1. Discuss the significance of the Fixed Land in Perelandra. Besides the obvious parallel
with the forbidden fruit in Genesis, what role does it play in the
conversations involving the Green Lady, Ransom, and Weston? Why do you think
Lewis chose this particular command as the crux of temptation? Be sure to quote
specific passages in the novel where the significance of the Fixed Land is
discussed and relate them to the points of your essay.
2. Discuss the extent to which Ransom himself must resist
temptation in Perelandra. While the
main focus of the novel is on the temptation of the Green Lady, the protagonist
also faces temptations that could ruin his mission and even threaten his
spiritual well-being. Choose three of these temptations, discuss how Ransom
handles them, and explain the biblical lessons being communicated through this
often-neglected aspect of the novel.
3. In Perelandra,
early conversations with Ransom fill the Green Lady’s mind with words and ideas
that are later exploited by the Un-man. To what extent, if at all, does the
abstract knowledge of evil prepares the way to corruption? Use the novel, your
experience and/or other texts to support your answer to the question.
4. In the conversation among unnamed speakers near the end
of Perelandra, one speaker says, “He
has no need at all of anything that is made. An eldil is not more needful to
Him than a grain of the Dust: a peopled world no more needful than a world that
is empty: but all needless alike, and what all add to Him is nothing. We also
have no need of anything that is made. Love me, my brothers, for I am
infinitely superfluous, and your love shall be like His, born neither of your
need nor of my deserving, but of plain bounty.” To what extent is this speech
an effective description of agape love as described in The Four Loves?
5. Much discussion has occurred over the years concerning
the significance of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of
Eden, and what difference eating its fruit made to man’s forebears. In Perelandra, the King comments on this
subject in the following words: “We have learned of evil, though not as the
Evil One wished us to learn. We have learned better than that, and know it
more, for it is waking that understands sleep and not sleep that understands
waking. There is an ignorance of evil that comes from being young: there is a
darker ignorance that comes from doing it, as men by sleeping lose the knowledge
of sleep. You are more ignorant of evil in Thulcandra now than in the days
before your Lord and Lady began to do it.” Evaluate the validity of Lewis’
image in helping to understand the difference between two ways of knowing good
and evil. How would the image work if carried over into an understanding of
one’s situation in heaven?
6. Use one of the literary lenses we have learned to shed
light on some aspect of the book (possibly a character, the nature of
spirituality, or part of the plot). Explain your interpretation in depth and
defend the way your chosen “lens” enables that particular interpretation.
