Perelandra

To lock in the allegory, Lewis has the Oyarsa of Malacandra say, “You will think of this best if you think of it in the likeness of certain things from your world” (168). This tells the reader to connect their own understanding with Lewis’s analysis. The eldila tell Ransom, “The world is born to-day” (169), suggesting that life begins as we overcome evil.

Lewis then turns the allegory back on Earth and the reader. Ransom, as he begins to understand the purpose of all this, understands “why mythology was what it was--gleams of celestial strength and beauty falling on a jungle of filth and imbecility” (173). He uses this to critique the ego-driven desire to change universal truth to fit individual wants. He suggests that these imperfections are all leading toward a purpose. The King says of Satan’s mission, “It was by the Evil One himself that he brought us out of the first. Little did that dark mind know the errand on which he really came to Perelandra!” (179). In all of this, Lewis points to a process for God’s plan, rather than a moment of completion or inception. At the end, the King, considering the joy of the effort, compares sin to the fruit of Perelandra: “If we had listened to [the Evil One] we should now be trying to get at that sweet without biting through the shell” (189). The Queen responds, “And so it would not be ‘That sweet’ at all” (189).