Perception and Truth in The Wood Beyond the World

            In The Wood Beyond the World, William Morris explores the relationship between truth and perception, and he depicts our impulse to act on and form beliefs on our perceptions, whether or not they are accurate or true. This is major factor in fantasy literature that involves a journey from the primary world into the secondary world because the traveler has nothing but his/her perceptions to go on. They don’t know the rules and truths that govern the secondary world, and so they have to figure them out as they go. But this process is very much human and familiar because it’s often the one we use to make sense of the primary world, whether or not it’s the best one. There are many examples of this throughout the text, but I would like to discuss two specific passages.

            In chapter VI, Walter asks for a story from the old man who has kindly helped the crew. In his reply, the old man says that his memory will most likely fail him, but he will tell nothing but the truth. Clearly this is problematic. He can only tell the version of the truth that he can still remember, and that version is going to be full of gaps. When the old man tells Walter about how he came to live in his house, he confesses that he killed its previous inhabitant. Walter asks, “Tell me this; why didst thou slay the man? did he any  scathe to thee?” to which the old man replies, “When I slew him, I deemed that he was doing me all scathe: but now I know that it was not so” (Morris 32).  At the time, he didn’t know the truth and he acted on his own judgment of the situation, which turned out to be skewed. Now he looks back and, based on further experiences, he casts a different judgment; he is filling in the gaps of his narrative with his own interpretation.

            Several chapters later, Walter finds himself on a deer-hunt with the Lady. The narrator describes the following: “And now, when he was a little space away from her, he deemed her indeed a marvel of women, and well-nigh forgat all his doubts and fears concerning her, whether she were a fair image fashioned out of lies and guile, or it might be but an evil thing in the shape of a goodly woman” (Morris 96). Notice the repeat of the word “deemed.” He observes and judges. Whether or not he is correct is irrelevant to his perception (the image of the woman) and that perception’s effect on him (forgetting his doubts and fears). What he does from there, however, is another matter.

            Morris is getting at something much deeper than a fable-esque moral here. He’s exploring the way we perceive the world and our own experience, the way those perceptions affect us, and how we interpret the aftermath later.