Till We Have Faces

Psyche is the name Orual and the Fox call Istra, Orual’s youngest sister, born to the King’s second wife. Psyche is characterized by her beauty, which, unlike her older sister Redival’s, is more than skin deep; Psyche’s beauty makes the world around her more beautiful. In fact, it leads some of the ordinary people of Glome to speculate that she is a goddess, making Ungit jealous. Psyche is sacrificed to appease her anger. Psyche’s calm acceptance of her fate suggests that she, unlike Orual, is more concerned about other people than herself. She also suggests that her sacrifice is not so different than what would have otherwise been her fate: marriage.

Psyche’s serenity stems, in part, from her religious faith: while Orual is torn between the Fox’s philosophical teachings and her inherited belief in the gods, Psyche sees the two as complementary. The Fox’s teachings help to explain how the world works, but the gods explain how the world came to exist.

It is only when she agrees to Orual’s test in the face of her sister’s threat to kill herself that Psyche undergoes real suffering. Breaking her promise to her husband that she will not look on his face results in her exile from the valley of the god. She is later enslaved by Ungit. Psyche represents pure love in the novel and provides a contrast to Orual whose love, she suggests, borders on hate. 

King Trom of Glome is a cruel, violent, and selfish man and a weak king. He represents the worst kind of religious believer: one who worships in exchange for the fulfillment of a wish or desire. This is made evident by his fury at the birth of his third daughter; he has made numerous sacrifices to Ungit in order to guarantee a son, and he demands that the Priest explain why they haven’t worked.

He thinks of his daughters as his property and largely ignores Redival and Psyche, except at the moment of Psyche’s sacrifice, and he constantly taunts and beats Orual. He also loses the favor of the people of Glome on a number of occasions. On his deathbed, he begins to fear Orual and to think that she is somebody else, which foreshadows his revelation to her, in a later vision, that she is Ungit. 

The Fox is a Greek slave whom the king uses as an adviser and scribe and who also works as a tutor for the king’s daughters. The Fox’s philosophical and rational approach to the world stands in contrast to the pagan religion to which Glome subscribes. He is particularly influential on Orual, which results in her desire for tangible proof of the gods’ existence. The Fox’s rationalism provides a counter-point to the Priest of Ungit’s faith in the novel, and he argues that the Priest is just a charlatan who uses his religious authority to gain power. However, when Orual meets the Fox in the deadlands at the end of the novel, he has been converted and he helps her to understand the nature of the gods.

Importantly, the Fox doesn’t just play a symbolic role in the novel; he is also one of the few people Orual loves and trusts and who loves and trusts her in return. They address each other as Grandfather and Daughter, suggesting that they are family to each other.