Till We Have Faces - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

Part One:

The story tells the Ancient Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche, from the perspective of Orual, Psyche's older sister.

It begins as the complaint of an old woman who is bitter at the injustice of the gods. Although disfigured herself, and covering her facial deformity with a mask throughout the book, Orual loves her beautiful half-sister Psyche; and when Psyche is sent as a human sacrifice, at the command of Ungit (Aphrodite), to her son, the unseen "God of the Mountain" (Cupid), Orual feels wounded and betrayed.

Orual tries to rescue Psyche, who says she doesn't need to be rescued, and that she lives in a beautiful castle, which Orual can't see. She almost sees something, but then it vanishes, like a mist.

Orual urges Psyche to do the one thing the God has commanded her not to: to sneak a peek when he comes to their marriage bed. Orual argues that the God must be a monster, or he would not hide his face. She brings Psyche the means to see him, and threatens, cajoles, and coerces her, until Psyche agrees reluctantly, out of pity and love for her sister.

When Psyche obeys Orual, the God has no choice but to banish Psyche. Orual suffers with the knowledge that she destroyed her sister's happiness and marriage, through misapplied love and jealousy. The Four Loves have all gone horribly wrong.

Eventually, Orual becomes Queen, warrior, diplomat, architect, reformer, politician, legislator, and judge, but remains all alone. She drives herself, through work, to forget her grief and the love she has lost.

Psyche is gone; her other sister has married and moved away; her father and her beloved tutor, "the Fox", have died; even her old infatuations are castrated, bloated, ridiculous; and the gods remain, as ever, silent and unseen.

When she is invited to witness a new cult ritual as Queen, Orual hears a version of Psyche's myth, which shows her as deliberately ruining her sister's life out of envy. In response, she writes out her own story which becomes this book, to set the record straight in hopes that it will be brought to Greece, where she has heard that men are willing to question even the gods.

Part Two:

Orual begins the second part of the book stating that her previous argument was wrong, but she doesn't have time to revise it before she dies. After finishing her book, she thought the gods would end her lonely, exhausted life.

Instead, she writes, that through dreams and visions, she sees herself in the midst of the tasks given to her sister Psyche, in the myths, as a penitence.

Orual dreams of even presenting her complaint to the gods herself. Among them, her sister Psyche comes to meet her. Orual weeps, "Long did I hate you. Long did I fear you. I might—". Finally, Psyche helps her sister to see, what was hidden from her; though she caught glimpses of it along the way, on the long, hard road to meet her again.