That Hideous Strength: Chapter 5

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. You may well have a lot of reading ahead of you.

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The Dimbles, Jane Studdock's tutor and his wife, were evicted from their house flowing thebsale of Bracton College land to the N.I.C.E. Mrs. Dimble came to stay with Jane while Mark was absent. That night Jane had another clairvoyant dream of an older man being beaten to death by his car on the road.

Mark, meanwhile, remained at the N.I.C.E.'s headquarters in Belbury. At a committee meeting thr following day, he learned that William Hingest, scientist and Bracton Fellow who had decided to quit the N.I.C.E., had been murdered the previous night.

Cosser, another sociologist, invited Mark to come with him to Cure Hardy. This quaint village was in the way of a proposed N.I.C.E. project to divert the Wynd river that flowed through Edgestow. Cosser wanted Mark to prepare a report on the village's claimed unhygienic environment and undesirable population of agricultural labourers, in order to justify damming the river and submerging Cure Hardy under a reservoir.

Meanwhile, at Bracton, the Governing Board met to discuss how to fill the two vacancies left by the murder of Hingest and the supposed resignation of Mark, as Lord Feverstone informed them. There was construction going on outside, and then a riot started—during which the priceless glass window of the common room, in which Henrietta Maria had engraved her name with a diamond, is smashed, and some Fellows injured.

Chapter 5: "Elasticity"

The next day, Mark returns to Belbury to clarify issues concerning his salary and job at the N.I.C.E. Talking with Cosser and Steele, he learns that the report on Cure Hardy was a private project of Cosser's. He goes to see Deputy Director Wither, who insists he make an appointment. Then he talks to Miss Hardcastle. The Fairy tries to warn him off bothering the DD and Steele too much—men like Steele and Cosser aren't going to be there long and the real sociology is to be done by the institutional police.

Hardcastle informs Mark that his real work as a propagandist is to rehabilitate Alcasan, the scientist and murderer whose execution Jane had dreamt about. Starting with not questioning his guilt but hinting at some biases of his prosecutor, to declaring his execution a miscarriage of justice, Alcasan is to be made a martyr. But Hardcastle won't tell him why.

Mark doesn't believe educated readers are going to believe him. But Miss Hardcastle assures him the "educated" readers are the most gullible of all. In one of the novel's most famous passages, she says:

"Why, you fool, it’s the educated readers who can be gulled. All our difficulty comes with the others. When did you meet a workman who believes the papers? He takes it for granted that they’re all propaganda and skips the leading articles. He buys his paper for the football results and the little paragraphs about girls falling out of windows and corpses found in Mayfair flats. He is our problem: we have to recondition him. But the educated public, the people who read the highbrow weeklies, don’t need reconditioning. They’re all right already. They’ll believe anything."

There's truth to this. Supposedly, smarter people are more likely to be manipulated by fake news, because their greater brain power makes it easier for them to rationalize it. On the other hand, though, while less-educated people might be more skeptical of the "official story," they're also more susceptible to fringe news and conspiracy theories.

Mark, as a member of the educated class, thinks he's not as easy to be gulled as Miss Hardcastle thinks. At this stage in the story, that remains to be seen.

He takes a walk around the grounds, which are landscaped in a style called "Ornamental Pleasure Grounds," meaning they don't seem all that pleasurable: "The whole effect was like that of a municipal cemetery." Around the back of the house he hears animal sounds—evidently some kind of vivisection experiment is going on, and it's not just a small animal.

The next day, Mark has his appointment with D.D. Wither, who still seems not to know who he is. Again he seems aloof and is not forthcoming with specifics about Mark's job. When Mark asks about a contract, Wither produces a form that has never actually been used. At that point, Wither is distracted by the arrival of the mail, and the interview ends. Mark has received a letter from Curry at Bracton expressing regret for Mark's resignation. He writes his own letter in response assuring them he had no intention of resigning. Mark takes a long time at his letter: a bit vague as to his intentions at the N.I.C.E., but not too vague. As a writer myself, I appreciate the thought process that went into striking just the right balance. This is what I believe is generally termed "carefully worded."

Mark later meets Feverstone. He is no more helpful at telling Mark what he's supposed to be there for. He asks Feverstone how it got out that he was resigning his Fellowship, and Feverstone says he heard it from Hardcastle, however she was supposed to know. Mark wants him to make it clear to Curry that the rumour of his resignation was a misunderstanding. Feverstone accuses Mark of trying to get his vote when he's up for re-election in a few months, and tells him to go to hell. In return, Feverstone tells Mark to be more agreeable with the people at the N.I.C.E.: in particular, to get back in D.D. Wither's good books after the morning's interview. After talking with him, Mark realizes that if he loses his position at the N.I.C.E., he has no future in Bracton, either.

Jane, meanwhile, occupies herself with getting out of the apartment to try and find a replacement housekeeper, and staying up late reading—anything, I guess, to avoid the dreams. She meets Camilla Denniston again, who is indeed the wife of Arthur Denniston, who had been Mark's main competition for his Fellowship. Camilla invites Jane to a picnic where the three of them can talk privately.

The Dennistons are another happy couple, in contrast with the Studdocks: In particular, they talk about their love of Weather: fog, rain, and snow. While Jane thinks she could never learn to like rain or snow, Denniston points out to her that the opposite is true: you have to learn to dislike it. Every kid loves rain and snow, if they're simply allowed to go out and play in it. This sounds like a very Lewis thing; you get the impression he never let himself lose his childishness.

They, too, are part of Miss Ironwood's group in St. Anne's. Though, they quickly point out, their leader is actually a Mr. Fisher-King, who, we are told, is a "great traveller" but "got a wound in his foot on his last journey which won't heal." In Arthurian legend, the Fisher King is the last guardian of the Holy Grail. He is typically portrayed as wounded in the thigh or leg. I guess the heel isn't too far off. The reader, of course, recognizes Ransom, the protagonist of Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, under an assumed name. He is the Head of the group and they have all committed themselves to take his orders.

Denniston gives him an interesting backstory here. He took the name "Fisher-King" from his sister in India, who was a friend of the Christian mystic "the Sura." This is an allusion to Sundar Singh, a Sikh convert to Christianity who became a missionary. He adopted the robes and lifestyle of a sadhu, an Indian holy man, in order to evangelize in a distinctly Indian way. Like the Sura, Singh disappeared sometime around 1929, while trying to visit Tibet.

The Dennistons, too, want to recruit Jane for the St. Anne's group. They want her to come in freely, but also tell her she can't be neutral: if she doesn't help them, the enemy will use her. The meeting makes Jane angry, but she agrees to help them, if not to join them.

It seems to me like this chapter exists mainly to flesh out the character of the N.I.C.E. a bit more. I get the impression of a sort of forced, well, niceness: no one wants to get in anyone's bad graces; everyone is careful of what they say. Fairy Hardcastle seems to be the only one who's sure of herself, and she's of the opinion that the Institute's police will be running everything in short order. For a scientific institution, the N.I.C.E. sure gives off totalitarian vibes. And the whole process still seems like it's intended to confuse and disorient.