55 pages • 1 hour read
Out of the Silent Planet
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Chapter 22 and PostscriptChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 22 Summary
The narrator reveals himself to be the author, C. S. Lewis himself. He states that from a literary standpoint, the story is over, but there are still some aspects of the book that need to be clarified.
“Dr. Elwin Ransom” is a protective alias for the real professor about whom the book is written. After his journey back to Earth, “Ransom” gave up on any plans of sharing his story with a wider audience. He convinced himself that his experiences were down to an elaborate hallucination brought on by his sickness, and that would have been the end of the story if not for the narrator. The narrator, a student of Ransom’s, wrote him a letter a few months ago inquiring about the meaning of the word “oyarses,” which he found in a 12th-century Latin text about a journey through space. Ransom immediately invited the narrator to spend the weekend with him and recounted the tale of his adventure on Malacandra, and, since then, the two men have been researching to prepare for the potential end of Earth’s isolation in space. They believe that Weston poses future dangers—“not planetary but cosmic, or at least solar” (152). Ransom came up with the idea to disseminate his story in the form of a fiction book, hoping to familiarize the public with certain ideas, like space as heaven, so that they will be prepared when Weston makes his next move. The narrator ends by referencing events that have transpired since the writing of the book.
Postscript Summary
The postscript is a letter from “Dr. Ransom” to Lewis. Ransom is slightly disappointed in the way Lewis has depicted his journey but acknowledges that the reader cannot possibly be made to understand the intricacies of Malacandra. He corrects a few descriptions of the sensory aspects of his journey and adds more information about the Malacandrian hnau, including that they do not need to keep pets because each species is to the other “both what a man is to us and what an animal is to us” (154).
Ransom clarifies that phenotypic differences exist even among each species of hnau. He agrees with Lewis that it is a shame he never saw the habitat of the pfifltriggi, but he refuses to make up details about them, wanting to stay as truthful as possible.
Turning to the topic of Oyarsa and the eldila, Ransom admits that he does not understand how the eldila speak without bodies. Although both Ransom and Lewis instinctively compare the eldila to terrestrial concepts like gods, fairies, and angels, in truth they do not have enough information. Ransom reveals that when he spoke to Oyarsa about angels, Oyarsa “seemed to regard [them] […] as different in some way from himself” (156), but it’s not clear if they are a different species or just a subcategory of eldila.
Ransom goes on to recount two particular memories from Malacandra that left a lasting impression on him. The first is of a group of hrossa walking to the edge of a lake, singing, to send three of their elderly to Meldilorn to die. Although they are solemn, they do not grieve. Each hross has known the time of their death since birth, and their passing is neither “preceded by dread nor followed by corruption” (157).
In the second scene, Ransom and Hyoi are bathing in a lake at night. Above them, the milky way is magnified and brightened, a “dazzling necklace of lights” (157). A glow falls on the harandra as the “true king of night” (158) appears in the form of a massive planet. Ransom guesses that it is Jupiter, or “Glundandra” to the hrossa, seen from up close. The hrossa call Jupiter “the great Meldilorn” (158) and “the center.” They associate great importance with the planet, but Ransom doesn’t know why. He ends his letter by telling Lewis that he is still researching the subject.
Chapter 22 and Postscript Analysis
The final chapter and postscript of Out of the Silent Planet ground the novel in “reality” through the revelation that the narrator is author, C. S. Lewis himself. Lewis, as the character of the narrator, acts as a third party, giving further credibility to Ransom’s tale. His discovery of the references to oyarses in ancient texts recalls Ransom’s revelation during the trip to Malacandra, when he decides that the “old thinkers” were right about their conception of space. Through his repeated references to ancient texts and ideas, Lewis suggests that some ways of thinking that are considered outdated might actually hold value for the modern world.
The character of Lewis reveals that the purpose behind releasing Ransom’s story as a work of fiction is to introduce the public to certain set of ideas without incurring the vengeance of Weston, creating “not a body of belief […] but a body of people familiarized with certain ideas” (152), preparing humanity in case he makes another grab for power. Similarly, Out of the Silent Planet can be read as softly instructive, intended not to convert readers to Christianity but to offer them Lewis’s take on issues of morality, empathy, and spirituality.
The final two sections of the novel also suggest there is more to Ransom’s story. Lewis mentions that events that have transpired since the writing of the novel “have already made it rather a prologue to our story than the story itself” (152). This quote sets up the sequels of Perelandra and That Hideous Strength.
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By C. S. Lewis
