While ἀπορία (or, "aporia") is not unique to the Greeks, it is with Plato that we really want to start the discussion here, particularly in relation to C.S. Lewis. Lewis, from childhood on, was enamoured with Greek literature and mythology, and received First Honors in Greek and Latin Literature while attending Oxford University - so he was obviously quite familiar with the Platonic dialogues and through them the sense of 'wonder' and 'puzzlement' commonly experienced by all of Socrates' interlocutors at the end of each individual installment. It is no 'wonder' (ha, see that pun?) that Ransom, the main character of the first of his space trilogies Out of the Silent Planet, expresses the juxtaposition of both fear and excitement in the first several chapters -- the first major moments -- of his journey away from Earth.
Ransom is a 35-40-something year old philologist (studier of languages, typically the ancient ones with significant cultural ties) and Cambridge graduate who seemingly happens upon a disturbance while walking. He comes off initially as slightly pompous and a bit stand-off-ish, likely a convention devised by Lewis to show human growth and change over the course of the novel's conflicts (but, I digress), with a definite desire to be somewhere more comfortable and familiar. At any rate, he gets mixed up in an issued between three men, one with which he has been previously acquainted and another he meets through said acquaintance here, both of which seem incredibly shifty from the get-go. Unfortunately for Ransom, he is 'in the wrong place at the wrong time,' and is drugged and carried off to some weird location where he wakes up in complete daze-and-confusion. It is here that is 'aporia' begins.
The first image he sees when he awakens actually serves as a point which produces doubt (in fact, there is a point at which the unnamed 'narrator' even acknowledges that the story is suggestive of a dream). His first response is to doubt the validity of his sense of sight, claiming that "no moon could possibly be the size of the thing he was seeing." Also, with the anti-gravity he experiences as well, he claims "suspicion that he might be dead and already in the ghost-life," doubting his senses even further to suggest their nonexistence. With each new sensation -- the vibration of the room, the movement of the 'vessel,' the realization of the images before him -- he expresses finally that Platonic 'aporia' which he perfectly describes as "fear that was hardly distinguishable from his general excitement" which "might at any moment pass into delirious terror or into an ecstasy of joy." He then realizes that it is not at all the Moon -- but rather Earth being left in his spaceship's tracks.
He continues to feel this wondrous mix of fear and joy throughout every new experience of the novel. The difference lies then in how he reacts to it and what he does with the feelings. Initially, like most humans, he becomes "unconscious of everything except his fear" and for much of the novel he relies upon the instinctual "fight or flight" response. Over time, however -- as we will see as we read in class -- he comes to harness that experience in a much more productive, rational, and educated way. Experience, it'll do that for ya.
His episode here reminds me so much of the experiences outlined in Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" (my classes have yet to get to this, still a month away, but I figure what the hell, why not here). In the Allegory, he describes men who have been chained so as to only see shadows being projected on the wall in front of them, representations of objects moving behind them in front of a fire. He describes their release as one of 'force' in which a person who acts as their releaser would have to actually physically move them, drag them around, and force them to confront the reality of the images they've come to know as their only truths (which, really, are just shadows). It takes effort, pain, often anger and fear, in order to reconcile the preconceived notion with the now more fuller 'truth.' (Side note: it's not to say that shadows aren't true -- they are. They are just incomplete without an understanding as to their source, especially if we say that they are the ONLY truths; I guess half-truths are still somewhat falsehoods!) It seems that Ransom's 'aporia' as experienced at least so far in these earlier chapters, suggests that same kind of pain -- what he has known, exists solely on the planet of his origin. Now that he has been physically dragged away from it, he must now be figuratively dragged into a more full-conception of truth -- that of the external world, beyond earth, which reveals even more truths than the limitation of the (cave called) Earth.
Will be an interesting journey to follow, as he confronts more than just a physically new world. Looking forward to talking about it in my classes!
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