bedroom. Even close friends such as Owen Barfield did not know much of their relationship. Lewis had to be secretive because if the university authorities had found out about Mrs. Moore he would have been sent down and his academic career at Oxford would have been over.87
Others strongly argue that theirs was strictly a mother/son relationship and that evidence of their platonic relationship may be found in Lewis’s letters.88 What is clear is that Mrs. Moore was an important fixture in Lewis’s life until her death in 1951. It is a relationship shrouded in mystery that evokes varying opinions. Warnie writes that Jack never discussed the nature of their relationship with him. Jack’s close friend, Owen Barfield, describes Mrs. Moore as “a sort of baleful stepmother.”89 Although Sayer revised his conclusion suggesting that there was a sexual relationship, he also writes, “Some of those who have written about C.S. Lewis regard his living with Mrs. Moore as odd, even sinister.”90 Yet, as one of Lewis’s students at the time, Sayer adds, “This was not the view of those of us who visited his home in the thirties. Like his other pupils, I thought it completely normal that a woman, probably a widow, would make a home for a young bachelor. We had no difficulty accepting her, even when we came to realise that she was not his mother.”91 John Tolkien, one of J. R. R. Tolkien’s sons, said that Mrs. Moore was like a “Great Aunt” and that Edith Tolkien, John’s mother and J. R. R. Tolkien’s wife, had a very good friendship with her.92
Janie Moore could be demanding, sometimes summoning Jack home to run errands. Nonetheless, he remained a faithful adopted son. When illness forced Mrs. Moore to move into a nursing home in 1950, Lewis would visit her daily, usually walking the two miles from Magdalen College to her nursing home on ←50 | 51→the Woodstock Road, and then back again. His relationship with her remained important throughout her life.
What does Lewis’s relationship with Mrs. Moore have to do with Lewis as communicator? As a highly educated Oxford scholar, and Oxford tutor and lecturer, Lewis lived in a world of rich intellectual privilege, with well-educated colleagues, and talented and motivated students striving for success. His close association with the Moores gave him a mooring (literally and figuratively) in communicating with the average, non-Oxford-educated person. Lewis was learning how to express ideas to those who would be his audience for his popular works—not the Oxford intelligentsia but the everyman and everywoman who would find his messages about Christianity useful. Lewis’s writing appeals not only to the well-educated and well read, but also to those without the benefits of an elite education. His war experiences, although not explicitly discussed in his work, coupled with his new and enduring relationships with Janie and Maureen Moore, played an important role in helping Lewis understand his audience—one of his hallmarks as a communicator.
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