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Chapter 3
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in That Hideous Strength, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Obedience, Exclusivity, and Humility
Modernization vs. Tradition
Divine Conflict
Deception and Confusion
Gender and Marriage
Summary
Analysis
Mrs. Dimble comes to stay at the Studdocks’ house, explaining to Jane that the N.I.C.E evicted the Dimbles and their neighbors to build a construction site on their property. Jane and Mrs. Dimble sleep in the house while their husbands spend the night at Bracton. Jane dreams of three men killing another man by the road. The next morning, Mark meets “the Mad Parson” Reverend Straik, who believes the N.I.C.E wields science as a divine weapon and considers himself a prophet. Mark attends a meeting of the N.I.C.E Committee and learns that Hingest was murdered on the road the previous night.
While Jane tries to distance herself from womanhood and the unintellectual domesticity that she associates with it, she still finds herself operated along gendered divisions: she and Mrs. Dimble stay at home while their husbands are at the College. Jane is nevertheless involved in the rising conflict as she dreams, it seems, of Hingest’s murder. Meanwhile, Mark’s meeting with Straik suggests that even Christianity, which the book promotes, can be twisted to support villainy.
Themes
After breakfast, Jane wonders why her maid Ivy Maggs hasn’t come to work, and Mrs. Dimble explains that Mrs. Maggs was among the people evicted and has gone to St. Anne’s. Jane goes shopping and meets Curry, who tells her about Hingest’s death. She recognizes the crime from her dreams and reluctantly accepts that she needs help to reckon with her power. At the N.I.C.E, Mark still doesn’t know what his job is or whom he reports to, but he is instructed to survey a small village in Bragdon Wood and assess the “undesirable” people who live on it.
Jane’s sense of the conflict at play comes into clearer focus while Mark’s becomes more muddled. She accepts that she is indeed having prophetic visions, and despite her desire to be self-sufficient, she needs help. Mark, on the other hand, still has no idea what the N.I.C.E. is employing him to do. His desperation to make sense of his new position leads him to thoughtlessly accept the N.I.C.E.’s rhetoric that some people are inherently “undesirable” and must be removed from society.
Themes
Mark goes with a colleague to the village, where they see the rural lifestyle as an “anachronism” they must destroy. Though Mark considers the villagers sociological subjects rather than people, he likes the village, and it makes him recall his friends from his time as a student. His colleague annoys him, and he ponders if he should leave the N.I.C.E and return to Bracton.
Mark’s academic mindset and the way he prioritizes his own status in an elite group prevents him from empathizing with other people or recognizing the importance of tradition. He only considers leaving the N.I.C.E. because it is not fulfilling his desire to feel significant in a clique that impresses him. Since the villagers lack that kind of status, he only regards them as objects of study. His reference to rural life as an “anachronism” (a thing that obviously belongs to a different time, particularly if it’s obviously old-fashioned) also highlights Mark’s failure to see how traditions can co-exist with modernity.
Themes
On the way home, Mark considers which details to omit when he tells Jane about his day. At the same time, Jane wonders how to tell Mark about her dreams. Feverstone talks to Curry at Bracton, informing him that Mark is staying at the N.I.C.E and suggesting a replacement for Mark’s position at the College. Their conversation is interrupted by a loud noise and the breaking of a window.
Mark plans to lie to Jane while Jane plans to tell her husband the truth. This emphasizes the diverging moral paths they have begun to travel. Feverstone is intent on trapping Mark on his path, and he acts on this by sabotaging the possibility of Mark leaving the N.I.C.E. for Bracton College.
Themes
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