Weston, Burke, and Childlike Speech

One of the most fascinating scenes in Lewis’s Space Trilogy is when all three earthlings, Ransom, Weston, and Devine, come face to face with the Oyarsa, the quasi-angelic ruler of Malacandra. What transpires is Weston explaining his motives and justification for invading Malacandra, centering on the paradigm of species advancement for its own sake. Ransom is forced to translate in his crude and broken form of the Malacandran language, which results in a fascinating three-person dialogue that represents Weston’s argument in remarkably different terms. For example, Weston begins his justification by citing the advancements of humanity:
“... Our science, medicine and law, our armies, our architecture, our commerce, and our transport system which is rapidly annihilating space and time. Our right to supercede you is the right of the higher over the lower” (134).
These are impressive, certainly, the way Weston communicates. When Ransom translates the same idea in simplified language, however, quite another story with quite another set of implications results:
“He says we know much. There is a thing happens in our world when the body of a living creature feels pains and becomes weak, and he says we sometimes know how to stop it. He says we have many bent people and we kill them or shut them in huts that we have people for settling quarrels between the bent hnau about their huts and mates and things. He says we have many ways for the hnau of one land to kill those of another and some are trained to do it. He says we build very big and strong huts of stones and other things--like the pfifltriggi. And he says we exchange many things among ourselves and can carry heavy weights very quickly a long way. Because of all this, he says it would not be the act of a bent hnau if our people killed all your people” (134-135).
This is a fascinating example of Burke’s terministic screens at work. The first set of terms implies to the reader and the listener a sense of grandeur, magnificence, power, and dignity which could conceivably justify the conquest of such a people. The second set of terms completely deconstructs the first into terms which appear mediocre, even ridiculous, and certainly lack the entitlement of the first.

This illustrates a number of interesting ideas. One is that our particular terministic choices have powerful ontological and axiological implications. Two, that myth allows a unique exploration of various terministic screens and their implications regarding humankind, society, etc. Thirdly and finally, the interesting possibility that childlike speech contains elements of truth which are lost in more “adult” vernacular. Ransom explained Weston’s argument in a way relatable to a child, and thereby inadvertently dismantled it. “From the mouths of infants…”

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