Naked

As Orual is brought before the gods and given her book she is unveiled and undressed before the judge and others present. She states that “Hands came from behind me and tore of my veil…naked before countless gazers…no thread to cover me…” pg.289. I love the picture that C.S. paints here. He is showing that Orual has hidden so much of herself and must come clean before the judges. She is rid of her veil, a symbol of her new identity as queen and her distance from Orual. So Lewis uses a naked woman to symbolize an undisguised, genuinely authentic woman. She no longer has anything to hide behind. When I read this I was reminded of The Four Loves where Lewis addresses nakedness. There he says that we are not our true selves when naked (pg.104). The way I see this is that possibly Lewis is saying that humans are more themselves when clothed because they choose to cloth themselves the way they want. Maybe Lewis would say that Orual was more herself when clothed but that she needed to be brought back to what she truly was by being unveiled and naked. Yet I still wonder if these two ideas of nakedness in The Four Loves and Till We Have Faces are a little bit contradictory?