Til We Have Faces - Stephanie Snyder

Ugliness in Til We Have Faces

Orual's ugly face is only a parallel for the real ugliness in her heart. Her grasping of all that she loves is a manifestation of that soul-ugliness, just as Ungit represents the epitome of that ugliness. When Orual realizes that she is Ungit, -that her very soul mirrors that ugliness, it is a crucial moment.
“To say that I was Ungit" Orual pontificates, "meant that I was as ugly in soul as she; greedy, blood gorged.”
Evidently Lewis is trying to give us an image of the soul-ugliness that resides in each of us, of which we can not escape unless we are redeemed from it. Ugliness -in spiritual terms is innate in man’s nature. Orual says herself: “We bring our ugliness, both kinds, with us into the world, with it our destiny.”
Yet Lewis also shows how Orual’s inherent ugliness is like all of mankind’s, and how Psyche’s gift of spiritual beauty is like the salvation Christ offers.
Having grown up in the Christian faith, Lewis struggled during his college years with the question of God, and finally came to the conclusion that Christ would be his savior.
He wrote “I have just passed from believing in God, to believing in Christ.”