5 - The silent gaze of truth The Lion's World

The silent gaze of truth

Being told your story by Aslan doesn’t compel your assent. The pain of being confronted with what you have done in all its detail is acute, as we have seen, and it should not surprise us if some will not accept it. In such a case, there is ultimately no solution that Aslan or anyone else can deliver. This is the most austere element in the imaginative world that Lewis creates, and – to underline the point again – it is not about punishment imposed from outside but about what we have made ourselves to be. Lewis is deliberately ambiguous about whether someone who has made himself or herself invulnerable to the appeal of truth can actually become another person, given immeasurable time. The Great Divorce allows such a possibility – but it also shows people on the edge of change still drawing back, because they cannot face letting go of some aspect of their self-image. 1 The essential point is the one made by Aslan to Digory about Jadis, a point we have already touched on...