Antagonists in novels are often used as a warning for what could happen if certain people or organizations are left unchecked in real life. ???? ??????? ???????? by C.S. Lewis discusses a world where a powerful organization called N.I.C.E. is secretly taking control of Europe, turning it into a totalitarian regime. Lewis used That Hideous Strength as a warning to the world, therefore showing that he, like other authors such as Jordan Peterson, were picking up signs that total control of a totalitarian ruler was, or is, on the horizon.
Chapters three through seven of That Hideous Strength discuss how Mark and Jane are doing with their “new lives.” Jane learned that her dreams are really happening, and she has the power to see things as they happen. Mark is part of N.I.C.E. and is writing propaganda to paint N.I.C.E. in a positive light. Also, N.I.C.E. used Mark’s propaganda to begin their takeover of Europe, starting with faking a riot in Edgestow and pretending that they are the heroes by stopping the riot. Mark also learns of the death of William Hingest, a man who left N.I.C.E. and was trying to convince Mark to do the same. He was found beaten to death on the side of the road. Lewis states “that N.I.C.E. police had been on the scene on the crime before five” and that nobody was “making any objections to the fullest collaboration” (79). He uses this line to show that N.I.C.E. had killed someone who tried to leave them, showing their authoritarian power.
Author Jordan Peterson wrote a forward to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, where he discusses the life of Solzhenitsyn and why, in his eyes, The Gulag Archipelago is a very important reading. He talks about how Solzhenitsyn was a veteran in the Soviet Union’s red army during World War Two. Then, he states how Solzhenitsyn was stripped of his ranks, thrown in jail, and suffered for writing about his true thoughts on the Soviet Union. Peterson states that Solzhenitsyn’s book “documents the absolute and utter corruption of the dogmas and doctrines of your state…” (xiii). Solzhenitsyn’s life relates to the death of Hingest, where they were both attacked for going against their organization or country. Solzhenitsyn was not killed, but he got lucky and was very close to being censored permanently.