Which myth does C.S. Lewis retell in Till We Have Faces?

C.S. Lewis retells the myth of Cupid and Psyche in Till We Have Faces.

The novel reworks the story found in Apuleius’s Metamorphoses, also known as The Golden Ass. Lewis places the narrative mainly in the fictional kingdom of Glome and tells it through Orual, Psyche’s older half-sister.

In the classical myth, Psyche is visited by a mysterious husband whom she is forbidden to look upon. Lewis changes the emphasis by making Orual’s perspective central, turning the story into an exploration of possessive love, resentment, spiritual blindness, and self-knowledge.

Readers sometimes classify the book simply as a retelling of a Greek myth, but the source tradition is more precise: the famous literary version comes from the Roman writer Apuleius. The novel’s title also reflects Orual’s concern with identity and the faces people present to one another.