Ancient Myths Among Floating Islands and Space Travel:

Monomyth in C.S. Lewis’s Perelandra

Rob Heggestad

In Lewis’s space novel, Perelandra, his protagonist Ransom is sent by Maleldil (God) to be present as the first two people of Perelandra (Venus) fight against the influence of Satan, whom is lurking in the body of Dr. Weston. It is a story of Paradise before it is lost, and it is Ransom’s job to convince the Lady to not listen to Dr. Weston, who wants the Lady to go and live on the Fixed Land, the only place God has decreed they must not live. I argue that Lewis does not simply use Christian allegory, but combines the monomyth along with other pagan myths into his novel. I will show how Lewis leads Ransom through a journey of mythical status, through the underworld and, as the monomyth stipulates, into a resurrection. Lewis’s purpose in this is, I believe, to lead his readers to Christ.

Works Cited

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero With a Thousand Faces. New York: Bollingen, 1953.

Frazer, Sir James George. The Golden Bough. New York: Macmillan, 1940.

Grace, Kevin Michael. “Praising God in Myth.” Newsmagazine 29.1 (2002): 33, 34.

Lewis, C.S. God in the Dock. Ed. Walter Hooper. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B.

            Eerdmans Publishing, 1970.

Lewis, C.S. Perelandra. New York: Scribner, 2003.

New International Version of The Holy Bible. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 

1988.

The Chronicles of Narnia. Wikipedia. 27 Feb. 2006 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_

            Chronicles_of_Narnia>

 

A Man’s War:

 The Women the Men Carry in The Things They Carried

Amanda N Kopp

Tim O’Brien is known to focus on the effects Vietnam has on his male characters during and after the war, but his female characters are often out of place, and are not allowed to understand the male dominated world of war.   Two basic types of women are presented to the reader through the stories of men, and are never physically present, excluded from the storytelling, deprived of a realistic voice.  In this essay I will argue that in O’Brien’s works, particularly The Things They Carried, the purpose of the female character is to serve as a device that is used to strengthen the idealized masculine perspective of war—and often life—by contrasting the generalized feminine position.  

Works Cited

Herzog, Tobey C. “Mysteries of Life, Love, and Storytelling: In the Lake of the Woods,”

            Tim O’Brien. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1997.

Horner, Carl S. “Challenging the Law of Courage and Heroic Identification in Tim

O’Brien’s If I Die in a Combat Zone and The Things They Carried,” War, Literature & the Arts: An International Journal of the Humanities, Spring/Summer1999, Vol. 11 Issue 1, pp.256-267.

Jeffords, Susan. The Remasculinization of America: Gender and the Vietnam War.

Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989.

O’Brien, Tim. In the Lake of the Woods. New York: Penguin Books, 1995.

                      . The Things They Carried. New York: Broadway Books, 1990.

                      . Tomcat In Love. New York: Broadway Books, 1998.

Smiley, Pamela. “The Role of the Ideal (Female) Reader in Tim O’Brien’s The Things

They Carried: Why Should Real Women Play?” Massachusetts Review, 2002, Vol. 43 Issue 4, pp.602-613.

Smith, Lorrie N. “ ‘The Things Men Do’: The Gendered Subtext in Tim O’Brien’s

            Esquire Stories,” Critique, Fall 1994, Vol. 36 Issue 1, pp.16-40.

Young, William. “Missing in Action: Vietnam and Sadism in Tim O’Brien’s In the Lake

            of the Woods,” Midwest Quarterly, Winter2006, Vol. 47 Issue 2, pp.131-143.