The Scholar and the Sunbather: Reassessing the Narrator of C.S. Lewis's ‘The Shoddy Lands’

C.S. Lewis's short-story ‘The Shoddy Lands’ is criticised for its depiction of a self-centred, aesthetically impoverished young woman. This article tempers that critique: on its face satire of Peggy, the story is likewise satire of its nameless narrator, the Oxford don who visits Peggy's mental world. Generally taken as a close analogue for Lewis, the narrator is demonstrably distinct from him. He does not share Lewis's intellectual interests, works in Oxford, not Cambridge, and is not a Christian. So, either we should suppose the narrator's critique of Peggy's outlook to be basically correct, but qualify his moral judgements, or must conclude that the don's experiences are a reflection of his own prejudices. Highlighting the former interpretation, the paper further considers why Lewis ventured to criticize not just a stylised male member of his own profession, but a stereotyped young woman with interests and preoccupations so widely separated from his own.