The Eye of the Beholder

I love C.S. Lewis. There’s a scene from the last book in his space trilogy, That Hideous Strength, where four women play a grown-up version of what my sister and I used to call “dress-up.” In this scene, the women choose dresses for each other, which are really more like royal robes, in preparation for a special dinner. A more familiar version of this event would inevitably involve a full-length mirror and the woman who is to wear the dress doing the choosing. I wonder, though, if this more familiar version of the event isn’t more familiar because it manifests fallen femininity. The encounter Lewis describes is entirely different, and I think points to a profound truth of femininity. There is no mirror in the room, and the other women choose the dresses for each other. When one woman comments over the lack of mirror in the room, another replies: “I don’t believe we were meant to see ourselves,’ said Jane. ‘He said something about being mirrors enough to see each other.’” Once the perfect gown is chosen and the woman in question is adorned, the other three stand back and admire in amazement the beauty, not of the dress itself, but of the beauty in their friend that the dress brings out.

Every woman’s beauty is itself beautiful, not for herself, but precisely for another. The vanity of a woman on the other hand, is described in C.S. Lewis’ short story “The Shoddy Lands.” Here, a woman makes her beauty exist for herself and in doing so distorts it. C.S. Lewis relates this in a descriptive glimpse into one woman’s inner world, at which she is the center.

"She was Peggy. That is, she was recognizable; but she was Peggy changed. I don’t mean only the size. As regards the figure, it was Peggy improved. I don’t think anyone could have denied that. As to the face, opinions might differ. I would hardly have called the change an improvement myself. There was no more – I doubt if there was as much – sense or kindness or honesty in this face than in the original Peggy’s. But it was certainly more regular. The teeth in particular, which I had noticed as a weak point in the old Peggy, were perfect, as in a good denture. The lips were fuller. The complexion was so perfect that it suggested a very expensive doll. The expression I can best describe by saying that Peggy now looked exactly like the girl in all the advertisements."[1]

And later in his account … “The gigantic Peggy now removed her beach equipment and stood up naked in front of a full-length mirror. Apparently, she enjoyed what she saw there; I can hardly express how much I didn’t.”[2]

The image from Pink Floyd's The Wall of the devouring flower-turned-monster that represents (what we know is fallen) femininity is encompassed here. It is a femininity that seeks to consume, that even feeds upon her own beauty in a futile attempt to satisfy her need. This same dynamic is also seen where a woman uses her beauty to try and capture the affections of a man in order to satisfy her longing for attention. This can occur in two extreme forms. In one extreme, the woman knows her beauty, and wields it expertly to seduce the man. In the other, the woman desperately grasps after beauty, and wishing she were the woman in the first scenario, tries to wield it in such a way as to secure the man’s attention. In both situations, however, we see a manifestation of fallen femininity, which is, as we know, distinctly and paradoxically not feminine.
[1] C.S. Lewis The Dark Tower and Other Stories pp. 108-109
[2] Ibid 109.