That Hideous Strength: Chapter 6

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. If you don't want me ruining the experience for you, put this post down and go read That Hideous Strength now. I promise I won't be offended.

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Still at the N.I.C.E. in Belbury, Mark Studdock still had no idea where he fit in the organization or who he answered to. He had not yet made up his mind about staying. But another Bracton College academic, scientist William Hingest, was murdered in the road shortly after he announced his resignation. Mark met with Deputy Director Wither again to clarify his own position, but found Wither aloof as always. He also learned that the report he was preparing on the "unsanitary" conditions of the village of Cure Hardy was a personal project of Cosser, the other sociologist with whom he had visited the village.

Miss Hardcastle, the head of the institutional police, let Mark in on what his real job was: to rehabilitate the reputation of Alcasan, the scientist and murderer of whose decapitation Mark's wife Jane had dreamt, in the media. He received a letter from Bracton expressing regret over his resigning his Fellowship there; he wrote a response clarifying that he had no intention of resigning. Between that and the veiled threats of the N.I.C.E. higher-ups, however, it becomes clear that leaving the institute would jeopardize his position at the College, as well.

Jane Studdock met Camilla Denniston and her husband Arthur for a picnic. The Dennistons are also part of the group at St. Anne's which, she learned, has a Mr. Fisher-King, also known as the Pendragon, as its Head. This is Ransom from Perelandra, under an assumed name. They recognized Jane as a seer, and like Miss Ironwood previously, warned her that if she didn't help their group, their enemy would get hold of her instead. The discussion angered Jane, particularly the suggestion that she should seek Mark's permission, but in the end she agreed to help the St. Anne's group, if not to join them.

Chapter 6: "Fog"

The next day, Mark returns to DD Wither's office, bearing the contract form he had obtained at their last meeting. He finds Wither far less courteous now, accusing Mark of being quarrelsome, both with members of the N.I.C.E. and his colleagues at Bracton. But he offers Mark employment for a probationary period, which Mark accepts—though he still cannot get firm answers about what he's supposed to do or who he receives orders from.

The purposeful vagueness about the job is the "elasticity" of the previous chapter's title. As Fairy Hardcastle tells Mark once he has been dismissed from the DD's presence: "Your line is to do whatever you're told and above all not to bother the old man" (i.e. Wither). Mark begins his project of rehabilitating Alcasan with the help of Hardcastle's second-in-command, Captain O'Hara. He helps him with interpreting the police dossier and selecting facts. Mark enjoys the work, and his articles get wide exposure in the papers.

Mark confides in O'Hara that he has no cash on him, having lost his wallet, and O'Hara tells him not to worry about that— the N.I.C.E. is going to take over the "whole currency question" and make money. I assume he means this literally. Mark asks what happens to all the money he receives if he leaves, and O'Hara tells him no one leaves. Except for Hingest.

Meanwhile, Hingest's inquest rules his death a murder.

In Edgestow, a dense fog continues to lay over the town, but the construction continues in the former Bragdon Wood. Busby, the College bursar, meets with Lord Feverstone and a Professor Frost from the N.I.C.E., and learns that the river Wynd is to be diverted away from the town entirely, removing a natural barrier between the Institute and the College. Seeing no choice, the College sells the needed land to the N.I.C.E., and immediately the construction workers turn it into a dump.

Hingest's funeral takes place at the College. The heavy fog delays the proceedings. Hingest was a "proud old unbeliever," but nonetheless Canon Storey, being oblivious to his unbelief, reads out the burial service nonetheless. Being deaf, he is also oblivious to the noises of construction and the uncouth oaths that drift into the chapel from outside. The whole business is a bit of a farce.

The reputation of the College is deteriorating. And the town at large is becoming overcrowded, with disorderly behaviour occurring in the streets, the hotels and pubs full, and prices inflated. Meanwhile, the newspapers are claiming that everything in Edgestow is peaceful and cordial.

Lewis could have ripped this part of the narrative from today's headlines—if he was writing in 2026. The situation in Edgestow is not too different from the current migrant crisis in the United Kingdom (and also the better part of Europe), in which asylum seekers primarily from Africa and the Middle East are being admitted into the country, moved en masse into towns and neighbourhoods, and accommodated in hotels and public housing. This is causing a strain on social resources and friction in the communities as Brits push back against the disruption of their communities.

After her talk with the Dennistons, Jane no longer regards her dreams as nightmares, but "news"—she is simply seeing what is really happening in the world. She finds this less disturbing. Her latest dream is apparently of someone observing her in her own bed. He is the man with the pince-nez and pointed grey beard, apparently the same figure from her original dream who had unscrewed Alcasan's head from his body and taken it away.

Thanks to Mark's submission to the N.I.C.E.'s "elasticity," he is welcomed into the library, which is effectively reserved for the Institute's elite, amongst them Lord Feverstone, the Fairy, Professor Filostrato, Straik, and a Professor Frost: "the silent man with the pince-nez and the pointed beard." So we have a name for the man from Jane's dream. The Fairy had warned Mark in chapter 3 that Frost (along with Steele and the DD) was one of the Institute's dangerous men. In any case, the N.I.C.E. members who were hostile to Mark are friendly now. Mark has found acceptance in the N.I.C.E.'s Inner Ring. Except with Wither. The Old Man is still sore at him for being inelastic.

Mark sees the theologian Straik as the "least satisfactory member of the circle." Despite having abandoned all Christian theology and morality, Straik comes across as ascetic and abstemious, neither smoking nor drinking nor joining in the jests. Occasionally something sets him off on some prophetic rant. Straik does not believe in a literal resurrection or an afterlife. The kingdom of Heaven is to be established here on this world, and the Son of Man is, rather than Christ, "Man himself, full grown" with the power to judge, to give life or punishment. Straik's religion is no longer that of Christ, but of the N.I.C.E.

It is on one of his visits to the library that Feverstone and Hardcastle ask Mark to pull an all-nighter and write two articles for the papers. They reveal that the disturbances in Edgestow are being engineered by Hardcastle. Feverstone humorously quotes Ovid: "Ad metam properate simul" ("Hasten to the goal at the same time"). It comes from his Ars Amatoria, a love manual, and in context it means lovers should maximize their pleasure by striving for mutual orgasm. The Fairy has been too successful at her job, and it seems that the riots are—well—premature. Now the rest of the Institute needs to work to catch up to get emergency powers at Edgestow so they can do what they want.

I realize that C. S. Lewis was an expert in classical and medieval literature, which was by no means as delicate as the early 20th century when it came to sex. Still, if you're familiar with him thanks to the Chronicles of Narnia or his better-known Christian apologetics works, it's a bit surprising to see him just tell a bawdy joke in the middle of a novel.

Mark's articles are needed to report on the disturbances, but since his stories need to be submitted to the DD early the next morning, he has to report on them before they occur. The first, lengthier article, is intended for a more respectable newspaper and it blames the populace, whose prejudice is getting in the way of real progress; affirms the N.I.C.E. is apolitical; and commends their police (particularly the female members) for maintaining order. He closes the article with a (fictional) quotation from a recent prime minister: "when accurate details are available, it will be found…that 'when blood flowed, it was generally from the nose.'" Never mind the irony of seeking for "accurate details" when the event is yet to happen and there are no details to ascertain. Mark is downplaying the severity of the violence, likening the brutality and destruction (that has already taken place) to a schoolyard skirmish where someone gets a punch in the nose. The rhetoric calls to mind the misplaced optimism of a Neville Chamberlain.

Where the first article is aimed at a sophisticated and educated audience, the other is aimed at more populist tabloid. Instead of playing down the violence, Mark says it is "engineered." Which it is—but Mark points the finger at shady figures: financiers, academics, Jews, lawyers, whoever. Where the first article reassures its readers that the violence is a mere bump in the road to progress, the second tells "John Citizen" that his neighbours might be traitors, and something needs to be done about it now.

The rhetorician in me can't help but admire this kind of manipulation, in the same way that I can't help admiring Adolf Hitler's clear skill at composing and delivering his speeches at Nuremberg, even while the SS was carrying out assassinations to strengthen his power in the Night of Long Knives.

Mark has crossed the line into criminality, and he knows it. But he doesn't mind; indeed he enjoys the work and treats it as a bit of a joke. His ambition to fit in with the Inner Ring has led him to compromise and worse. As Lewis wrote elsewhere: "Of all passions the passion for the Inner Ring is most skillful in making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things."¹ The Inner Ring that Mark so desired to join, that granted him that seat in the library, has turned him into a seditionist.

The same night, back in Edgestow, Jane has a lucid dream in which she is standing inside a stone chamber, dark and cold. Groping around she finds a raised stone platform with a large, bearded dead man on it. Horrified, she wants someone to let her out. she then sees a bearded, "divinely young" figure, "golden and strong and warm," coming: someone Jane thinks is very important. But he doesn't actually arrive.

The next day, when she goes into Edgestow, she spots the man with the pointed beard and pince-nez entering a N.I.C.E. car. She immediately decides to take the train to St. Anne's. When she arrives there, she sees that the fog is lighter on the hill where Miss Ironwood's Manor sits; she is above the sea of fog that Edgestow is still engulfed in, and she realizes the world is much bigger than what she can see when she is there.

While Jane has not yet joined the group at the Manor, she's on her way, and she has come up with air, so to speak, where she can see more clearly. Meanwhile, Mark, Belbury, Edgestow, and the College are all lost in the fog.

Professor Frost has drifted in and out of this story without doing much, yet, but his presence seems insidious. What is he up to? Who is the bearded corpse in Jane's dream? And who is the golden figure who seems to rescue her from what I presume is a mausoleum? And what is going to happen in Edgestow? The mysteries of That Hideous Strength continue to deepen.

Footnote

1. C. S. Lewis, "The Inner Ring," in The Weight of Glory (New York: HarperCollgins, 2001), 154.