tAoM Men Without Chests

"The authors themselves, I suspect, hardly know what they are doing to the boy, and he cannot know what is being done to him."(Lewis 5)

"In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful."(26)

Lewis' main argument in "Men Without Chests" is that many writers fail to realize how their writing can affect the readers. Lewis makes his view of the potential affects of an author's writing clear through the use of his example of a schoolboy who, having no ideas of his own, will blindly follow the example of the author and thus cause detriment to himself in the future. Lewis analyzes how writers address their audience. Usually the writer will only use approaches that satisfy one group of people, rather than attempting to make their point appealing to all who read it. In doing so, the writer cannot hold the attention of readers who are not part of the group he/she is addressing. This brings about the creation of "Men without Chests", or men who cannot differentiate between intellect and instinct.