Reality Seen Clearer Through Fairy Stories: Till We Have Faces

Catherine Porter

Another interesting theme that C.S. Lewis touches on in Till We Have Faces is the concept of reality. As we have discussed in class, C.S. Lewis argues that it is through myth that we are able to have a better understanding of what we call reality. In the novel he writes “You don’t think – not possibly – not as a mere hundredth chance – there might be things that are real though we can’t see them? … If there are souls, could there not be soul-houses?” Here C.S. Lewis asks the readers to consider perhaps the existence of things that cannot be seen. He uses the example of souls, which are not things we see but that generally people would agree exist. Yet if there are souls, he argues, might there not also be “soul-houses”. In other words, if there are these singular ideas in which we believe can exist without being seen, why couldn’t there be a larger realm in which things unseen exist?