AP English Literature: Summer Reading Assignment
Please read the novel That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis (ISBN: 978-0743234924 or any other unabridged copy; it is available on iBooks for your iPad).
Note that as you scroll down on this post, you will find interpretive guidance. This is a challenging novel, a good fit for an AP Literature course, but you will feel lost at times. Please use this post and links to get your bearings, gather a few of the allusions, and move forward. Or just press through and see how much you can get out of the text yourself (which is where you are headed in the future anyway). Then check this page to see how much of it you unpacked on your own. Your choice.
Note that as you scroll down on this post, you will find interpretive guidance. This is a challenging novel, a good fit for an AP Literature course, but you will feel lost at times. Please use this post and links to get your bearings, gather a few of the allusions, and move forward. Or just press through and see how much you can get out of the text yourself (which is where you are headed in the future anyway). Then check this page to see how much of it you unpacked on your own. Your choice.
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Setting: The University of Edgestow, a fictional University made up of four colleges. Consider it a place like Oxford in south-central England.
Time: None given; published 1945; imagine the time as 1943.
Basic Context: This is a wild fairy tale and a sci-fi adventure and a modern critique of society all woven into one novel. The basic situation is follows:
- A new politico-scientific organization (the N.I.C.E.) wants to buy a college to run experiments. They seek to unlock the mystery of eternal life employing scientific methods.
- Mark Studdock works at the college and hopes to gain good employment in this new, powerful, and rising organization (which he does).
- Mark's wife, Jane, experiences strange dreams.
- The N.I.C.E. is interested in Jane and her dreams.
- Another group at a manor house in the nearby town of St. Anne's is also interested in Jane's dreams.
- What could Jane's dreams, the wizard Merlin, the scientific method, and demonic spirits have to do with each other? You will find out!
- Marriage, in the modern world, is largely misunderstood.
- What is wrong with Mark and Jane's marriage? How is this typical of modern marriage?
- What do Mark and Jane need to do differently to have a good marriage?
- What is a good marriage?
- How do roles in marriage make marriage (and life in general) richer?
- Why is it important for a man to be willing to sacrifice himself for his wife?
- Tradition is often slighted in favor of whatever takes the title of progress.
- How is progress destroying tradition in Edgestow?
- Progress claims to be advanced, but is it possible to progress or advance in a bad direction?
- People often juxtapose science and faith...claiming that science is about progress and faith about tradition...and so science will always win. What are some flawed assumptions in this line of reasoning that we can see expressed in the novel (through the N.I.C.E., etc.)?
- "We are mirrors enough to see another" (362).
- For Lewis, life is lived most fully in community. God is revealed to us as a Trinity; we are not fully ourselves until we live in rich relationship (with God and others).
- When we isolate ourselves and examine ourselves (intently navel gaze), we often get a very distorted picture of ourselves.
- When we seek fame, wealth, and power for our own glory...independent of others...ignoring others...we will ultimately fail.
- That Hideous Strength
- The title of this book comes from a late medieval poem by Scottish poet (Sir) David Lyndsay. A "strength" is a stronghold. In his poem, Lyndsay describes the Tower of Babel as "that hyddeous strength," an evil stronghold (also read Genesis 11), which it was. C. S. Lewis posits that perhaps some of our seemingly great accomplishments or advancements are none other than modern Towers of Babel. Where do you see this happening in the text and in the world today?
- How can the very things people praise as good examples of science or progress really be guises for something much more insidious, much more hideous (hints: factory assembly lines, abortion, animal cloning)?
- "The weapons of our warfare are not of this world" (2 Cor. 10:4). How do St. Anne's and the N.I.C.E. fight differently? What does the manner of their warfare symbolize?
Other Resources:
- Characters
- Chapter Notes (Reminders to Myself of Thoughts We Will Cover)
- Allusions in the Text
- Professor Kirby on the Novel (in the Google Documents when class begins)
- Study Cards
- Planets and Language (not necessary for you to know)
- Essay Prompt Examples
Related Thoughts
- Aristotle (et al): Art imitates life. Oscar Wilde: Life imitates art.
- This American Life: "Mistakes Were Made"
- Discuss: Where did Bob Nelson go wrong? Are such impulses alive today? If it did "work," would it be ethically right to do it? Where does this mirror THS?
- From The Discarded Image by Lewis: "In regarding great literature I become a thousand men and yet myself."
From That Hideous Strength
"His education had had the curious effect of making things that he read and wrote about more real to him than things he saw. Statistics about agricultural laborers were the substance; any real ditcher, ploughman, or farmer's boy, was the shadow. Though he had never noticed it himself, he had a great reluctance, in his work, ever to use words as 'man' or 'woman.' He preferred to write about 'vocational groups,' 'elements,' 'classes' and 'populations.': for, in his own way, he believed as firmly as a mystic in the superior reality of the things that are not seen (87).
"For the Hideous Strength confronts us and it is as in the days when Nimrod built a tower to reach heaven" (288).
"On the floor lay a large crucifix, almost life size, a work of art in the Spanish tradition, ghastly and realistic. 'We have half an hour to pursue our exercises,' said Frost looking at his watch. Then he instructed Mark to trample on it and insult it in other ways" (334).
"Those who have forgotten Lorgres sink into Britain. Those who call for Nonsense will find that it comes" (372).
"He said something about being mirrors enough to see another" (362).
Please keep a reading journal (handwritten or typed).
For each chapter of That Hideous Strength (17 chapters total), please do the following:
- Copy a sentence or phrase that addresses one of the key themes (listed below).
- Explain in two or more sentences how the quote illustrates, supports, or relates to the theme.
- Find one new vocabulary word (new to you), and define it.
- Look for one other literary device of importance in the chapter and discuss it.
| George Orwell wrote a review of Lewis' novel before writing his own 1984; can you find any similarities? |
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