition, “Storge” or Familial love symbolizes natural love between family, principally between parents and children. Like “Philia” it is also free of romance. The fourth type of love in Greek society is “Ludus” or Playful love that symbolizes a playful form of love, for example, between lovers. Every relationship should maintain the playful form to retain a fresh relationship and to stray away from always being serious. The fifth type of love is “Mania” or Obsessive love, which a person becomes jealous because they want love and to be loved. This love can lead to many problems in a romantic or interpersonal relationship because of jealousy. Next is “Pragma” or Enduring love, which symbolizes a matured love over time. Furthermore, this relationship has passed physical touches— but developed into a casual, loving relationship. Does not only include marriages, but friendships that have occurred for a long time. Moreover, “Philautia” or Self love occurs when we love ourselves regardless of anything. The Greeks acknowledged that we must first love ourselves before we can demonstrate love to anyone else. We cannot share what we do not obtain, we must first love ourselves (Sol, 2016). Additionally, the eighth type of Greek love is “Agape” or Selfless love, which is unconditional love. Out of all the types of loves, it is the purest due to the reason it does not expect anything. Regardless of how many mistakes or flaws a person has,