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Chapter 8
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
Jane tells Miss Ironwood about her most recent vision, in which she is in a dark room with a disembodied head whose skull is opened to reveal a twitching mass within. The Head seems to operate more like an engine than a human. Three masked people enter and bow to it. Despite his mask, Jane recognizes Mark at once. The Head speaks to the three people in French, and Mark faints. Mr. Fisher-King assures Jane that if their side wins, they will rescue Mark.
Despite Jane and Mark’s rocky relationship, she knows him well enough to recognize him immediately, and she wants to save him from the Head and the N.I.C.E. The fact that the Head seems to operate like an engine highlights that this kind of technologically-modified, inorganic life is unnatural.
Themes
At the N.I.C.E. headquarters in Belbury, Mark has resigned himself to the fact that his superiors will kill him if he displeases them, so he resolves to bring Jane to Belbury. He writes her a letter and finds himself wishing he didn’t have to drag her into danger. Miss Hardcastle tells Mark that Jane is mentally ill and suggests he commit her as mental patient and test subject at the N.I.C.E. Mark goes to see Wither, but he finds Wither in his office looking more dead than alive. Mark is so unnerved that he almost flees, but Wither follows him and Mark returns to the N.I.C.E.
Mark remains a member of the N.I.C.E., but his loyalty is now rooted in cowardice rather than pride. He is willing to entrap Jane in Belbury to protect himself, which contrasts Jane’s desire to save him and highlights how their respective allies are influencing their morals. Wither’s half-dead state also indicates the dangers of working for the N.I.C.E., representing how an organization that deals in deception and confusion can erode the minds of its members.
Themes
Jane speaks with Mr. MacPhee, a friend of Fisher-King’s and the house’s resident skeptic, and he reveals that Mr. Fisher-King is in fact Elwin Ransom. MacPhee tells Jane about Ransom’s interplanetary adventures (though MacPhee himself doesn’t believe in them) and adds that Lord Feverstone is the new title of Dick Devine, who kidnapped Ransom along with Weston and brought him to Mars. Ransom’s plan to save the human race is based on advice from the eldils he met on his travels, who are opposed to the corrupted eldils of Earth. Jane goes on a walk with Camilla, who refers to Ransom as the Pendragon of Logres, or the leader of the kingdom of King Arthur. She also explains that his trip to Perelandra has granted him eternal youth.
In the first two books of the Space Trilogy, Elwin Ransom is a flawed yet fundamentally moral academic who is unwittingly roped into serving the eldils (angelic beings) in a cosmic war. Now that Ransom has reached the pinnacle of human morality and forged an intimate connection with God and the angels, Jane takes on his former role. At the same time, Mark is poised to become the next Weston, an academic allied with Devine who falls deeper into the clutches of evil eldils than he might have liked.
Themes
Later, Jane tells her dream about the Head to the Manor’s Company of Logres. MacPhee speculates that the mass within the skull is a brain that the N.I.C.E. made larger to grant it super-human capabilities. Ransom reflects that the N.I.C.E. is trying to create a new species of bodiless, undying humans. He also corrects MacPhee’s assumption that Ransom chose his friends to help him, asserting that their circumstances are not a matter of choice but fate.
The inclusion of the skeptical MacPhee in the Company of Logres suggests that not all honorable people must acknowledge God’s plan as long as they recognize and abide by Christian ideas of morality. However, Ransom continues to correct MacPhee’s atheism and skepticism by preaching the importance of fate and the path laid out by God.
Themes
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The Company’s research has revealed that Edgestow is at the heart of the ancient kingdom of Logres, and that Merlin is buried under Bragdon Wood. The N.I.C.E.’s interest in the Wood speaks to an eldilic influence on the organization. Ransom believes science is good in and of itself, but it has been warped by Earth’s dark eldils away from objectivity and towards a lust for power. If the N.I.C.E. succeeds in conquering nature, Ransom fears Earth will become Hell.
Bragdon Wood’s symbolic cultural importance turns out to be very literal with the reveal that Merlin is in fact buried beneath the forest: the forest connects people to their heritage and traditions. Ransom also notes that science does not need to degrade tradition, and he suggests that science and modernization can, in fact, honor and complement nature and tradition by assessing them objectively.
Themes
