A minor character in C.S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength

Abstract

C. S. LEWIS’s That Hideous Strength, first published in 1945 in London and in 1946 in New York, is a novel in which Lewis allows his plot to develop as his characters present themselves in speech and action.1 Most of the complex plot unrolls through dialogue, with no more narrative than is necessary for coherence, and little authorial commentary. In this streamlined novel, one character initially seems to receive more attention than he needs: Captain O’Hara, second-in-command of the Institutional Police of the literally diabolical National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments (N.I.C.E.). O’Hara is a minor character: Mark, one of the two protagonists, works and talks with him in section 2 of chapter 6, and he is mentioned in passing only twice more (ch. 7 § 4 & ch. 11 §...