I’ve been mildly obsessed of late with the Phantom of the Opera. If you’re a reader of the posts over on the music blog page, you’ll remember that my chorale is singing a piece from the musical and that I was trying to find out the reason for the Phantom’s disfigurement. I mentioned the novel Phantom by Susan Kay, which I have now read and which reminded me of another novel that revolves around appearance, especially facial appearance, Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis. Lewis’ novel is a re-telling of the Psyche and Cupid myth but is narrated by Psyche’s older sister, Orual, who is as ugly as Psyche is beautiful. The main characters in both novels cover their faces, one with a mask and one with a veil. And for both characters there is no reason given for their ugliness or deformity; it’s simply the way they were born, and it has profound effects on their lives. Neither one can ever have a normal romantic relationship, although both fall in love. It’s a very intriguing concept: that someone can be intelligent, talented, and sensitive, as both of these characters are, and yet be doomed to live apart simply because of the arrangement of their facial features. Covering up those facial anomalies doesn’t help, though: we want to see people’s faces. That’s why the picture on the left is so unsettling: we can’t really make out the woman’s face. It’s creepy.
The title of this post is from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, words spoken by King Duncan about a traitor who has just been executed. “There’s no way to tell if a man is a villain by his face,” he’s saying, adding, “He is a gentleman on whom I built an absolute trust” (Act I, Scene 4). So the Thane of Cawdor had a trustworthy face, whatever that means, but his face wasn’t a true reflection of his heart. If there’s a wicked character in a fairy tale who is also beautiful, such as Snow White’s stepmother, the wording is usually “beautiful but wicked,” as if to say that those two attributes shouldn’t go together. If there’s someone who’s unattractive but has a kind heart, then the word “but” also appears: “ugly but kind.” You won’t find the phrase “beautiful but good” anywhere. Beauty and goodness are supposed to go together.
I find myself haunted by a scene from Kay’s Phantom: Erik, the child who will become the Phantom, is five years old and asks his cold-hearted and selfish (but beautiful) mother to give him one present for his birthday: a kiss. She recoils in absolute horror. (Honestly, it isn’t as melodramatic as it sounds. The book as a whole is beautifully–there’s that word again!–written; I’m very surprised to see that it never sold well.) That denied kiss is a defining moment for Erik.
There will definitely be more posts on this whole topic of beauty/goodness/ugliness/evil. We humans are pretty bad at judging appearances and very prone to judging by appearances. It’s a great cause of unhappiness!