Perelandra: Chapter 9

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Perelandra by C. S. Lewis, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. I recommend reading the book first. It's short, I promise.

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Ransom and the Green Lady of Perelandra were exploring the Fixed Land, the one solid island on the planet, when they encountered Weston, who had abducted Ransom to Mars in Out of the Silent Planet. Weston tried to persuade Ransom of his newfound belief in emergent evolution, directed by an impersonal, spiritual "Force." In doing so, he allowed himself to become possessed by this Force.

Ransom followed Weston off the Fixed Land back to the mats of floating vegetation that comprise most of the "land" on Venus. There, in the dark, he overheard Weston trying to persuade the Green Lady that the ban on staying on the Fixed Land, imposed by Maleldil, was not as severe as she assumed. It was permissible for her to imagine living there, as it would make her wiser.

When Ransom awakens, he walks along the "shore" of his island, where he encounters one of Perelandra's native animals. However, something or someone has torn the colourful frog-like thing apart. With difficulty, Ransom puts the still-living animal out of its misery. He then continues his walk, following a trail of mutilated frogs, until he comes across Weston in the act of gutting one before he escapes again.

Ransom realizes that Weston has been taken over by something thoroughly evil. He resolves that he must prevent him from talking again to the Lady, at least without himself also present. When he finds the two of them conversing, Weston (or, rather, the thing now inhabiting his body) is still trying to persuade the woman that imagining herself disobeying Maleldil's command is actually a good. This time, however, Ransom is there to rebut him and tell the Lady not to listen. Unable to persuade the Lady, Weston lets out a terrifying, feral howl, while the Lady falls instantly asleep. However, Weston prevents Ransom from sleeping, by repeatedly calling out his name and answering "Nothing" when Ransom asks what he wants.

Ransom no longer thinks of Weston as Weston; he is henceforth referred to as "it," "Weston's body," or something similar. Evidently the personality of Weston no longer exists: he has been undone by the thing he called into himself in chapter 7, and which now animates his body. Lewis calls Weston the "Un-Man" for the first time in this chapter. Whatever this Force is, Ransom recognizes it as absolute evil. When Ransom encounters Weston gutting the frogs, he is doing so surgically and clinically, with a smile on his face suggesting pleasure, as though the evil he is committing is perfectly normal and rational. The thing possessing the body of Weston claims to have been with Maleldil in Deep Heaven. Ransom believes this being was the one who, in another form, tempted Eve. However, he doesn't concern himself with whether the thing in Weston is Satan himself or one of his minions: as he says later in the book, "I know what you are. Which of them doesn't matter."

Of course no one on the fallen Earth is a stranger to death and suffering—and Perelandra was published in the midst of World War II, probably the greatest period of human death and suffering in living memory. On Malacandra, Weston and Devine killed three intelligent Martians. Malacandra was damaged by the fall of Earth, though its own fall was not total, so the hnau reacted to the deaths of their comrades with grief and pity rather than anger, disciplining and expelling the humans instead of waging war against them. However, the trail of gutted frogs on Perelandra is the first time Ransom has witnessed death here. It is not yet clear whether the Green Lady saw Weston killing the animals. Part of his purpose for being there, he says, is to teach her about Death.

Ransom was a veteran of the Somme. I assume by this Lewis means he was at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, the bloodiest and costliest battle of World War I. Lewis had been a second lieutenant in the 1st Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry, and in 1918, he too spent time at the front in the trenches of the Somme. He was wounded by friendly fire, and two of his comrades killed, during the German Spring Offensive a few months later. Ransom, like Lewis, had experienced the horrors of war firsthand. Yet on this world that does not yet know death, he finds the casual deaths of some simple animals more horrifying still.

The thing that was Weston continues to tempt the Green Lady in the same way as before, trying to persuade her that making stories about living on the Fixed Land is permissible by Maleldil's laws. He also twists Maleldil's ban into permission, telling her that he had made the rule only so that, when the Lady became wise enough, she would know it could be broken. Thus disobedience becomes a kind of obedience. Since the reason for the command was not given and it does not appear to be for her good, that must be the only explanation for it. "He longs—" says the Weston-thing, "oh, how greatly He longs—to see his creature become fully itself." ("Your eyes will be opened, and you will be as God" [Gen. 3:5].)

Fortunately, with Ransom present, he is able to reason the Green Lady out of uncritically accepting the Weston-thing's words. After all, he says, there are different kinds of obedience: there is the kind where you obey because you recognize the good of the rule, and another kind where obedience out of love is a joy in itself. The Fixed Land rule is the latter—as was, of course, God's instructions to Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The Lady is innocent, but not unwise to the Un-Man's schemes.

The Weston-thing's final assertion is that the transgression of Adam and Eve on our world was the thing that caused Maleldil to become a man and enter our world. "Why not do evil that good may come?" (Romans 3:8). Ransom responds to this that of course Maleldil can make good come of anything, but it wasn't the good they would have had if they had not disobeyed, and good did not come for everyone. Indeed, when Ransom asks if the thing in Weston rejoiced at Maleldil's coming, he gives out that unearthly howl.

It appears that the fight for the innocence of Perelandra is to be a battle of wits between Ransom and the satanic thing that was once Weston. And there's plenty of book left to go.