Orual narrates much of C.S. Lewis’s novel Till We Have Faces.
Published in 1956, the novel retells the ancient myth of Cupid and Psyche from the perspective of Psyche’s older sister. Orual becomes queen of Glome and writes an accusation against the gods, especially the unseen god of the Grey Mountain.
The story explores jealousy, possessive love, self-knowledge, and the difficulty of seeing reality clearly. Its title comes from the idea that people cannot truly encounter one another until they have developed honest identities—or “faces.”
Psyche is crucial to the plot, but she is not the narrator. Aravis belongs to The Horse and His Boy, while Jadis is the White Witch in the Narnia books.