That Hideous Strength: A Modern Fairy-Tale for Grown-Ups (also released under the title The Tortured Planet in an abridged format) is a 1945 novel by C. S. Lewis, the final book in Lewis's theological science fiction Space Trilogy. The events of this novel follow those of Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra (also titled Voyage to Venus) and once again feature the philologist Elwin Ransom. Yet unlike the principal events of those two novels, the story takes place on Earth rather than elsewhere in the Solar System. The story involves an ostensibly scientific institute, the National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments (N.I.C.E.), which is a front for sinister supernatural forces.
The novel was heavily influenced by the writing of Lewis's friend and fellow Inkling Charles Williams, and is markedly dystopian in style. In the foreword, Lewis states that the novel's point is the same as that of his 1943 non-fiction work The Abolition of Man, which argues that there are natural laws and objective values that education should teach children to recognise.
The novel's title is taken from a poem written by David Lyndsay in 1555, , also known as The Monarche. The couplet in question, "", refers to the Tower of Babel.Lyndsay's Middle Scots usage of strength was in the now archaic meaning of "fortress, stronghold", see also OED s.v. strength, n.: "10.a. A stronghold, fastness, fortress. Now arch. or Hist., chiefly with reference to Scotland."
Plot The novel, written during the final period of World War II, takes place at an undetermined year "after the end of the war".
Mark Studdock is a young academic who has just become a Senior Fellow in sociology at Bracton College in the University of Edgestow. The fellows of Bracton are debating the sale of a portion of college land to the National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments (N.I.C.E.), whose staff already includes some college faculty. The sale is controversial since the land in question (Bragdon Wood) is an ancient woodland believed to be the resting place of Merlin. After the deal is struck, a N.I.C.E. insider named Lord Feverstone proposes a possible post for Mark at the Institute. (It is gradually revealed that Feverstone is the new title of Richard Devine, who accompanied Professor Weston on the trip to Mars in Out of the Silent Planet, but not on the trip to Venus in Perelandra.)
Mark's wife Jane (a PhD student at the university) has suffered a peculiar nightmare involving a severed head. She meets Mrs. Dimble, the wife of one of her former tutors, who is being evicted due to sale of land to the N.I.C.E. When Jane talks about her dreams, Mrs. Dimble leads her to seek counsel from a Miss Ironwood who lives in the Manor in the nearby town of St Anne's. An argument between Jane and Mark shows how their marriage is deteriorating.
Lord Feverstone introduces Mark to the N.I.C.E., where he becomes acquainted with the top brass at their headquarters at Belbury, near Edgestow. Mark can never find out what his place in the organisation is; he has no office, is given no duties for some time, and seems to be alternately in and out of favour. A scientist named Bill Hingest, who is resigning from the N.I.C.E., warns Mark to get out. That night, Hingest is mysteriously murdered.
At the same time, Jane works up the courage to visit Miss Ironwood at St Anne's. Miss Ironwood, who is dressed in black just as Jane had dreamed of her, is convinced that Jane's dreams are visions of genuine events. Later, Jane is introduced to Dr Elwin Ransom, the protagonist of the first two books in Lewis's space trilogy. He has become the Pendragon or heir of King Arthur, the ruler of the nation of Logres, which is described as the good side of Britain. More mundanely, he is the Director of the group living in the Manor at St Anne's. He is in communication with the Oyéresu (singular "Oyarsa"), angelic beings who guide the planets of the Solar System. Earth has been in quarantine: its rebellious Oyarsa (who is the Devil) and his demons could not travel beyond the orbit of the Moon, and the other Oyéresu could not come to Earth.
Mark is finally given work: to write pseudonymous newspaper articles supporting the N.I.C.E., including two for use after a riot they intend to provoke in Edgestow. The riot takes place as planned, allowing the N.I.C.E.'s private police force to take over the town. They arrest Jane, in whom the N.I.C.E. are interested (as revealed later) because of her psychic abilities, which they fear will get into their opponents' hands. The head of the N.I.C.E. police, a woman known as "Fairy" Hardcastle, starts to torture Jane but is forced to release her when rioters turn in her direction. Totally exhausted and nearly unconscious, Jane is rescued and taken to St Anne's.
Mark is once again out of favour in the N.I.C.E., but after a conversation with an Italian scientist named Filostrato he is introduced to the Head of the Institute. This turns out to be a literal head – that of a recently guillotined French scientist (as Jane dreamed) which Filostrato erroneously believes he has restored to life by his own efforts.
From Jane's dreams that people were digging up the grave of a long-buried man and that the man had left, Ransom concludes that the N.I.C.E. is looking for the body of Merlin, who truly is buried in Bragdon Wood – not dead, but rather in a timeless state. Jane will guide members of the group to the place she dreamed of.
The N.I.C.E. bosses now try to strengthen their hold over Mark by showing him trumped-up evidence that he murdered Bill Hingest. This backfires, as the crisis finally gives Mark the courage to leave Belbury. He returns to Edgestow in search of Jane only to find their apartment empty and the town under N.I.C.E. control. Later he meets Cecil Dimble, one of the St Anne's community, who despite his misgivings offers to help him. Mark deliberates too long over Dimble's proposal and he is found and arrested for Hingest's murder.
That night, during a heavy storm, both the company of St Anne's and N.I.C.E. personnel are on the trail of Merlin, who has apparently revived. He has taken the clothes of a tramp through his powers of hypnosis and acquired a wild horse. He meets the company of St Anne's but rides away. Members of the N.I.C.E. capture the tramp, believing him to be Merlin.
Mark, while contemplating his upcoming trial and execution, discovers that he has not been arrested by the real police but by officials of the N.I.C.E. who (he now guesses) are the true murderers of Hingest. To his surprise, he is told that he is to be initiated into the group's inner ring. In preparation for this he begins a bizarre training programme, led by Professor Frost, intended to cultivate absolute objectivity by relegating emotion to the status of a chemical phenomenon. He outwardly participates in these rituals (knowing that he will otherwise be killed) but inwardly begins to reject everything the N.I.C.E. stands for.
Merlin arrives at St Anne's ahead of his pursuers, where he and Ransom converse in Latin. Ransom reveals that there are Satanic forces behind the N.I.C.E. and that Merlin is to be possessed by the Oyéresu; since the forces of darkness broke the lunar barrier in the earlier books, the heavenly beings may also cross the barrier and intervene in human affairs.
Jane has two mystical experiences; the first with the Earth-bound counterpart of the Oyarsa of Venus and the second with God. After discussions with Mrs. Dimble and the Director, she becomes a Christian.
Merlin, now possessed by the Oyéresu, disguises himself as a Basque priest and answers the N.I.C.E.'s advertisement for an interpreter of ancient languages. He hypnotises and interviews the tramp (who the N.I.C.E. still believe may be the real Merlin) and the two of them are brought to a banquet. There Merlin pronounces the curse of Babel upon the assembled N.I.C.E. leaders, causing all present to speak gibberish, and also liberates the many animals on which the N.I.C.E. were experimenting. The bigger animals kill most of the N.I.C.E. staff.
As earthquakes destroy the building, Lord Feverstone flees to Edgestow but is killed when that too is engulfed. Others escape and wander to the Head, where Filostrato is sacrificed, Wither kills Straik, and Wither is killed by a bear. Meanwhile, Frost is compelled by his Satanic master to immolate himself in the Objectivity Room. Merlin helps Mark escape and sends him to St Anne's. The Oyarsa of Venus lingers at the Manor, as Ransom is now to be transported back to that planet. When Mark arrives, a vision of Venus leads him into a bridal chamber that Jane has been preparing for him.
Setting and context The novel is set in post-war England, in the fictional English town of Edgestow, in approximately 1948 according to the internal timeline of 'The Cosmic Trilogy'. The story takes place inside the University of Edgestow, within the nearby town, at the new N.I.C.E. headquarters, and at St Anne's Manor.
Elwin Ransom, introduced in the novel in Chapter 7, is the protagonist of the first two books in Lewis's space trilogy, and his point of view dominates their narrative. Lord Feverstone (formerly Dick Devine) was a villain in the first novel who, along with Professor Weston, had abducted Ransom to Mars in the mistaken belief that the Martians required a sacrifice. When Feverstone speaks in That Hideous Strength of Weston having been murdered by "the opposition", he is speaking of Ransom having killed Weston (who had become possessed by a devil) on Venus as described in Perelandra. The first two books fully explicate Lewis's mythology (based on a combination of the Bible and medieval cosmology)The origins of Lewis's mythology are most thoroughly explored in the book Planet Narnia by Michael Ward, although this work is mainly concerned with the Narnia series. Many readers of Lewis's nonfiction study of the medieval world-view, The Discarded Image, have inferred that this is the source of much of the mythos of the space trilogy. according to which each planet of the solar system is ruled by an angelic spirit. This mythos is re-introduced gradually in this story, whose protagonists—the Earth-bound Mark and Jane Studdock—are unaware of these realities when the story opens.
Characters Mark Gainsby Studdock – Protagonist; sociologist, and ambitious to the point of obsession with reaching the "inner circle" of his social environment. Jane Tudor Studdock – Protagonist; Mark's wife. Jane is supposedly writing a PhD thesis on John Donne, but since her marriage she has become effectively a housewife. In the course of the book she discovers herself to be clairvoyant.
Bracton College Sub-Warden Curry – Leader of the "Progressive Element" at Bracton College, a well-organised cabal that manipulates the college into welcoming the N.I.C.E. He is in fact a very gullible and shallow sort of man, who himself is easily manipulated by the N.I.C.E. James Busby – A former clergyman and bursar at Bracton College and another member of the 'Progressive Element'.
N.I.C.E. John Wither – Long-winded bureaucrat and Deputy Director of the N.I.C.E. He is the true leader of the N.I.C.E. and a servant of the Macrobes. Long association with them has "withered" his mind, and his speech and thinking are characterised by thought-deadening vagueness and jargon. Professor Augustus Frost – A psychologist and assistant to Wither, he is the only other N.I.C.E initiate who knows the true nature of the Head and of the Macrobes. He is coldhearted and unemotional and he has an exact, precise manner of speech and thinking. Miss Hardcastle (a.k.a. "The Fairy") – The sadistic, cigar-chewing head of the N.I.C.E. Institutional Police and its female auxiliary, the "Waips". Torture is her favourite interrogation method, and she takes special, sexual pleasure in abusing female prisoners.