Orual, the eldest princess of Glome, narrates C.S. Lewis’s novel Till We Have Faces.
Published in 1956, the novel is Lewis’s retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche. Orual tells the story from her own perspective, presenting herself as a protective sister and a ruler struggling with grief, jealousy, love, and the justice of the gods. Her version challenges the assumptions readers may bring from the classical myth.
The title comes from the novel’s concern with identity and truthful self-knowledge. Lewis had long been interested in classical mythology, but Till We Have Faces is more psychologically complex and less conventionally Christian in presentation than much of his popular apologetic writing.
Psyche is Orual’s beautiful half-sister and the central figure in the underlying myth, but she is not the narrator. The goddess Ungit also plays a major role, while Orual’s first-person voice controls the novel’s account of events.