Professor Weston
Encyclopedia
Professor Weston is arguably one of C. S. Lewis
's greatest satanic characters. An eminent physicist on earth, he first appears in Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet
, which is the first in Lewis’s Space Trilogy
. He is defeated by the novel's protagonist
Elwin Ransom
and the Oyarsa, the ruling angel or eldil of Mars
(known to its inhabitants as "Malacandra"), but he returns in the second book of the trilogy in an attempt to wreak havoc on Perelandra
(Venus), the "new Eden
."
, Weston first appears with his accomplice, Dick Devine (who later becomes Lord Feverstone
in That Hideous Strength
), attempting to abduct a mentally impaired youngster named Harry. They plan to take him to Malacandra (Mars) as a human sacrifice
. It is then that they are surprised by Elwin Ransom
, the main character of the novel, who is known to Devine. Devine persuades Weston to abduct Ransom instead.
In the course of their flight to Malacandra Ransom overhears a conversation between Weston and Devine that discloses to him their sinister purpose in abducting him. Shortly after their landing on Malacandra Weston and Devine attempt to drag Ransom to a towering, distant figure making its way across a lake to meet them. However, an accident occurs, in the form of a dangerous fish-type or crocodilian animal in the water breaking Ransom’s captors’ concentration, and allowing him to flee. In the course of his adventures on Malacandra, Ransom learns that the Oyarsa, the being to whom he was to be ‘sacrificed’, wanted only to speak with one of his kind. That is, a human. Weston, however, is of such a paranoid bent, that he can not conceive of another creature not wishing to do him harm: also, human sacrifice is the sort of superstition that he is conditioned to expect from "primitive" cultures. It is eventually revealed that the (immediate) purpose of Weston’s and Devine’s journey to Malacandra is to mine gold, which the planet has in abundance (this is primarily Devine’s desire, who is obsessed with money). Weston’s plan is to usher in a new age of space colonization
in order to ensure that man and his descendants will, in some form, continue to survive for all eternity (the idea was actually borrowed from Stapledon's Last and First Men
). The seeming idealism of this plot is corrupted by Weston’s obviously callous and Machiavellian
attitude towards all other forms of life (including intelligent ones).
and the Devil
are one, and calls God and the Devil into him. The Devil, it would appear, can’t resist an open door into a soul, and from that moment on, Professor E.R. Weston effectively ceases to be.
Weston's consciousness appears to occasionally resurface, but it is impossible to distinguish whether anything he says after this point is Weston or the Devil working through him. Indeed, Ransom (and, presumably by extension, Lewis) comes to the conclusion that:
Weston’s body is eventually destroyed beyond repair by Ransom in the tunnels beneath Perelandra’s crust and rolled into a pit of subterranean fire.
Ransom, having carved a monument to the great physicist into the wall on the outside of the caverns, leaves the innards of Perelandra behind him, and makes his way up the Fixed Land, to meet the angels, and the rest of his adventure.
(1853-1902) an English South African businessman and imperialist politician. Like Rhodes, Weston is a racist; he is also amoral, rapacious, and hates God and religion. In a passing comment in That Hideous Strength, it is said that Great Britain has produced both heroes and villains, that for every King Arthur, there is a traitor Mordred, for every Sydney (the medieval poet), there is a Cecil Rhodes. In "Perelandra", Weston mentions his liking of the book of which Rhodes said "it made me who I am”: Winwood Reade’s The Martyrdom of Man, which expounded the ideology of secular humanism
.
There is a glancing allusion to George Bernard Shaw
: Weston's speech on Malacandra, like Back to Methuselah, ends with the words "It is enough for me that there is a Beyond", and Weston shares Shaw's (and Henri Bergson
's) belief in the Life Force. Another possible influence is the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche
, the goal of whose philosophy was the advent of the "super-man". Weston is also similar to the villain Saruman
from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings
.
The choice of the name "Weston" might be more than accidental, considering that in his speech in Out of the Silent Planet
he presents himself very much as the proponent of "Western Civilization" in its most expansionist and aggressive mode. (The names of the main villains in That Hideous Strength
, "Wither" and "Frost", are clearly meant to reflect their characters.)
Professor Weston can also stand for the scientific elitism
that despises all other types of knowledge, see Scientism
.
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
's greatest satanic characters. An eminent physicist on earth, he first appears in Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet
Out of the Silent Planet
Out of the Silent Planet is the first novel of a science fiction trilogy written by C. S. Lewis, sometimes referred to as the Space Trilogy, Ransom Trilogy or Cosmic Trilogy. The other volumes are Perelandra and That Hideous Strength, and a fragment of a sequel was published posthumously as The...
, which is the first in Lewis’s Space Trilogy
Space Trilogy
The Space Trilogy, Cosmic Trilogy or Ransom Trilogy is a trilogy of science fiction novels by C. S. Lewis, famous for his later series The Chronicles of Narnia. A philologist named Elwin Ransom is the hero of the first two novels and an important character in the third.The books in the trilogy...
. He is defeated by the novel's protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
Elwin Ransom
Elwin Ransom
Elwin Ransom is the prominent character from C. S. Lewis's Space Trilogy series. He is the main character in the books Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, which are told almost entirely from his point of view...
and the Oyarsa, the ruling angel or eldil of Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
(known to its inhabitants as "Malacandra"), but he returns in the second book of the trilogy in an attempt to wreak havoc on Perelandra
Perelandra
Perelandra is the second book in the Space Trilogy of C. S. Lewis, set in the Field of Arbol...
(Venus), the "new Eden
Garden of Eden
The Garden of Eden is in the Bible's Book of Genesis as being the place where the first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, lived after they were created by God. Literally, the Bible speaks about a garden in Eden...
."
Gold-digging on Malacandra
In Out of the Silent PlanetOut of the Silent Planet
Out of the Silent Planet is the first novel of a science fiction trilogy written by C. S. Lewis, sometimes referred to as the Space Trilogy, Ransom Trilogy or Cosmic Trilogy. The other volumes are Perelandra and That Hideous Strength, and a fragment of a sequel was published posthumously as The...
, Weston first appears with his accomplice, Dick Devine (who later becomes Lord Feverstone
Lord Feverstone
Richard Devine, Lord Feverstone is a fictional character in two of the books of C. S. Lewis's Interplanetary Trilogy.Richard Devine knew the protagonist, Elwin Ransom, at school, where they did not get on. Ransom meets him again years later, in Out of the Silent Planet...
in That Hideous Strength
That Hideous Strength
That Hideous Strength 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 and once again feature the philologist Elwin Ransom...
), attempting to abduct a mentally impaired youngster named Harry. They plan to take him to Malacandra (Mars) as a human sacrifice
Human sacrifice
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more human beings as part of a religious ritual . Its typology closely parallels the various practices of ritual slaughter of animals and of religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice has been practised in various cultures throughout history...
. It is then that they are surprised by Elwin Ransom
Elwin Ransom
Elwin Ransom is the prominent character from C. S. Lewis's Space Trilogy series. He is the main character in the books Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, which are told almost entirely from his point of view...
, the main character of the novel, who is known to Devine. Devine persuades Weston to abduct Ransom instead.
In the course of their flight to Malacandra Ransom overhears a conversation between Weston and Devine that discloses to him their sinister purpose in abducting him. Shortly after their landing on Malacandra Weston and Devine attempt to drag Ransom to a towering, distant figure making its way across a lake to meet them. However, an accident occurs, in the form of a dangerous fish-type or crocodilian animal in the water breaking Ransom’s captors’ concentration, and allowing him to flee. In the course of his adventures on Malacandra, Ransom learns that the Oyarsa, the being to whom he was to be ‘sacrificed’, wanted only to speak with one of his kind. That is, a human. Weston, however, is of such a paranoid bent, that he can not conceive of another creature not wishing to do him harm: also, human sacrifice is the sort of superstition that he is conditioned to expect from "primitive" cultures. It is eventually revealed that the (immediate) purpose of Weston’s and Devine’s journey to Malacandra is to mine gold, which the planet has in abundance (this is primarily Devine’s desire, who is obsessed with money). Weston’s plan is to usher in a new age of space colonization
Space colonization
Space colonization is the concept of permanent human habitation outside of Earth. Although hypothetical at the present time, there are many proposals and speculations about the first space colony...
in order to ensure that man and his descendants will, in some form, continue to survive for all eternity (the idea was actually borrowed from Stapledon's Last and First Men
Last and First Men
Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future is a "future history" science fiction novel written in 1930 by the British author Olaf Stapledon. A work of unprecedented scale in the genre, it describes the history of humanity from the present onwards across two billion years and eighteen...
). The seeming idealism of this plot is corrupted by Weston’s obviously callous and Machiavellian
Machiavellianism
Machiavellianism is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, "the employment of cunning and duplicity in statecraft or in general conduct", deriving from the Italian Renaissance diplomat and writer Niccolò Machiavelli, who wrote Il Principe and other works...
attitude towards all other forms of life (including intelligent ones).
Colonising Eden, in the name of the (un)Holy Spirit
Weston’s sudden appearance on Perelandra is a great surprise to Ransom, who is, once again, the accidental hero of the piece. However, Weston has undergone some changes since his last appearance. Perhaps the most notable, and certainly the most important, change is that he no longer wants to spread ‘the human race’, but to spread ‘spirituality’. In his understanding of Spirituality, Weston has come to the fatal misunderstanding that GodGod
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
and the Devil
Devil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
are one, and calls God and the Devil into him. The Devil, it would appear, can’t resist an open door into a soul, and from that moment on, Professor E.R. Weston effectively ceases to be.
Weston's end
Weston’s animated corpse continues to make a considerable nuisance of itself, tempting the Lady of Perelandra (the new Eve) into corruption, while Ransom tries to undo the damage the Un-man (Ransom’s name for Weston’s animated body) is making. Eventually Ransom, realizing that he will not verbally be able to defeat the Un-man--and motivated by Maleldil--physically attacks the Un-man and both are badly wounded during the ensuing fight.Weston's consciousness appears to occasionally resurface, but it is impossible to distinguish whether anything he says after this point is Weston or the Devil working through him. Indeed, Ransom (and, presumably by extension, Lewis) comes to the conclusion that:
Weston’s body is eventually destroyed beyond repair by Ransom in the tunnels beneath Perelandra’s crust and rolled into a pit of subterranean fire.
Ransom, having carved a monument to the great physicist into the wall on the outside of the caverns, leaves the innards of Perelandra behind him, and makes his way up the Fixed Land, to meet the angels, and the rest of his adventure.
Possible Influences
Weston may be a caricature of Cecil John RhodesCecil John Rhodes
Cecil John Rhodes PC, DCL was an English-born South African businessman, mining magnate, and politician. He was the founder of the diamond company De Beers, which today markets 40% of the world's rough diamonds and at one time marketed 90%...
(1853-1902) an English South African businessman and imperialist politician. Like Rhodes, Weston is a racist; he is also amoral, rapacious, and hates God and religion. In a passing comment in That Hideous Strength, it is said that Great Britain has produced both heroes and villains, that for every King Arthur, there is a traitor Mordred, for every Sydney (the medieval poet), there is a Cecil Rhodes. In "Perelandra", Weston mentions his liking of the book of which Rhodes said "it made me who I am”: Winwood Reade’s The Martyrdom of Man, which expounded the ideology of secular humanism
Secular humanism
Secular Humanism, alternatively known as Humanism , is a secular philosophy that embraces human reason, ethics, justice, and the search for human fulfillment...
.
There is a glancing allusion to George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
: Weston's speech on Malacandra, like Back to Methuselah, ends with the words "It is enough for me that there is a Beyond", and Weston shares Shaw's (and Henri Bergson
Henri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergson was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that immediate experience and intuition are more significant than rationalism and science for understanding reality.He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize...
's) belief in the Life Force. Another possible influence is the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
, the goal of whose philosophy was the advent of the "super-man". Weston is also similar to the villain Saruman
Saruman
Saruman the White is a fictional character and a major antagonist in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings. He is leader of the Istari, wizards sent to Middle-earth in human form by the godlike Valar to challenge Sauron, the main antagonist of the tale, but later on aims at gaining...
from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...
.
The choice of the name "Weston" might be more than accidental, considering that in his speech in Out of the Silent Planet
Out of the Silent Planet
Out of the Silent Planet is the first novel of a science fiction trilogy written by C. S. Lewis, sometimes referred to as the Space Trilogy, Ransom Trilogy or Cosmic Trilogy. The other volumes are Perelandra and That Hideous Strength, and a fragment of a sequel was published posthumously as The...
he presents himself very much as the proponent of "Western Civilization" in its most expansionist and aggressive mode. (The names of the main villains in That Hideous Strength
That Hideous Strength
That Hideous Strength 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 and once again feature the philologist Elwin Ransom...
, "Wither" and "Frost", are clearly meant to reflect their characters.)
Professor Weston can also stand for the scientific elitism
Elitism
Elitism is the belief or attitude that some individuals, who form an elite — a select group of people with intellect, wealth, specialized training or experience, or other distinctive attributes — are those whose views on a matter are to be taken the most seriously or carry the most...
that despises all other types of knowledge, see Scientism
Scientism
Scientism refers to a belief in the universal applicability of the systematic methods and approach of science, especially the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion of other viewpoints...
.