63 pages • 2 hours read
That Hideous Strength
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Chapters 16-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 16 Summary: “Banquet at Belbury”
The banquet is held and quickly descends into chaos. Jules begins speaking but his words are all nonsense. Different people hear different versions of what he says. Frost is annoyed and angered, and Wither thinks to do damage control as the crowd is all staring at Jules with a ghastly look. Jules still thinks he is speaking eloquently. Wither interrupts him, to everyone’s relief. Yet when Wither speaks, the same result happens. People laugh and stare at him as if he’s mad. Some people get up and leave, angered and annoyed. People then begin fighting, while others try and call for reason. However, everyone who tries to speak utters nonsense. A disruption takes place, and Frost writes a note to Miss. Hardcastle to restore order. When she reads the note, it’s written in gibberish.
Miss Hardcastle, drunk, is actually enjoying the situation. She has a female prisoner downstairs that she wants to spend time with. She gets up and shoots Jules dead, causing another row. People try to flee, but Miss Hardcastle has locked the doors. Suddenly more screams are heard, and Mark realizes that a tiger has entered the room. People panic, and when the tiger is seen again it attacks Miss Hardcastle and kills her, mangling her body. Then other animals enter the room and attack people. Wither and Frost are now nowhere to be found. Lastly, an elephant breaks down the doors and begins crushing people. There’s blood everywhere. The elephant takes Steele in its trunk and bashes him onto the floor.
Mr. Bultitude and Mr. Maggs are being kept in cages. Both are despondent, but Merlin arrives and saves them both. He gives Mr. Maggs (Tom) a letter from Ivy that tells him to go to St. Anne’s but to avoid Edgestow. He then releases Mr. Bultitude and tells him that they have more work to do. Wither, who manages to escape the dining room, knows that Merlin is behind everything. He has unleashed the curse of Babel on Belbury, and he has sent the animals into the dining room to murder people. The tramp, meanwhile, sees everything taking place and, after looting some provisions, disappears. Merlin then awakens Mark and gives him a note from Jane. It tells him to go to St. Anne’s but to avoid Edgestow. He dislikes Merlin, yet Merlin physically removes him from the house and sets Mark running. Mark doesn’t stop running until he’s far from Belbury.
Wither realizes that Merlin has destroyed everything with the help of nonhuman powers. As he plots his escape, he understands that the calculations of his Masters were incorrect. The Masters assumed that no celestial help could get through a barrier that existed at the moon’s orbit, yet this barrier was broken, and celestial powers descended upon Belbury. Wither doesn’t seem upset by this.
Meanwhile, Straik and Filostrato try to escape. In doing so, they see Wither in the hall. Filostrato does not want to go with Wither. Though he wants to flee (his arm has been badly injured), Wither and Straik prop him up and take him to an ante-room. Filostrato is confused, especially as he is not an initiate. When the two enter the ante-chamber without his aid and without changing clothes or decontaminating themselves, Filostrato is horrified. Filostrato’s horror intensifies when he sees the Head speaking and moving without the use of the dials and machinery. The trio begins chanting and the Head demands a sacrifice. They take Filostrato to a guillotine-like instrument and kill him. Wither and Straik continue chanting, though both realize that the Head will demand another sacrifice. Straik tries to flee, but Wither has a knife and kills him.
Feverstone is also able to escape. He witnesses the bloodbath with a detached, calculated precision. He waits for all the killing to stop and then flees to the garage. Just when he enters the car, he feels as if someone gets in the car with him. Then he drives off but realizes that he is not in control of the car. The vehicle drives toward Edgestow. Frost, meanwhile, goes to the garage. He gets as much petrol as he can and takes it to the Objective Room, then locks himself inside. This whole time, his objective hold has loosened and now that he’s locked inside, he realizes that emotions are valid. Yet he cannot do anything about it. Moreover, he hates the fact that he knows he has been wrong. He lights the gas and dies in the fire.
Chapter 17 Summary: “Venus at St. Anne’s”
Mark makes it to a town near St. Anne’s and finds a hotel. He bathes and eats. He’s reluctant to go to St. Anne’s because he feels that he is intruding on Jane’s circle. He feels as if she and the others will have to put up with him just because he’s her husband. At last, however, he pays the bill and leaves.
Meanwhile, the women at St. Anne’s prepare for their last meal together. They go to the attic and find gorgeous formalwear described as “treasure of Logres” (362). They ruminate about their time together. Ivy has been told by the Director that Mr. Maggs will arrive that day or the next. They also know that the Director and Merlin will leave. Merlin will not return. Mrs. Dimble says that a man who has been filled with the sort of powers he’s been filled with will be nothing once those powers leave. The Director is to return to the planet of Perelandra. The men will make dinner and don their formalwear later. The group then sees lights coming from town and Mrs. Dimble says that “it has begun” (362).
Feverstone’s car crashes and he has to walk miles in the snow and cold. He can’t find his way. He finally sees people leaving in a sort of exodus and asks for a ride. The people tell him that Edgestow, which is where he wants to go, is behind them. Feverstone has to walk to Edgestow while watching the exodus. While he’s walking, the narrator describes how many people have fled the destruction in time for divine providence. Some are still fleeing due to their property and livelihood being taken from them. Feverstone sees the college leveled and the destruction firsthand. He realizes that he wants to just go to London, have a story to tell, and survive. He tries to turn around and leave but the earth rises up and crushes him.
At St. Anne’s, everyone has finished dinner and is sitting around conversing. The Director tells them that he has to go to Perelandra. He has not aged since he left, and his injury can only be healed there. He asks Dimble to speak for him as he wants to take in the night before he departs. Dimble explains how there has always been a haunting in England and that the Arthurian legend is mostly true. Something has always tried to enter Britain. That something is Logres. The two exist as foils in a sense, one haunting the other. Logres is the “good” while Britain is the “fallen” or “bad.” There will always be division, and Britain as such will always rise up and try to crush Logres, until Logres itself wins and unifies the good. They are then interrupted with the arrival of the bear, Mr. Bultitude.
Curry is on a train heading for Edgestow. The train keeps stopping and finally the passengers are told that train can go no further due to a catastrophic earthquake. Curry, who knows nearly everyone, goes to the manager’s office and is told that Edgestow and Bracton College are no more. Everything has been destroyed. Curry is shocked, yet he realizes that he can be a co-founder of a new Bracton College. He imagines his posterity and decides to take a train to London, to get things rolling.
Back at St. Anne’s, the animals are pairing up and courting one another. Ivy finds a bear in the kitchen that isn’t Mr. Bultitude. The Director says the female bear will soon be Mrs. Bultitude. The bears go off, and other animals arrive and woo one another. Though MacPhee thinks it’s unseemly, the Director says that it’s because Venus is so close to earth. Venus is the last of the angels to leave; she is waiting for the Director. Ivy then says that Mr. Maggs has arrived, and the Director tells her to be with her husband. He is not one for goodbyes, and Ivy leaves. Then the Dimbles go off as well. MacPhee also leaves. The Director tells Jane to go to the lodge and that Mark is there waiting for her. She isn’t sure she wants to leave just yet. The Director tells her to go and that she will not have any more dreams. Instead, she should have children.
Jane walks to the lodge, wondering all the while if she can really be the wife that she is apparently supposed to be for Mark. Mark has also been wondering if he is worthy of Jane. He sees a similar vision as Jane had and is invited into the lodge by a sensuous woman. Jane reaches the lodge and notices that it appears empty. Then she sees the lights on and that Mark has thrown his clothes carelessly about. She goes in, realizing that Mark needs her.
Chapters 16-17 Analysis
Merlin, having gained access to all the puzzle pieces at Belbury that he needs to enact his plan (the ante-room with the head, the cages where the animals are kept, and the tramp), calls down the curse of Babel on Belbury. In comic fashion, no one at the banquet is able to understand one another. This curse is symbolic of the curse that is placed upon the tower of Babel in the Bible: humankind attempted to reach too high and was cursed. In turn,The Tower of Babel, which was built to try and reach heaven, was destroyed.
Merlin unleashes the animals and the animals kill most of the guests at the banquet. Chaos ensues, and Belbury falls. Mr. Bultitude kills Wither and destroys the Head. All the key players who thought to assist the N.I.C.E. or assist the bad eldils are destroyed. An important aspect of the curse at the banquet, and the turn of events that allow it, can be found in what the Director earlier referred to as the Seventh Law. This law says that celestial powers cannot come to earth; there is supposed to be a barrier at the moon’s orbit that prohibits them. Maleldil, however, as the topmost eldil, has relaxed this rule because man himself reached up to the heavens and broke the barrier, so to speak. Because of this, the celestial eldils must restore order.
Wither, and the bad eldils he is taking orders from, did not anticipate this possibility. Some critics have pointed to the ending as being tied up too nicely. They say that the reader gets to the end of this well-constructed plot, only for it to end rather conveniently and quickly with a curse. Lewis, however, shows how the powers of good and evil play out in a “game” that must run its course. Also, if one uses Merlin’s power in the beginning, there isn’t much of a story to tell.
In the end, Mark and Jane find one another, and it’s suggested that they will not only reconcile but conceive a child as they were meant to do. Venus is close to earth, which means that love is in the air, literally. The freed animals arrive at St. Anne’s and couple with their mates, while the human couples do the same. The Director, having fulfilled his duty, will return to Venus. The narrative’s ending underscores that love, obedience and goodwill overcome the dark, and that acceptance is nothing if not sought for the right reasons.
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By C. S. Lewis
