And here it is, part 2 of my comparison of twisted love between Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera and Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis. This week I will summarize and comment on the endings of both these stories as well as the handling of love, twisted and not. With the direction established, let’s get going.
In my opinion, the ending of a story is one of it’s most important aspects. A strong ending can make even stories we didn’t like before that ending into a beautiful piece of literature (as is the case for me in Where the Red Fern Grows) or can damage what used to be an excellent tale (see my Spoiler Shelf on the Prydain Chronicles for an ending I thought dissatisfying). What’s more, the ending of a story often establishes the author’s view of a subject. If the first Twilight book had ended with Bella dying or at least accepted the wisdom of the Edward’s decision to break up despite her grief, the message would have been totally different. Point is, endings can make or break a story.
And Phantom’s ending is really the straw the breaks the camel’s back.
Now, before I go further, I must remind you (as I forgot to last week) that this post will be full of spoilers, and not just any spoilers but perhaps the worst kind as I’m spoiling the ending. Okay, warning is over. Back to Phantom.
Throughout The Phantom of the Opera, the titular Phantom, Erik, is built up as a genius, powerful maniac of tragic past so obsessed with Christine that he would kill to have his way. Because he was born hideous, he was rejected by his family, became a circus show, and then, when he finally found a place he could be a twisted as he wished, his superior feared his genius and tried to kill him. Erik is not a healthy person. Unfortunately, his brought-up-in-a-loving-home rival, Raoul, is not that much better (as I discussed a bit last week), so I can’t say I favored either of them, but at least the Phantom we had established as a crazy, twisted lover who would stop at nothing to obtain the person he desires. Too bad that’s all thrown away.
At first, I thought Leroux was writing a fitting ending. Erik kidnaps Christine and threatens to kill everyone in the opera house, including the two of them, if she does not become his wife; meanwhile, Raoul and the Persian (YAY!) sneak into Erik’s house to rescue Christine. The two men end up, however, trapped and nearly drown. Christine, who had attempted suicide earlier, promises Erik that if he frees Raoul she will not kill herself and will be the Phantom’s wife. Erik agrees and spares the Persian and Raoul. The Persian is then released, having to abandon Christine and trust the insane Phantom’s word that he will not kill Raoul (Leroux 210-296). The Phantom won. In a sweep of tragedy, twisted love conquered… until the next chapter, where we learn that right after the Persian left and Erik imprisoned Raoul, the Phantom returns to Christine, gives her a kiss on the forehead and then she returns the kiss and cries for him. Apparently this so moves Erik that he becomes, in his own words, “no more… than a poor dog ready to die for her,” releases Christine and Raoul, and wishes them happiness (301-302). He then relates the events the Persian before dying of grief. Yep. The fearsome Phantom, the insane, obsessive Phantom who was willing to kill anyone, including the one he desired, to have his victory is instantly transformed by a kiss on the forehead and tears. What?
Now I don’t think that ending necessarily bad, especially as I am a Christian who holds that Christ can and has and does redeem even the most vile of humans. However, with what the story had built up, especially concerning Erik, to suddenly give it such an ending falls into an anti-climactic mess. In a different story, I might have thought that ending beautiful, but here it felt like a slap in the face. All that build up, all that emphasis on Erik’s obsession and insanity immediately thrown out because of “my mother never loved me, but you kissed me and cried for me.” Even the Phantom’s insistence that Christine truly cared for him or pitied him becomes untrustworthy because earlier Erik has shown to have been capable of deceiving himself into thinking Christine loves him (Leroux 248). Also, despite how Leroux writes it, it’s not even a happy ending as Raoul is only a lesser Erik, so twisted love wins anyway just in a manner that makes it seem like it’s a good thing. The entire ending, when taken in the context of the whole story, rings false.
Which really is a shame because with a different ending I might have actually liked Phantom I can even think of two examples. First, and my preferred, would be that Christine had not tried to kill herself earlier and/or Erik ignores her pleas and kills Raoul. Then Christine, overcome with grief, commits suicide, and it is only then, holding Christine’s lifeless body in his arms, that Erik realizes he was wrong, falling into despair himself, eventually to death.
If you still want a happy ending, first tell the story from Erik’s perspective so that we have an emotional connection with him, witnessing his growing obsession with and adoration of Christine, and we don’t see Raoul in such a creepy light. Then, when Erik spares and release Raoul, Christine lives but becomes a true living corpse, in contrast with Erik’s mere appearance of one. Over time, her emptiness pains Erik’s heart. Then, unable to bear the lack of her voice, her smile, any sign of life in her, and realizing his Christine is dead without Raoul, Erik at last releases her, knowing the woman he loved cannot live if she is with him. Either one, a tragic ending of twisted love’s victory or twisted love’s realization of what destruction it has incurred, I think would have brought more satisfaction than Phantom’s true ending.
Although, I’ll admit I might just prefer those options because Till We Have Faces does both. Lewis broke Faces into two different parts. In part one, we have the tragic ending with Orual having suffocated any healthy love and relationship she has even held and hid behind a physical veil and the mental veil of queenship while blaming and condemning the gods. That conclusion alone would have been powerful.
However, there is a second part. This part follows, over a passage of time, the queen’s confrontation with the destruction she has caused. Orual even dreams of Psyche, of Psyche performing impossible tasks made possible because Orual takes the toil, danger, and pain in Psyche’s place. Eventually, Orual is summoned to a court before the god and the dead, where she makes her case, reunites with her deceased tutor, the Fox, faces her inner ugliness, and finally realizes her folly (Lewis 253-298). Then, she witnesses Psyche’s final trial, for they were indeed real. All along the way, Psyche is tempted by illusions of ones she loves, including the Fox and Orual, and Orual’s heart breaks, for she sees what torture she forced upon her sister. Seeing the apparition of herself cry out so desperately to Psyche, now knowing the evil such cries beget, Orual can only pray that Psyche will overcome them, and so the girl does with tears streaking her face. When the illusions fade, Orual says to the Fox, “Did we really do these things to her?… And we said we loved her.” The Fox replies, “And we did. She had no more dangerous enemies than us” (301-302).
Then, Psyche returns with something in her hands. Orual goes to meet her and falls to the ground, ut Psyche lifts her up and hands Orual what she, Psyche, in her final trial fetched, “the beauty to make Ungit [Orual] beautiful” (305-306). All her trials Psyche did for Orual’s sake. Psyche, who loves Orual with true love, suffered for her sister and sought what would make her sister beautiful, and it does make her beautiful. Both inside and out. In a scene I cannot quote for it contains too many beautiful words to fit here, Orual is redeemed by the admittance of her own sin and Psyche’s love. At last, ugly Orual’s heart is transformed, as is her appearance, and, in one of the most telling phrases of Orual’s change, upon seeing her’s and Psyche’s reflections, she sees that they are “both beautiful (if that mattered now)” (307-308).
In part 1, twisted love seems to win, but Lewis, a Christian who knew the redemptive power of Christ’s true love, does not end his story there. Instead, true love, sacrificial love, triumphs, and Lewis concludes his story as one not just of destruction but of restoration and healing. Faces is a story of fall and redemption, of the perversion what what is good and then its restoration. This is a story of tikkun olam, a Jewish phrase meaning “putting back into harmony everything that is broken.” Beautiful.
Why, Phantom, do you feels so empty in comparison? Should not your similar ending have brought such beauty? One main reason I can give is that the characters never feel the consequences of their actions, so any “redemption,” especially one so rushed and without an foreshadow or build up, fails to satisfy. We barely feel Christine’s despair or the Phantom’s hurting heart. We never even see Raoul’s reaction to his brother’s death. It’s as if consequences don’t touch the characters. Orual’s actions, however, impact her, and we feel it. She dwells upon the results, justifies herself, as if we are the judges, runs away, hides behind a veil, refuses to face her own evil, and then, when at last she confronts her brokenness, she does not break down at once, but in pieces till her last defenses crumble and she stands naked before herself and us. She sees her own wickedness, and then she sees Psyche and real love, and Orual’s heart finally breaks. Orual has fought this entire time; we have seen the disastrous results, and now, at the end of all things, she humbles herself, admits and submits, and she is transformed and restored.
This is the Christian narrative, and it is both the most personal and universal of stories, for redemption is the world’s story, the story of all you who have removed your veils, and it is mine. And it is beautiful.
Leroux, Gaston. The Phantom of the Opera. London: Penguin Group. 2008. 137. Print.
Lewis, C. S. Till We Have Faces. New York: Houghton Harcourt Publishing Company. 1984. Print.
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