That Hideous Strength: The Devil's In the Details Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Though Lewis does not give the exact year that "That Hideous Strength" occur, from evidence with the text and Lewis's own preface you can certainly date the story to a specific era. During which decades is this story set?

Answer: 1940s or 1950s

By internal evidence on the story itself, "That Hideous Strength" takes place, as Lewis says "vaguely after the war", meaning World War II, so either in the late 1940s or the early 1950s. In the opening chapter of the novel, we learn that Canon Jewel, a minor character, was an old man before even the first war, meaning World War I, and though we are not given Canon Jewel's age, he is a very old man. We also know that both Jane and Mark Studdock are both young, and by the 1960s or 1970s they would be to old to have lived through World War II and stay true to the way Lewis characterizes their age. Lewis also states that Mrs. Dimble is from the 19th century. Also, Lewis states that the fellows of Bracton ceased wearing their nice wardrobes for economic reasons brought on during World War II and have not yet started the practice again.

2. Very early in the novel we are introduced to Curry, a principal of the Bracton "Progressive Element". What was Curry's area of scholarly learning?

Answer: Military history

When Lord Feverstone asks Curry what the N.I.C.E are really going to do, Curry goes on about the jobs and the money that the Institute will be bringing into Edgestow. James Busby, the Bursar, continually attributes economics rather than military history as Curry's main area of expertise.

The main points of this scene in the novel are, first, that Curry and the Bracton Fellows who are so instrumental in bringing the Institute to Edgestow have no real idea of the Institute's true aims, and, secondly, to introduce the idea that the Institute is much more nefarious than it appears, and that it is Mark Studdock's job to disguise the truth about what the Institute means to do.

3. Toward the end of the novel, Mark Studdock stays in a hotel, where he discovers a story in a magazine entitled "The Strand" that he began reading as a child but abandoned by a certain age. How old was Mark when he stopped reading the story in "The Strand"?

Answer: 10

When Mark turned ten he stopped reading the story in order to appear more grown-up. As often in Lewis's fiction, the desire to be "grown-up" often results in turning away from experiences that bring joy to the person.

4. Mr. Maggs, the husband of Ivy Maggs, Jane Studdock's house keeper, was imprisoned for theft. What did Mr. Maggs steal from?

Answer: Laundry

Ransom shocked Jane when he compared Mark, her husband, to Mr. Maggs. When Ivy Maggs tells Jane about her husband, Jane becomes conscious that Mrs. Maggs takes "traditional morality" for granted, and she cannot display her modernity by suggesting theft is no more criminal than wealth.

5. How old is Jane?

Answer: 23

We learn that Jane is twenty three in her interview with Grace Ironwood when she first arrives at St. Anne's.

6. The lust of the "Inner Circle" is a major theme in "That Hideous Strength", one which Mark Studdock is afflicted with. He continually wants to get deeper and deeper into the inner circles of whatever organization he is involved in. In the N.I.C.E, there are only two full initiates. One is John Wither. Who is the other?

Answer: Frost

Mark Studdock's major turning point in "That Hideous Strength" is when Professor Frost and the Deputy Director John Wither try to fully initiate him into the inner most ring of the N.I.C.E.. The N.I.C.E.'s real motivation for including Mark in their schemes is to gain access to his wife, Jane, for her gift of dreaming realities.

7. During a philosophical discussion with Ransom about animals, MacPhee notes that the bear is fed a two certain types of food until it is bursting while the pigs are killed for bacon. One of the foods Mr. Bultitude eats is golden syrup. What is the other food?

Answer: Apples

While MacPhee gives Ransom a hard time about the apparently philosophical contradictions of Ransom's attitude toward animals, it is Ivy Maggs who points out that MacPhee is the one always feeding the bear apples.

8. Ransom notes to Jane when they first meet that he lives like the King in the "Curdie" books of George MacDonald, sustaining his life on a diet of bread and wine. When Jane comes to stay at St. Anne's after her escape from Fairy Hardcastle and the Institutional Police, she tells Ivy Mags she wants the two "Curdie" books, Shakespeare's "Sonnets", and which Jane Austen novel?

Answer: Mansfield Park

Lewis loved George MacDonald, regarding him as his master. MacDonald had an enormous influence on Lewis. Lewis regarded reading MacDonald's novel "Phantases" at an early age as one of the principal experiences of his literary life. When Jane comes to St. Anne's to stay, she tells Ivy Maggs she wants four literary works to read.

9. Where is Sulva?

Answer: The moon

Early in the novel we learn the moon is inhabited by Professor Filostrato. The professor praises the moon, saying it is completely sanitary and that people on the moon have swept away almost all organisms. During Merlin's questioning of Dr. Ransom, we learn that the moon is a perverted world with two main societies, one that is natural, and another that is given over to lusts and depravity.

10. Mr. Bultitude the bear, toward the end if the novel, leaves St. Anne and is picked up by the N.I.C.E.. To leave St. Anne's, he had to climb a tree. How many times did he come to the tree before he finally began the climb?

Answer: 3

Merlin prophesies that Mr. Bultitude will accomplish a great deed. The bear leaves St. Anne's, and goes into Belbury and helps destroy the N.I.C.E., thus fulfilling the wizard's prophecy. Immediately after leaving St. Anne's, two N.I.C.E. drivers pick the bear up and take him to Belbury, helping set in course the final climactic scene where Merlin brings destruction to the N.I.C.E., with the assistance of Mr. Bultitude of course.

Source: Author berenlazarus

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The devil's in the details, so they say. This quiz covers specific details of Lewis's third novel in his Space trilogy, "That Hideous Strength". Only those that have read the work closely will fare well in these waters.

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