Essay Questions

How does That Hideous Strength fit into the overall arc of the Space Trilogy?

The first two novels of the trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, dealt with the well-being of two other planets in the Field of Arbol (Solar System), Malacandra (Mars) and Perelandra (Venus). In Out of the Silent Planet, Ransom learns of the structure of the universe and its creator, the Old One/Maleldil (God/Jesus). He comes to love the open, honest, worshipful environment of the intelligent species on Malacandra, and he returns to Earth a changed man. In Perelandra, Ransom travels to Perelandra and prevents the Fall of Man from happening on that planet, already beginning to enact his role as a warrior against the forces of darkness in the universe. At the end of Perelandra, it is revealed to Ransom that he is now being sent back into the heart of darkness, Thulcandra (Earth, otherwise known as the Silent Planet), in order to wage war against the Black Archon (Satan), who holds the world in his grasp.

That Hideous Strength is the account of Ransom's war against the forces of evil on Earth, through the eyes of Mark and Jane Studdock, two completely unrelated characters to Ransom but who each serve the cause in pivotal ways. In this installment, Ransom and his organization at St. Anne's finish the work Ransom is called to do, harnessing the power of the Oyéresu and defeating the N.I.C.E. once and for all in a terrible battle. It is an unexpected yet satisfying conclusion to Ransom's story of redemption that takes place over the three books.

How does this novel relate to Lewis's work The Abolition of Man?

In the preface of That Hideous Strength, Lewis claims that the novel has the same point as The Abolition of Man, which is a set of three essays arguing for the preservation of objective value. In the course of the essays, Lewis makes the argument that indoctrinating students with the idea that value judgments are purely subjective, not objective, leads to an attempt to abolish objective value altogether. The only way to do this, however, is to entirely renounce the Tao, a concept Lewis uses to refer to the order of the universe, including God, logic, reason, and value. Renouncing the Tao leaves a man without his humanity, so opposed to reason that he becomes a slave to his natural whims. This man, when bestowed with the powers of scientific advancement that allow him to control the future of humanity, will complete the ironic cycle of Nature's conquest of Man.

That Hideous Strength follows this progression as well. The N.I.C.E. is the embodiment of scientific materialism, which is an effort to deny appeals to higher powers such as God and objective truth. Its members have rejected the Tao in the effort to create their own subjective value system, but in reality the rejection of the Tao has left them vulnerable to their sinful nature. Subsequently, the purely materialist organization is taken over by Satan, who possesses the Head of Alcasan to lead this force of evil on a mission to abolish everything true and sacred in the world by gaining control over the world. This terrifying future is the one Lewis warns against in The Abolition of Man, and in this novel, the heroes avert this future by clinging to the truths of Christianity. This, therefore, is the warning of The Abolition of Man and the challenge of That Hideous Strength, which are really one and the same.