The Twisted Myth of Cupid and Psyche (Till We Have Faces Book 2 Ch 1-2)

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Join Angelica, Adalyn and Esther for our classic book discussions! This discussion is designed for readers who want to move beyond surface-level plot points to understand the deeper themes and allusions present in Till We Have Faces!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:02

Alright, welcome back to the Junto Club podcast. We are almost done with Tilly Have Faces. So we're talking about book two, chapters one and two. Alright, I'm Angelica. The thing I most want to talk about is Ansid and Oriole's confrontation.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Um, I'm Adeline, and the thing I most want to talk about is the mythological connections.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

I'm Esther, and I most want to talk about Oriol's face and how she is gaining or losing hers.

SPEAKER_04 0:36

Alright, let's start out by recapping like the plot.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Sure. So we walk in and Cordia dies. Is that why we're all wearing black today? Uh that was coincidence. It's a sign of mourning. So basically, he dies. And Arul goes and visits Ansit, his wife, and then this was basically the meat of the chapter. And Ansit basically just declares or shows that she has been jealous of Rule and her husband, but she understands basically that the woman's job. I mean, she's not like she accepts it. And she gets angry that he is overworked, but she wasn't gonna do anything about it. And it's this whole weird thing, and then Arule uncovers her face. And Ansit sees that Arul loved Maria. And then they become friends over that. And then they make it they become enemies again. This is weird. His like someone is in his is in his character. Like they're about to punch somebody, and then they both start laughing over a joke, and then like go back to punching somebody. Really weird. And so they go back and then they are like almost fighting. And then Aurel leaves.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

There was a part in the top in this chapter where Arul has this dream where she's sorting these piles of grain, and she's like working her butt off, and she's scared that if she gets anything wrong, something bad's gonna happen. So uh, but sometimes in these dreams, she's an ant. And so this is a not so subtle nod to the original myth of Cupid and Psyche. So Aphrodite in attempts to make Psyche miserable, right? She uh gives her these different tasks before she can get back to Cupid. So when the first task is that she must sort this huge field of grain, each into a different pile. But um Psyche eventually enlists the help of some ants, and these this huge colony of ants for one apple sorts the entire field for her uh before sundown. And then um boom, you know, she completed the task when uh Aphrodaddy has to give her a new one. This task was given to Psyche in the original myth, but now it's in Oriol's dream. So, you know, this is like, oh, they are the same person, but not really.

SPEAKER_04 3:10

I felt like jumping up and down when I started reading about the seeds, and it made me wonder like how much more is parallel, you know, that Oriole is going through maybe psychologically, and Psyche, is she out somewhere, you know?

SPEAKER_03 3:27

I like Anse. Uh and their conversation was very interesting. I was really surprised she stood up to the queen like that. Um, even kind of passive aggressive.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Her jealousy was righteous. To have your husband be with another woman all day and uh kind of like your work wife and home wife, kind of they all like they kind of went the extra mile. And so that's where the jealousy came in. He's not just serving his queen, he's taking these extra steps to make sure she's satisfied. And uh I'd get jealous too. Yeah. Very easily if my husband had another woman that he basically spent his life attending to. Like it's such a difficult situation. Like, what else was Marty supposed to do? Right. Uh yeah, like there's not much he could have done. Aru effectively worked him to death. And I would be angry over that too.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

I would be tempted to be jealous the instant a woman was working with my husband to F. I know. Any woman could be my grandmother. Not really. But A'rul was very inconsiderate with everyone she ever loved.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Oh. That's sad, isn't it? And that's what she's realizing.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

Arule not only made work hard for Bardia, she made his home life hard too, because he can never enjoy himself. Imagine working so hard that when you come home to rest, all you have get to do is say goodnight, and you go to sleep. And you can't even have a conversation with your wife. You can't even love and raise your children. That's not what you're supposed to do. Honestly, a wife is supposed to be a haven for her husband to come home to, but not just like his oh we would just make me dinner in the morning. It's not like his maid, and that's what she's creating, or his almost like his hospice nurse, is what it almost feels like for Ansit.

SPEAKER_03 5:19

If Oriel had not done wrong and Ansit felt like this, then we may think, well, you're off base like men should work, right?

SPEAKER_04 5:26

It's Ansit says he was to live the life he thought best and fittest for a great man, not that which would most pleasure me. And so she knew she wasn't supposed to be like the center, but Oriel was a villain. That's what and Oriel realizes it. So I think uh her jealousy was proper.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

And she didn't go about it by take extracting revenge. No, and she just told Oriel straight up when she asked about it. It was more of a confession. I'm jealous because you did this, that, and the other, and I'm not jealous for some unrighteous reason like you think I am. She doesn't have a victim mentality.

SPEAKER_04 6:03

No, even though she's like, Well, you wronged me, but that's that.

SPEAKER_02 6:06

She would not ever go about and say, Oh, see, Bardia is getting overworked. Can he like get off? You know, she would never do that. She accepts things with how they are, and she's gonna make the best of it. But honestly, I feel like she was mistreated. Yeah, it's hard to work for royalty. He should have retired, but he never did. And she said, Bardy would not seem to do that, and neither will I. You did wrong, but she's not gonna grovel and act like she's a victim.

SPEAKER_04 6:40

Oriol realizes Ansit is jealous of her, and so she takes off her veil and says, like, you're jealous of this. But then Ansit looks at her and says and it thinks, Oh, you loved him too. I don't even know if Oriel's actually ugly. Like, from that. It's never talked about again. She's old, so you would assume she's very ugly. But Ansit sees in her face that she was jealous. There's more meaning behind that scene. It's a climactic moment. All of a sudden, Oriole has a face, and I feel like there's more to it than I get.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Yeah. It wasn't about her being ugly. She was like, Oh, you really did love him. I do have means to be jealous. You do have means to be jealous, because if we both love him and he loved both of us, then they're at odds they should be jealous of one another.

SPEAKER_04 7:27

Yeah. Well, what you made me think of is when Oriel's like, look, this is the root problem. I'm hideously ugly. And but actually, when she reveals her face, Ansid's like, Oh, you're jealous. The root problem in this whole thing is not actually the ugliness. Exactly. You know, like Oriel thinks. Okay, but two chapter two. Adeline, can you tell us the plot?

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Yes. So, um weird. I guess it's a little while later, but it be it comes the birth of the year. So the new year of Glom, basically. Arnom, he has to fight his way at the temple like normal, and Oriel gets front row seeds to this, right? So she's sitting on a rock facing the rock that is on it, and the statue to the side. Um, and she watches all this go down, and she just kind of watches the rock most of the time. And she s thinks that there's no face to it. But the more she looks at it, the more she can trace the jagged edges of the rock, how it looks like a face, kind of like bada almost. But um, this woman, she burst into the temple, and she's obviously not there for the celebration because everybody's, you know, happy and the fighting thing is done now, and they're just feasting and all this stuff. This woman bursts in there, she has a dead pigeon in her hand, she gives it to the priest, and they sacrifice it over the rock, and the blood runs down. This woman, she's weeping, but then she gets up and she's comforted. So Oriel's like, Hold on, do you always go to the rock and not the statue? And the woman is like, Oh yeah, I'm get the rock here. She understands me, she knows uh all my affliction, but that statue is only for the rich men, and she only understands them, and so uh I get no comfort from that statue, so she leaves, and it's very perplexing. So then later, Oriel has a dream that she's awoken by her father, and she's uh without a veil. So I think that's definitely something. I don't know what. But um her father leads her, her dead father leads her to the middle of the pillar room, and she has to dig down and jump into a hole, and then there's like another pillar room, but it's made out of dirt, and so they have to dig down more through clay and whatever, and it hurts so much, but she has to keep going, and so she has to jump down another hole, and then finally she arrives at um a mirror, and um the her father is like, Look, you are ungut. And then Oriel awakes and she's like, I am Unged. You know, like what does this mean? So she goes out through the town and without her veil, and she arrives at a river, and I think she's intending to die, really. But she hears this voice, and the voice is like, even in the afterlife, you cannot escape Unget. And she yells back, but I am Ungit. You know, of course I can't escape her. And then the voice goes silent, and she just walks back home. And there's nothing else. It's very like cliffhanger free. Yes. She is on get.

SPEAKER_04 10:31

Yeah. Okay, let's back up then to the um temple scene. Yes. That was gross.

SPEAKER_02 10:36

It was. But it's interesting that Arnam is old, honestly. Oh. That's what stood out to me. He's weak and he can hardly get out.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Hmm.

unknown 10:45

Hmm.

SPEAKER_04 10:46

Everything in this book, I'm like, is this symbolic? I hope at the beginning that this is gonna be a story of like resurrection. And we've already seen Oriole, she called herself like a patient on a surgeon's table, but the gods are doing their work, and I think she's gonna repent. Like, I really think she's in this transformation process, and so when it's the new year, we're gonna have this symbol of new birth. I'm like, ooh, maybe she's gonna turn it around. And it introduced that theme that you brought up that um of Ungat of Ungat's face, and I started seeing the parallels with it, reminded her of Bada, and it was really like gross. Yeah, I didn't like Bada. Me neither. She hanged her. Yeah, she did. She did. Yeah. She said, Um, I have run out into the garden to get free and to get, as it were, freshened and cleansed from her huge, hot, strong, yet flabby, soft embraces. The smothering, engulfing tenacity of her.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

It's like rock. The fact that Umget is this rock and she's more pure like form when she says rock, it seems like. Um, it it's ugly, right? This rock. And the face seen on it is ugly, supposedly, if it's like bata. And Oriole is ugly. Yeah. So I don't know what connection there is to that, but it has to be the fact that Oriel's ugly is because she is associated with Ungat. Somehow. Uh, I am Ungut is such a crazy thing.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

I understand it. I don't know why. So she's not actually Ungut, is she?

SPEAKER_01 12:37

No, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_04 12:38

No, well, I could understand how she's more like Bada. Yes, than Ungut, which they're all three parallel. So I understand her being like Bada in this like smothering embrace because of that jealousy that she has over everyone. Yeah. Flappy.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

Yeah, but I don't understand. What does she mean? Like, I am ungut. I feel like it's so prideful. Oh no. Oh. When I read that, I was like, you think you're a god? Seriously? She hates Ungut.

SPEAKER_04 13:06

Yes. Like that's her worst enemy. So I did not, I didn't think of it as prideful. I thought of it as like despair.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 13:13

Just like onget. That's how I took it.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

What if it's um your own worst enemy is actually you? Yeah. Like um, you're the one who's making your life miserable. Like you are the onget. You are the onget of your life, and not really onget. You know, like maybe that's what it's trying to do.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

That makes a lot of sense. Yep. And Cupid shows back up. That was cool. Yes, he's the voice.

SPEAKER_04 13:37

Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. And there so this is what he says. Die before you die. There is no chance after. You have to be born again. Yeah. That new birth. The rebirth. This is the time of rebirth. Yep. Can't imagine her repenting. Well, she she's so showing good signs because of remember to she said the first hint that something was not as it seemed was um that eunuch showed up.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Taryn, uh, the eunuch, he comes in and I kind of forgot who he was, like completely Me too! I had to go back and look. And uh turns out he was Veneva's lover that made her uh have to go stay with Oriol and and the ruin of Orioles life. And so he was unemptified the king.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

He said that like those barber scissors were the best thing that the king could have ever done for me.

SPEAKER_04 14:38

And I was like, thank you, but you know, because it has land I think to be a great man. And so he's like, that actually was the best thing that ever happened to me. I was trying to remember what about his uh visit set Oriole into self-proflection.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

And do you remember what medieval Yes, um so Oriole had thought so badly of her up until this point, and it was oh she was just so lonely. After Psyche came into the world, you abandoned her. Yep. You were no longer her friend, she was truly alone in this world. She was just seeking some comfort from me. Yeah. And that really happens to girls. If they feel completely lonely, they'll seek um like completion from relationships.

SPEAKER_04 15:24

Oriel said, it had been somehow settled in my mind from the very beginning that I was the pitiful, ill-used one. I mean, I still think Red Abel is ridiculous. That's what she says too. Like she's like, she's still kind of shallow, whatever, but like maybe I wasn't the one with all that stuff. Red Eva was the daughter of Throng.

SPEAKER_02 15:45

Too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:46

You know, she had it pretty bad. She said that was the first snowflake that fell. And then it kept going. That wouldn't have even been significant, but it was the beginning of a big event. And so I do think she's showing signs of uh repentance.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

How could she forgive the gods? That's what it takes to repent.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

Ooh.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

I can't see her ever doing this. It's still an accusation. She says that at the beginning of this chapter. Does she? She never says explicitly all she says is, I just uh I need to finish this book because I know more about myself now, and I said some things that I need to clear up or something.

SPEAKER_04 16:22

So that's where I'm a little confused. Is book one, how she thought of things for the longest time, and then book two is how she actually thought of them differently after maybe after her mind started to change the dream. I know this is symbolic, this is important, I don't know what it means.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

The first one was the ants. I was like, oh, then this must be another labor of Psyche 2. Right. At one point, uh Aphrodite gives Psyche a box and she's like, Here, get beauty from Persephone in the underworld, you know? And so Psyche cannot get down to the underworld. She's immortal, right? There's almost no way to get down there without dying. So she climbs up a tower and is planning to jump off, and then hopefully she'll get revived or something. All she knows is she has to get down there. So this tower uh it's personified, it convinces her not to and to go down a different pathway. Maybe it's a combination of that and the fact that she's descending down to the underworld, which is underground, right? It's like a dark, damp cave, and um I don't know, and then she gets back and uh she opens the box and it like suffocates her, and then Cupid comes in and saves her right before the box kills her. So maybe it's some weird combination of this voice is you know, Cupid like bringing uh Psyche back to life, and then the dream is like Hades. I don't know, it's really weird.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

But it was him, and that would actually make sense because she's trying to kill herself to go to Hades, and so it's a rule. And then he saves her.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:57

So you're going into that.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

Psyche has a task where she has to get water from the river sticks, which would kill her upon touch. But I think she also opens the box by a river. She looks and sees how terrible she looks and how like raggedy she is now. So now she wants to open the box just a little bit to get a little more beauty to spruce herself up, you know, for Cupid. Truly. Like she wants to look better for her husband. But that's her downfall, her vanity in that moment.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

What happened again at the bottom level of the dream? She doesn't want to look in the mirror, and her dad makes her and she's like, Who is this?

SPEAKER_04 18:32

And she's like, I am Ungut. And then she wakes up and decides she's gonna go kill herself. Yes, and then Cupid saves her. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 18:42

So one interesting thing is that she realized that her face is her disguise now. Yeah. Since no one knows who she is. Yeah, very interesting. So now she has a face. Yes. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

So does Ungat. Oh, maybe this face is like the pathway to redemption. She de-queens herself during her um part with uh Ansit. Yeah. So she says, Don't address me as queen. I'm just your friend right now. She's letting down her walls just a little bit. She's letting Rule back into the situation instead of being the queen.

SPEAKER_04 19:15

And she intentionally shows someone her face. What a big step. And then I thought she would get seen. Did y'all like when she was walking to the river or walking back? But she never I don't think she was.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

But yeah, she has a face. But she did start going out and about without her veil. Yeah. Didn't it say that? I don't know what happened when she got back. She said, My my face is now my veil because I don't have because everyone knows the queen, but they don't know me. So I can go around with my face and they won't know who it is. Right.

SPEAKER_04 19:44

Yeah. To have a face means to see herself as she really is. Yes. This is what permitting others to see her as she really is, which is definitely a step toward redemption, I think. To admit who you are. Hey, but first step, right there.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

So yeah, cool. I wonder why C.S. Lewis chose to keep these um tasks until the end. He's just now introducing these real themes of Cupid and Psyche. Like uh the rest of the book is mostly just made up by C. S. Lewis, but these are like obviously taken from the myth. Like if you know the myth, you know these parts, right? I I would just wonder why he wouldn't save them until this specific point.

SPEAKER_04 20:34

A lot of people don't like book two. And I wonder if you don't know the myth that he's comparing it to, if it would be like, I have no idea. Yeah. I mean, which I do I do slightly know the myth, and I still kind of think I have no idea too.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

I uh I wanna know if a rule will ever actually have a face. And I guess if the gods have faces too. Because right now they just seem like evil beings that just hang out there and they're just vague and unreachable.

SPEAKER_04 21:07

So what do you mean by will a rule ever have a face? Because she does have a face, she's veilless.

SPEAKER_02 21:14

But she but now that is her protection.

SPEAKER_04 21:16

Yeah, she's still using it as a disguise.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

There's this one character that I in the Green Ember that has is covered in scars. He always wears a mask because he's ashamed of his scars, and he's like, You won them through actual war, and they are a credit to you. That's the idea for almost all of us. I mean, it is beautiful who you are, even though you are cruelly scarred.

SPEAKER_04 21:42

Part of who you are. Yeah. And even in heaven, Jesus will have scars, and that's a perfect body, which is crazy. I don't know if anybody else will have scars or not, but scars are really special. Yeah. I got my scar from a stick. Such an interesting thought, actually. Will we have scars in heaven?

SPEAKER_01 22:03

I'll have a paper cut here. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 22:05

And then we can we'll get to tell all the stories.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

How'd you get that one?

SPEAKER_04 22:09

You know, but there's no shame and ugliness, you know. So all right, can't wait. Get to finish the book. Okay, so next podcast we'll finish Till We Got Faces. Then we'll have a podcast on Amazing Grace by William Wilberforce. Just a one hit our review, and then we'll start the Aeneid. We're reading the one translated by Robert Fagels. Alright, thanks for joining us.