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THE PROBLEM OF THE HUMAN HEART
Sin in The Chronicles of Narnia
John Bowen
My father-in-law and I used to disagree about dictionaries. He believed that the
dictionary told you how words should be pronounced-- that it was prescriptive. Thus
he would pronounce the word Trafalgar as Trafalgar because that's the way the
dictionary--his dictionary anyway--said you should pronounce it. I believed (and still
believe) that the dictionary is merely descriptive--it tells you how the majority of
people choose to pronounce a certain word at a point in history. Dictionary compilers
simply listen in on conversations and record what they hear. I have no doubt that, at
one time, many people may have said Trafalgar, but if you are in London today and
want to find the National Gallery, I would not advise you to ask the taxi driver for
Trafalgar Square. You will probably get a very strange look.
In the same way, if you want to know what “sin” means, don't go to the
dictionary in the first place. The dictionary will certainly tell you how the word is used
in conversation in the world in general. Thus the Oxford English Dictionary is typical
in informing me that sin means “transgression of the divine law.” Certainly
“transgressing the divine law” is part of how the word is used in the Christian
community, but it is by no means the whole truth. In fact, singling out this one
dimension of sin can actually distort our understanding of the full reality. The
Pharisees were very conscientious about not transgressing divine law, yet they come in
for the harshest criticism from Jesus! Sin is not just about God’s law and transgressing
it. There is far more to it than that.
1
If we want to know what the word means for Christians, there is no better way
to find out that to listen in on Christian stories. Among the many Christian writings of
C.S.Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia have perhaps had the most lasting appeal. Out of
the heart of these stories comes an understanding of “sin” (and of other Christian
beliefs) a hundred times more helpful than anything a dictionary could ever offer.
THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE: sin as betrayal
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with
all your mind and with all your strength.” (Mark 12:30)
There is one fundamental point about sin which The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
makes clear. Sin is not in the first place just a matter of wrong actions, “transgressing
divine law”: sin is primarily an attitude of the heart towards our Creator, an attitude
which says “No” to God.
The four Pevensie children, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy, are staying for
the summer in an old house owned by an elderly and eccentric professor. There Lucy,
the youngest, discovers that she can enter the magical world of Narnia through an old
wardrobe. Shortly afterwards, her brother Edmund follows her lead, but in Narnia he
meets the White Witch, the illegitimate ruler of Narnia, who ensures that it is “always
winter but never Christmas.”1 The Witch, who is aware of ancient prophecies
foretelling her destruction at the hands of four human children, immediately begins to
seduce Edmund into being her ally with simple temptations such as Turkish Delight:
1 C.S.Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (London: Geoffrey Bles 1950; London: HarperCollins 1980), 23.
2
The Queen knew . . . though Edmund did not, that this was enchanted Turkish
Delight and that anyone who had tasted it would want more and more of it, and
would even, if they were allowed, go on eating it till they killed themselves. 2
There is little subtlety about her temptations. Having appealed to his greed, she then
appeals quite transparently to his pride:
“I want a nice boy whom I could bring up as a Prince and who would be King
of Narnia when I am gone. While he was Prince he would wear a gold crown
and eat Turkish Delight all day long; and you are much the cleverest and
handsomest young man I've ever met.” 3
Edmund begins to surrender. In a sense it is true to say that he “transgresses divine
law” concerning pride and greed, yet the more important question is that of loyalty:
whose side is Edmund on? The answer is clear when he returns to this world and
Lucy warns him that the White Witch is evil. For Edmund the wonderful memory of
Turkish Delight overrules the danger signals: “[h]e was already more than half on the
side of the Witch.” 4
To be on the side of the Witch, however, is to be on the side of evil and against
good. Shortly afterwards, when all four children have entered Narnia, they hear for the
first time about Aslan, the Christ-figure in the books, “the King of the whole wood and
the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea . . . the great Lion.”5 What is revealing is
how the mention of Aslan affects each child differently:
2 Ibid. 38.3 Ibid. 39.4 Ibid. 42.5 Ibid. 75.
3
At the name of Aslan each one of them felt something jump in its inside.
Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter suddenly felt brave and
adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of
music had just floated up to her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you
wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or
the beginning of summer.6
Each child already has an internal disposition either to be drawn to Aslan or to be
repelled by him: the mention of the name brings to the surface something which was
previously only implicit.7 Edmund is the only one of the four who reacts negatively to
the name. The reason is obvious: he has already turned away from the light and given
his allegiance to the Witch--and it has affected him deeply. As Mr. Beaver observes:
He had the look of one who has been with the Witch and eaten her food. You
can always tell them if you’ve lived long in Narnia; something about their
eyes.8
Who we give our ultimate loyalty to, however, affects every other loyalty and
every other relationship. Edmund’s turning away from Aslan means that his other
relationships are twisted and off-kilter. For instance, he finds himself distanced from
the other children. He imagines that it is they who have changed, but in fact it is he
who has changed. Instead of being involved in the adventure, like the others, he is
more concerned about himself and what the others think of him:
6 Ibid. 65.7 Lewis’ understanding here is similar to that The Gospel of
John, where people are moving either towards the light or away from the light, and those who love the light will welcome Jesus’ coming, e.g. John 3:19-21.
8 Lion 80.
4
He kept on thinking that the others were taking no notice of him and trying to
give him the cold shoulder. They weren’t, but he imagined it.9
This theme of self--what I think of myself and how others perceive me--is one that
will recur throughout these books.
Perhaps the saddest thing about Edmund’s defection, however, is that it fails to
bring him the satisfaction it promised. This, in fact, is a another theme which surfaces
from time to time in the Narnia stories: sin promises joy but fails to deliver it, while
Aslan frequently invites people to hardship, yet they find joy on the other side of trials.
Thus when Edmund goes to tell the Witch that he has brought his siblings into Narnia:
Edmund . . . expected that the witch would start being nice to him . . .But she
said nothing at all. And when at last Edmund plucked up his courage to say,
“Please, your Majesty, could I have some Turkish Delight? You—you—
said--” she answered, “Silence, fool!”10
Sin, in the sense of loyalty to anyone other than the Creator, lets us down and does not
fulfill its promise--any more than the serpent fulfilled its promise to Adam and Eve.11
As with the runaway son in Jesus’ most famous parable12, however, Edmund’s
disillusionment actually brings about the beginning of a change in him:
All the things he had said to make himself believe that she was good and kind
and that her side was really the right side sounded to him silly now. 13
9 Ibid. 82.10 Ibid. 103.11 Genesis 3:5.12 Luke 15:11-24.13 Lion 105.
5
If sin were merely “transgressing the law,” Edmund’s salvation could have
been brought about quite simply by his giving up Turkish Delight. The heart of the
problem, however, is much deeper than that--his betrayal of Aslan--and so his
restoration requires first of all a change in his relationship to Aslan. Thus, when they
meet face to face, Edmund and Aslan have a conversation whose contents we are
never told, although it was “a conversation which Edmund never forgot.”14 A restored
relationship with Aslan then leads to restored relationships with others. Edmund
apologizes to his brother and sisters:
Edmund shook hands with each of the others and said to each of them in turn,
“I’m sorry” and everyone said, “That’s all right.” 15
The change in Edmund, therefore, is not in the first place from being a nasty
person to being a nice person: it is a change in fundamental loyalty, from being the
Witch’s servant to being the Lion’s servant. In a moving cameo, as the Witch begins
to accuse him of his wrongdoing, he does not attempt to defend himself. Instead:
Edmund had got past thinking about himself . . .He just went on looking at
Aslan. It didn’t seem to matter what the Witch said.16
What he thinks of himself, or indeed what others may think of him, is no longer
relevant. That was the mark of someone out of relationship with Aslan. What is
important now is his new allegiance to the king.
In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, then, there is a distinction between
“sin” and “sins.” “Sins” are those transgressions of divine law which are the focus of
the dictionary definition: Edmund’s lust for Turkish Delight, his desire to be a prince
14 Lion 126.15 Ibid. 126.16 Ibid. 128
6
and to lord it over his siblings. For Lewis, however, these are merely the symptoms of
a much deeper disease, a disease of the heart. This is “sin”—an attitude of life, a
mindset, a heartset if you like--which is opposed to the reign of Aslan in Aslan’s
world. The cure is to become a subject of the true king--but that is very costly, both for
the rebel and for the king. For the rebel, it requires him to lay down his arms. For the
king, it costs him his life. We will return to this later.
THE MAGICIAN'S NEPHEW: making ourselves gods
They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature
rather than the Creator. (Romans 1:25)
If sin is failing to give Aslan our allegiance, the question then arises, why
should we give our allegiance to Aslan? After all, our society says things like:
“Be your own person.”
“You decide what is true.”
“Believe whatever you like.”
“You choose what is right and wrong for you.”
“Don’t let anyone boss you around.”
The whole concept of obeying a higher authority has been socially unacceptable since
the 1960’s. This theme of “who’s the boss?” is a useful question to bear in mind in
reading The Magician’s Nephew. This story takes us back to the beginning of Narnia
and tells of its creation in a way that deliberately parallels the Bible’s story of the
creation of our world.
7
The only reason that anyone from our world is present to witness the birth of
Narnia is because of Uncle Andrew--uncle, that is, to Digory, one of the central
characters. For years, Uncle Andrew has been involved in a “great experiment”17 in
time travel. As the story opens, Digory and Digory’s friend Polly accidentally discover
what Uncle Andrew is doing. Seizing the opportunity, Andrew tricks Polly into
furthering his experiment: he gives her the gift of an attractive yellow ring, whereupon
she disappears into another world. As Andrew guesses will happen, Digory feels he
has no option but to follow her and try to bring her back.
Uncle Andrew is an interesting creation. C.S. Lewis creates him in such a way
that much of his outlook on life sounds perfectly normal and right to our ears. For
example, he is involved in an important experiment: we understand that experiments
are necessary. He believes he can decide for himself what is right and wrong: many
would agree. He likes to make his own decisions: that is fundamental to western
democracies. He is practical: nobody wants to be accused of being impractical. He is
willing to make sacrifices for greater ends: we admire people like that. All these things
sound perfectly reasonable.
Yet as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that Uncle Andrew's outlook on life
is totally inadequate. His experiment and his desire for power mean that everything
else in his world becomes secondary, whether relationships or beauty, honour or
goodness. His experiment causes him to behave callously towards both people and
animals. His vision of the world, which really centres on himself, means that he cannot
17 C.S.Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew (London: The Bodley Head 1955; Harmondsworth UK: Puffin Books, 1963), 19.
8
acknowledge anything greater than himself. He gives himself away when explaining
to Digory what is involved in being an inventor:
“Men like me, who possess hidden wisdom, are freed from the common rules just
as we are cut off from common pleasures.” 18
He has a sense of belonging to an elite, and of having access to knowledge that no-one
else has. He believes that rules, at least the “common” rules, do not apply to him. And
he makes noble sacrifices for his art, giving up “common pleasures.” He explains that
he learned his art from his fairy godmother, and adds, revealingly:
“She had got to dislike ordinary, ignorant people, you understand. I do
myself.”19
In other words, he has forgotten that he too is an “ordinary”, “common” human being
like other ordinary, common human beings. Nor should we be too impressed by his
giving up of “common pleasures”: that can be just as sinful as to be free of
responsibilities. Both imply pride and independence, and a rejection of God's good
gifts. Digory, however, manages to see through him:
As [Andrew] said this he sighed and looked so grave and noble and mysterious
that for a second Digory really thought he was saying something rather fine. But
then he remembered the ugly look he had seen on his Uncle's face . . . “All it
means,” he said to himself, “is that he thinks he can do anything he likes to get
anything he wants.”20
18 Ibid. 23.19 Ibid. 22.20 Magician, 24-25.
9
Digory is right. Fine words about freedom and sacrifice and a high calling cannot
disguise the fact that, for Andrew, he is still the centre of his own life.21 Though many
of his attitudes may sound “normal”, in fact they are the
expression of an mindset we have already met in The Lion, the Witch and the
Wardrobe, an attitude of independence from the Creator. In a word, Andrew is a
sinner.
The problem with failing to give allegiance to Aslan is that we immediately
come to think that we are more important then we really are--indeed, to think of
ourselves as God in some sense. This, after all, was the essence of the very first
temptation: “you will be like God.”22 Human beings can be very good at being human
beings: they are not created to bear the weight of being God. 23
Not surprisingly, it is the coming of Aslan which shows up the hollowness of
Uncle Andrew. His world has been entirely constructed around himself. So when
Aslan appears, singing into being a new world of colour and beauty and vitality, the
children love it, but Uncle Andrew hates it:
the two children had open mouths and shining eyes; they were drinking in the
sound . . . Uncle Andrew's mouth was open too, but not open with joy. He
looked more as if his chin had simply dropped away from the rest of his face.
21 A similar character is the scientist Weston, in Out of the Silent Planet, who proclaims with similar self-centred motives, “Life is greater than any system of morality.” C.S.Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London: The Bodley Head, 1938; Pan Books 1990), 121.
22 Genesis 3:5.23 Some consciously try. “Each soul is its own God. You must
never worship anyone or anything other than self. For you are God. To love self is to love God.” Shirley Maclaine, Dancing in the Light (Toronto: Bantam Books, 1986), 343.
10
His shoulders were stooped and his knees shook. He was not liking the
Voice.24
The coming of Aslan, after all, challenges the reality of everything Andrew has
built his life on. His view of the newborn Narnia, not surprisingly, is practical25 and
utilitarian: how can he use this world to make himself rich and powerful?
“Something might be made of this country. . . . If only we'd had guns. . . .
Columbus, now, they talk about Columbus. But what was America to this? The
commercial possibilities of this country are unbounded. . . . I shall be a
millionaire. . . . The first thing is to get that brute shot. . . . There's no telling
how long I might live if I lived here.”26
Aslan, on the other hand, has a totally different outlook. His first speech to the
inhabitants of Narnia makes this clear:
“Creatures, I give you yourselves,” said the strong, happy voice of Aslan. “I
give to you forever this land of Narnia. I give you the woods, the fruits, the
rivers. I give you the stars and I give you myself. The Dumb Beasts whom I
have not chosen are yours also. Treat them gently and cherish them but do not
go back to their ways lest you cease to be talking Beasts. For out of them you
were taken and into them you can return. Do not so.”27
24 Magician 94-95.25 To be “practical” in Narnia is not particularly a compliment.
Witches, for example, “are not interested in things or people unless they can use them; they are terribly practical.” Magician 71.
26 Magician 103.27 Ibid. 109.
11
Here is the opposite of sin. Aslan speaks of giving (five times in three lines); Uncle
Andrew thinks only of getting. Aslan speaks of caring for those weaker than oneself;
Uncle Andrew sees the weak as serving the interests of the powerful. Aslan speaks of
cherishing; Uncle Andrew speaks of using. Aslan warns of the danger of becoming
less than one is created to be; Andrew wants to be more than he was created to be.
What is Andrew to do? In order to maintain the self-centred world he has
constructed, and to resist the new spirit of love and self-giving which derives from
Aslan, he is driven to desperate measures. He has to find a way to deny this new
reality Aslan is creating. He needs a way of understanding it and living in it which
allows him to maintain his self-centredness. He finds himself forced to distort the
reality of what he is experiencing:
[T]he longer and more beautifully the Lion sang, the harder Uncle Andrew
tried to make himself believe that he could hear nothing but roaring. Now the
trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you
very often succeed. Uncle Andrew did. He soon did hear nothing but roaring in
Aslan's song. Soon he couldn't have heard anything else even if he had wanted
to.28
As Lewis comments:
what you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing: it also
depends on what sort of person you are.29
28 Ibid. 117.29 Ibid. 116.
12
All of us create our own interpretations of the world. God has given us the freedom
and responsibility to do that. Yet, at the same time, we want as far as possible to be
true to the world “out there” as we perceive it, and to be upfront about our limitations
and our biases. This is what Lewis means when he says our view of the world depends
on “where you are standing” and “what sort of person you are.” Andrew is a self-
centred, power-hungry person, and therefore his perception of the world of Narnia is
twisted by that internal bias. Sin always warps our perception of truth.
As a result, Andrew cannot afford to believe what is happening around him. He
finds himself terrified of the newly-created Talking Animals, and becomes a figure of
fun as they try to work out whether he is animal, vegetable or mineral. Polly asks
Aslan to do something to rescue him from the humiliation, but Aslan explains:
“I cannot comfort him . . . he has made himself unable to hear my voice. If I
spoke to him, he would hear only growlings and roarings. Oh Adam's sons,
how cleverly you defend yourself against all that might do you good!”30
Aslan gives him “the only gift he is still able to receive him”--the gift of sleep—and
Andrew returns to our world, chastened:
Uncle Andrew never tried any Magic again as long as he lived. He had learned
his lesson, and in his old age he became a nicer and less selfish old man than
he had ever been before.31
Aslan’s comment, “[H]ow cleverly you defend yourselves against all that might do
you good” is one that is explored more fully in the other Narnia books.32 For the
moment, let us note that Aslan’s purpose for Andrew (as for everyone else) is to give
30 Ibid. 158.31 Ibid. 171.32 E.g. Battle 141.
13
joy. The children and other visitors to Narnia find joy, but Andrew defends himself
against such a disturbing gift.
In The Voyage of the Dawntreader, we see more of what sin can do to people,
and more of what it takes to be redeemed and to find that joy.
THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWNTREADER : becoming what we choose
If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see,
everything has become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
The central character, though not exactly the hero, of The Voyage of the
Dawntreader is Eustace Clarence Scrubb. Edmund and Lucy, from the first book in
the series, are his cousins, and have come to stay for the summer. We learn quickly
what kind of person Eustace is:
Eustace Clarence liked animals, especially beetles, if they were dead and
pinned on a card. . . . [D]eep down inside him he liked bossing and
bullying . . . [H]e knew that here are dozens of ways to give people a bad time
if you are in your own home and they are only visitors. He liked books if they
were books of information and had pictures of grain elevators. 33
Like Uncle Andrew, Eustace is clearly of a practical turn of mind. Books are there as
sources of information. Beetles are best when dead and as objects of study. School is
about getting marks: “though he didn't care much about any subject for its own sake,
he cared a great deal about marks.”34
33 C.S.Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawntreader (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1955; London: HarperCollins 1980), 7.
34 Ibid. 27.
14
Not only is he selfish and practical, but he also lacks imagination. When he
hears Lucy and Edmund talking about Narnia, he assumes that they are making up
their stories of Narnia because “he was far too stupid to make anything up himself.”35
There is hardly any worse criticism of anyone in Lewis’ world than to say that they
lack imagination. For Lewis, Eustace is clearly ripe to be taught a lesson.
The three children are magically whisked onto the deck of the Dawntreader, a
Narnian ship sailing in search of seven lost lords. Naturally, Eustace hates it. For one
thing, he:
kept on boasting about liners and motor-boats and aeroplanes and
submarines.36
After a severe storm, they arrive at an island where they can find fresh drinking water
and repair the ship. Eustace, wanting to avoid anything resembling hard work, slips off
into the hills by himself for a rest. He comes by chance on the cave of a dragon at the
point of death. He takes shelter from a storm in the dragon’s cave, now vacant, and
finds it filled with treasure. This should not have surprised him, but, of course:
Eustace had read only the wrong books. They had a lot to say about exports
and imports and governments and drains, but they were weak on dragons. 37
When he awakes, he discovers to his horror that he has been transformed into a
dragon:
Sleeping on a dragon's hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he
had become a dragon himself.38
35 Ibid. 10.36 Ibid. 27.37 Ibid. 71.38 Ibid. 73.
15
For Lewis, our choices make us who we are. If we make selfish choices, we will
become selfish people. If we make generous choices, we become generous people. 39
In the case of Eustace, the self that he has become has taken on a vivid outward
expression, almost a metaphor for the state of his heart—he is a dragon outwardly as
well as inwardly.
The shock of this transformation begins a change in Eustace.40 He discovers
that:
[h]e wanted to be among friends. He wanted to get back among humans and
talk and laugh and share things. He realized he was a monster cut off from the
whole human race. An appalling loneliness came over him. He began to see
that the others had not really been fiends. He began to wonder if he himself
had been such a nice person as he had always supposed. He longed for their
voices.41
The others cannot decide what they will do with Eustace the dragon when they are
ready to set sail. For Eustace, this comes to symbolize what a misfit he had chosen to
be before:
39 Sin “begins with a grumbling mood . . . Ye can repent and come out of it again. But there may come a day when you can do that no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticise the mood, nor even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on forever like a machine.” C.S.Lewis, The Great Divorce (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1946; Harper Collins, 1977), 69.
40 In the same way, the shock of realising that the White Witch did not really care for him was the beginning of Edmund’s transformation in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
41 Voyage 74.
16
Poor Eustace realized more and more that since the first day he came on board
he had been an unmitigated nuisance and that he was now a greater nuisance
still.42
This is not the end of Eustace’s lesson, however. It is one thing to realise how
we have sinned, but it is quite another to be able to change. And this Eustace cannot
bring about for himself. Late one night, he meets Aslan, who leads him, still in dragon
form, to a well in a garden on top of a mountain. There Eustace wants to bathe but
“the lion told me I must undress first.” He scratches himself and finds that his dragon
skin comes off. Underneath, however, he finds another dragon skin, and then another
and yet another. When he finally despairs, Aslan tells him: “You will have to let me
undress you.” Aslan tears away the dragon skin completely, tearing so deeply “that I
thought it had gone right into my heart.” As a result, “it hurt worse than anything I've
ever felt.” Aslan then throws Eustace into the water, and he finds to his delight, “I'd
turned into a boy again.” 43
It is a recurring theme of Narnia, that sin reduces our humanity. Frequently, the
wrong-doers in Narnia are called “beasts” or “beastly.” Certainly this was a common
term of reproach in the England of Lewis’ time, yet it takes on a darker significance in
this context. There is something about sin—being out of touch with our Creator--
which has a tendency to make us less human.44 In the case of Eustace, that lack of
humanity takes a particularly dramatic visual form. But the converse is equally
striking, that to be brought out of sin--to be restored to relationship with God--is not to
be made peculiar or superhuman or (worst of all) “religious,” but merely to recover
42 Ibid. 83.43 Ibid. 84-87.44 Ibid. 87 cf. Lion 45, 55; Magician 28-29.
17
one's full humanity. If one asks, “why is sin wrong?” in Narnia at least, it is because
sin keeps us from being fully human.
In this life, however, sin is never fully dealt with. The disease—our separation
from God—may be dealt with, but the symptoms continue. This is certainly true of
Eustace. Lewis comments shrewdly:
It would be nice, and fairly true, to say that “from that time forth Eustace was a
different boy.” To be strictly accurate, he began to be a different boy. He had
relapses. There were still many days when he could be very tiresome. But most
of these I shall not notice. The cure had begun.45
PRINCE CASPIAN and THE SILVER CHAIR: sin as disobedience
“Whoever knows what is right for him to do and does not do it, for him
it is sin.” (James 4:17)
If the books considered above deal primarily with those who are not servants
of Aslan, and how they come to be changed, these two—Prince Caspian and The
Silver Chair—focus more on the struggles of those who are already of the Lion’s
company. As Lewis said of Eustace, “the cure had begun” but it had certainly not
ended. In particular, these two books tell stories about following Aslan, both how it is
difficult and how it is rewarding. They also speak about the role of sin in the life of the
Christian.
In Prince Caspian, the four Pevensie children have been magicked from our
world into Narnia once again, this time to come to the aid of Prince Caspian, the
45 Ibid. 89.
18
rightful king of Narnia, who is being besieged by the superior army of his uncle, the
usurper King Miraz. First, however, they have to find Caspian.
At one point as they are travel towards Caspian’s camp, they come to the edge
of a deep gorge, at the bottom of which is a river. It is not clear whether they should
turn to right or left, but various factors incline them to think that right, down the hill, is
the more direct. The oldest, Peter, concludes: “Come on, then. Down this side of the
gorge.” But before they can begin:
"Look! Look! Look!" cried Lucy.
"Where? What?" asked everyone.
"The Lion," said Lucy. "Aslan himself. Didn't you see?" Her face had changed
completely and her eyes shone.46
Aslan indicates to Lucy that they should go “up, not down. Just the opposite of the
way you want to go.” Of course, nobody else has seen Aslan at this point (Lucy
always seemed to have the closest bond with him47), and the majority vote to go with
“common sense,” against Lucy's advice, and to move down the gorge. God’s
commands—to love our neighbour as ourselves, to forgive our enemies, to confess our
sins—seldom seem like common sense.
The one exception to the vote against Lucy is Edmund, who says, “speaking
quickly and turning a little red”:
“When we first discovered Narnia . . . it was Lucy who discovered it first and
none of us would believe her. I was the worst of the lot, I know. Yet she was
46 C.S.Lewis, Prince Caspian (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1951; Harmondsworth UK: Puffin Books, 1962 ), 110.
47 Edmund comments elsewhere, “Lucy sees him most often.” Voyage 87.
19
right after all. Wouldn't it be fair to believe her this time? I vote for going
up.”48
But Edmund is in the minority, so they set off, with Lucy the “last of the party, crying
bitterly.”49 Going down the gorge, however, as we might have guessed, only leads
them into an ambush set by Miraz’ troops, and they have to retrace their steps uphill,
hot, tired and thirsty, wasting energy and valuable time. That night, once again, Aslan
appears to Lucy, and once again she has to try to persuade the others to follow her as
she follows Aslan.
“Will the others see you too?” asked Lucy.
“Certainly not at first,” said Aslan. “Later on, it depends.”
“But they won't believe me!” said Lucy.
“It doesn't matter,” said Aslan.50
Not surprisingly, it is Edmund who takes the lead this time in determining to
follow Lucy, and thus it is Edmund who is the first to see that Aslan is indeed ahead of
them on the path.
Halfway down the path Edmund caught up with [Lucy]. “Look!” he said in
great excitement. “Look! What's that great shadow crawling down in front of
us?” “It's his shadow,” said Lucy. “I do believe you're right, Lu,” said Edmund.
“I can't think how I didn't see it before.”
We, however, can easily think why Edmund couldn't see. In the world of faith, it is not
that seeing causes believing, but rather that believing--and following what we
believe--leads to seeing. It is a common mistake to think that “normal” people believe
48 Prince 112.49 Ibid. 113.50 Ibid. 125.
20
only what they see, whereas religious people somehow believe without the benefit of
sight. The fact is that nobody believes only what they see. Even the conviction that
“seeing is believing” is itself a statement of faith which could never be proved.
Everybody’s “seeing” is governed by what they believe. Thus if a person decides to be
an atheist (a position of faith), they will see the world in a particular way. A person
who decides to be a Zen Buddhist will see the world in quite a different way. And so
on. For Edmund, his commitment to follow Aslan means that slowly he comes to see
the reality of Aslan. Sight follows believing, not the other way round. For Uncle
Andrew in The Magician’s Nephew, lack of belief meant he could not hear Aslan.51
For Edmund, belief means he can see Aslan. Our senses do not give us absolute truth:
they are often controlled by what we choose to believe or not to believe.
The Silver Chair also explores the idea of following in obedience. Jill Pole and
Eustace Scrub (of Dawntreader fame) have been transported to Narnia to search for
the missing Prince Rilian, heir to the throne. Aslan gives Jill four clues for finding
him, and concludes (with an echo of Moses' words to the children of Israel52):
[R]emember, remember, remember the signs. Say them to yourself when you
wake in the morning and when you lie down at night, and when you wake in
the middle of the night. And whatever strange things happen to you, let nothing
turn your mind from following the signs.53
51 Magician 117.52 e.g. Deuteronomy 6:6-9.53 C.S.Lewis The Silver Chair (London: Geoffrey Bles 1953;
London: Collins 1980), 30-31.
21
Together with Puddleglum the Marshwiggle, Jill and Eustace trek through the
wilderness in search of the lost prince, until they meet a beautiful woman on
horseback who tells them they are not far from Harfang, the city of the gentle giants,
where they will be given warm hospitality. As a result:
They could think about nothing but beds and baths and hot meals and how
lovely it would be to get indoors. They never talked about Aslan or even about
the lost prince now. And Jill gave up her habit of repeating the over signs to
herself every night and morning.54
Jesus warned of the danger to those “who hear the word, but the cares of the world,
and the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and
it yields nothing.”55 In Jill and Eustace’s case, it seems to be the lure of soft beds and
hot baths which choke the memory of the word.
It is Puddleglum, the real hero of this story, who remembers the importance of
the clues:
“Are you still sure of those signs, Pole? What's the one we ought to be
after now?”
“Oh, come on! Bother the signs,” said Pole. . . .
Puddleglum's question annoyed her because, deep down inside her, she was
already annoyed with herself for not knowing the Lion's lesson quite so well as
she felt she ought to have known it.56
54 Ibid. 84.55 Mark 4:18-19.56 Ibid. 91.
22
As a result, they walk straight past the next clue in their hurry to arrive at Harfang
before the gates close and they are shut out for the night. Having been welcomed by
the giants, they go to bed. During the night, however, Aslan appears to Jill and shows
her from her bedroom window the clue they missed. Eustace learned during the
voyage of the Dawntreader the lesson of dealing with past sins, and is quick to confess
where he went wrong:
“The truth is . . . we were so jolly keen on getting to this place that we weren't
bothering about anything else. . . . We must just own up. We've only four signs
and we've muffed the first three.” 57
The castle, of course, far from being the haven they had expected, turns out to
be a death trap: the giants regard human beings as a delicacy for the forthcoming
Autumn Feast. The luxury the Queen of the Underworld promised meant death; the
hardship that came with obeying Aslan meant life. They manage to escape from the
giants. They cannot put the clock back and undo their disobedience, however: no-one
can know what might have happened, but “anyone can find out what will happen”, as
Aslan tells Lucy on another occasion.58 And what does happen is that they are able to
redeem their mistake and to find Prince Rilian.
The theme of difficult obedience takes a further turn when the three finally find
the prince. While he is under an evil enchantment, the prince tells them that a fit
comes over him at night, so that every night he is bound to a silver chair. He warns
that they might be tempted to untie him, but that whatever he says, however he pleads,
they should not do so. Of course, he says this while enchanted. The truth is that the
57 Ibid. 85-86.58 Prince 125.
23
queen wants him to be restrained at night because that is when he is himself, and it is
she who has taught him the opposite. As a result, that night, while he is bound to the
chair and free of the enchantment, he pleads with them to release him . . . in the name
of Aslan. What are they to do? The fourth clue was:
you will know the lost prince . . . by this, that he will be the first person you
have met in your travels who will ask you to do something in my name, in the
name of Aslan.”59
Yet they cannot be sure which persona of the prince is the true one. If the warning the
prince gave them during the day is true, then releasing him from the silver chair will
mean certain death.
“Oh, if only we knew,” said Jill.
“I think we do know,” said Puddleglum.
What he knows is that the choice is not between safety and danger. The real choice is
between obedience and disobedience, and as far as Puddleglum is concerned, that is no
choice at all:
“Do you mean everything will come right if we untie him?” said
Scrubb.
“I don't know about that,” said Puddleglum. “You see, Aslan didn't tell
Pole what would happen. He only told her what to do. That fellow will be the
death of us once he’s up, I shouldn't wonder. But that doesn't let us off
following the sign.” 60
59 Silver 29.60 Ibid. 145.
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Puddleglum understands rightly that obedience to Aslan never guarantees safety or
happiness. But it is the right thing to do, because he is the king.61 In fact, their gamble
pays off: they free Prince Rilian and together the four of them return to Narnia.
Puddleglum’s insight remains valid, however: obedience is right because of who gives
the command, not because the outcome is certain. Anything less is sin.
THE HORSE AND HIS BOY : sin as pride
Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought to think . . . (Romans 12:3)
Pride has the reputation of being the worst of sins.62 Lewis says this:
According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride.
Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in
comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to
every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.63
Ultimately, pride is the desire of human beings to put themselves in the place of God.
When it is translated into the context of human relationships, pride becomes the desire
to make ourselves more important than we really are, usually at the expense of others.
61 Lewis writes elsewhere about the First Servant in Shakespeare’s King Lear, who does what is right and gets killed for his pains. He only speaks eight lines in the play. Yet, says Lewis, “if it were real life and not a play, that is the part it would be best to have acted.” “The World’s Last Night,” in Fern-seeds and Elephants (London: Fountain Books 1977), 76.
62 “Augustine, Aquinas and Dante all characterized pride as the ultimate sin, while Milton and Goethe dramatized it.” D.H. Tongue, “Pride” in The New Bible Dictionary (London: Inter-Varsity Fellowship, 1962).
63 C.S.Lewis, Mere Christianity (London: Geoffrey Bles 1952; London: Fontana Books 1955), 106.
25
In the Narnia stories, sin has been expressed in various ways. In The Lion, the
Witch and the Wardrobe, it is the betrayal of the rightful King of the Universe. In The
Magician’s Nephew, it is making everything and everyone—human beings, animals,
even reality itself--serve self. In The Voyage of the Dawntreader, it is a self-
centredness that diminishes our humanness. In Prince Caspian and The Silver Chair,
sin is disobedience, making ourselves a wiser and truer authority than God. Now, in
The Horse and his Boy, pride becomes the major expression of sin.
Shasta is the adopted son of a poor fisherman. One day a proud and powerful
knight or Tarkaan stays at his house, and that night Shasta overhears the Tarkaan and
the fisherman haggling over the price for which he might be sold into slavery. He
discovers that the Tarkaan’s horse, Bree, is a talking horse—a thing unknown in the
country of Calormen though common enough in Narnia, the land to the north. They
decide to escape together to Narnia and freedom. On the way, hunting lions force them
to link up with another talking horse, Hwin, and her rider, a young and proud
Tarkheena named Aravis. The book tells of their adventures on the way to Narnia.
Through living in Calormen, “hiding my true nature and pretending to be dumb
and witless like their horses,”64 Bree has become proud. Like most proud people,
however, one result of his pride is that he is worried about how he appears to others,65
and the thought of returning to Narnia, where he will not be familiar with the protocol,
worries him. What about rolling on his back, for example, which he loves?
64 C.S.Lewis, The Horse and his Boy (London: Geoffrey Bles 1954; Harmondsworth: Puffin Books 1965), 18.
65 It was a sign of Edmund’s redemption that he “had got past thinking about himself.” Lion 128.
26
“You don’t think, do you,” said Bree, “that it might be a thing talking
horses never do—a silly, clownish trick I’ve learned from the dumb ones? It
would be dreadful to find, when I get back to Narnia, that I’ve picked up a lot
of low, bad habits.”66
When the group have to pass through the city of Tashbaan, the horses have to
be made to look like work horses, not the war horses they really are. Hwin is merely
practical about the matter, but:
“My dear madam,” said Bree. “Have you pictured to yourself how very
disagreeable it would be to arrive in Narnia in that condition?”
“Well,” said Hwin humbly (she was a very sensible mare), “the main
thing is to get there.” 67
This a very revealing exchange. For Bree, to arrive looking bedraggled would be
“disagreeable.” What he really means is that he would give a bad first
impression, whereas he wants to be seen for the fine stallion he believes he is.68 Hwin,
on the other hand, speaks “humbly” because she is “sensible”: this is a hint of what
Lewis will later explain as his understanding of humility.
The denouement of the story comes as they approach Narnia, just ahead of an
attacking Calormene army headed by Prince Rabadash. A lion pursues them and leaps
at Aravis. Shasta jumps from Bree’s back to help in whatever way he can, but Bree
continues to gallop for safety. The lion:
66 Horse 26.67 Ibid. 46.68 Elsewhere Lewis comments that this is not the worst kind of
pride. “It shows that you are not yet completely contented with your own admiration. You value other people enough to want them to look at you. You are, in fact, still human.” Mere Christianity 110.
27
jabbed at Aravis with its right paw. Shasta could see all the terrible claws
extended. Aravis screamed and reeled in the saddle. The lion was tearing her
shoulders.69
Shasta manages to drive the lion back and they all reach safety. But the experience has
been a revelation (literally: it has revealed things they did not know before) for each of
them, particularly for Aravis and Bree. Bree, in particular, realises that he is not the
brave war horse he has believed himself to be up to this point:
“I who called myself a war-horse and boasted of a hundred fights, to be beaten
by a little human boy—a child, a mere foal, who had never held a sword nor
had any good nurture or example in his life!”70
In fact, he is so embarrassed by his failure to defend Hwin and Aravis that he feels he
is no longer worthy of Narnia and wants to return to Calormen to live as a slave.
Aravis, showing spiritual insight, says:
“I think it would be better to stay and say we're sorry than to go back to
Calormen.”71
In some ways, Aravis’ proposal is the more costly one. Bree could stay in Calormen as
a slave and nobody would ever have to know of his humiliation except himself.
“I’ve lost everything,” wails Bree in self-pity. The Hermit of the Southern
March, with whom they find refuge, knows the truth that Bree needs to hear:
My good horse, you’ve lost nothing but your self-conceit. . . . If you are really
as humbled as you sounded a minute ago, you must learn to listen to sense.
You're not quite the great Horse you had come to think, from living among
69 Horse 123.70 Ibid. 128.71 Ibid. 128.
28
poor dumb horses. . . . It doesn't follow that you'll be anyone very special in
Narnia. But as long as you know you're nobody very special, you'll be a very
decent sort of Horse.72
Here again is the connection between humility and good sense. Humility for Lewis is
seeing oneself as one really is—that is, as God sees one. Aslan knows that Bree is not
the great horse he thinks he is, but Aslan knows also that Bree is a “very decent sort of
Horse” and that is all Bree is called to be.
Unlike Bree, Hwin has a natural humility. It is not an artificial, exaggerated,
self-effacing kind of humility (which itself can be a form of pride, or at least of a
prideful self-consciousness) but an acknowledgement of the way things really are—
including her own character and appearance and abilities. Thus, when Aslan finally
appears, Hwin is the one who is spiritually prepared:
“Please . . . you're so beautiful. You may eat me if you like. I'd sooner
be eaten by you than fed by anyone else.”
“Dearest daughter,” said Aslan . . . “I knew you would not be long in
coming to me. Joy shall be yours.”73
For Bree, the encounter with Aslan is not one of instant joy. For Bree, not surprisingly,
it has a different flavour. At the moment of Aslan’s appearing, Bree happens to be
explaining to the others why the term “Lion” for Aslan is merely metaphorical and
should not be taken literally.74 Aslan’s response is humorous rather than angry:
72 Ibid. 129.73 Ibid. 169.74 This reference probably reflects Lewis’ disapproval of the
liberal theology of his day. See Perry C. Bramlett, “Theology” in The C.S.Lewis Readers’ Encyclopedia, ed. Jeffrey D. Schultz and John G. Wrest Jr. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan 1998).
29
“Now, Bree . . . you poor, proud, frightened creature, draw near.
Nearer still, my son. Do not dare not to dare. Touch me. . . . I am a true Beast.”
“Aslan,” said Bree in a shaken voice. “I'm afraid I must be rather a
fool.”
“Happy the Horse who knows that while he is still young. Or the
Human either.”75
In the face of Aslan, Bree finally admits it: his pride has made him foolish. Aslan does
not respond by telling him he has a poor self-image or that he is exaggerating. Aslan
simply tells him it is good that he knows his foolishness. To acknowledge the truth
about oneself—that is, to be humble--is crucial in one's relationship with Aslan.76
Bree, like Eustace before him, is not entirely cured, however. Before they
finally arrive in Narnia, he is still worried:
“Do Talking Horses roll? Supposing they don't? I can't bear to give it
up. What do you think, Hwin?”
“I'm going to roll anyway,” said Hwin. “I don't suppose any of them
will care two lumps of sugar whether you roll or not.” 77
Aravis too acknowledges the truth that she has been proud. When Shasta returns,
having discovered that in truth he is not Shasta but Prince Cor, the lost son of King
Lune of Archenland, she tells him:
75 Horse 169.76 Similar “confession” scenes occur in Lion with Peter (118),
with Lucy in Prince (124-125) and in Silver with Jill (28).77 Horse 176.
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“There's something I've got to say at once. I'm sorry I've been such a pig.78 But
I did change before I knew you were a prince.” 79
With her too, Lewis is concerned to make clear that this turning point in her life does
not make her perfect. But she has learned some lessons about reconciliation which
stand her in good stead:
Aravis . . . had many quarrels . . . with Cor, but they always made it up again: so that,
years later, when they were grown up, they were so used to quarrelling and making it
up again that they got married so as to go on doing it more conveniently.80
THE LAST BATTLE : the limit of sin
Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has
destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has
put all his enemies under his feet. (1 Corinthians 15:24-25)
Lewis has traveled a long way in his thinking since The Lion, the Witch and
the Wardrobe. Here, in The Last Battle, his thinking on a number of subjects,
including sin, comes together to give “the big picture.” Here, for example, we see that
sin is not just something played out on the human stage, but something which involves
cosmic forces beyond our comprehension. We learn as a corollary that sin has
consequences which extend beyond this life. Yet the fundamental lesson of The Lion,
the Witch and the Wardrobe, that the most important thing about a person is whether
they are servants of Aslan, still undergirds everything else.
78 Here is another metaphor suggesting that sin makes us something less than human.
79 Horse 172.80 Ibid. 188.
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Two new animal characters meet us in the opening pages of The Last Battle.
Shift the ape is evil. From the very first page, he is portrayed as self-centred,
manipulative, thinking only of his own ease and comfort. Although he pretends to
friendship with Puzzle the donkey, Puzzle is in fact virtually his slave. Shift’s
“friend,” Puzzle, also sheds a new light on sin. He is certainly innocent and naive, but
by the middle of the book his seeming innocence is no longer so attractive or pitiable.
There is something quite sinister in the picture of the gentle donkey dressed up in the
bedraggled skin of a lion, silhouetted by a flickering campfire. In fact, it is seen to be
culpable: he did not need to let himself be used to the extent that he was.
Yet there is more here than simply new kinds of sinful character. As the story
unfolds, we become aware of the reality of huge cosmic powers lurking behind the
appearance of human good and evil. The conflict between good and evil is no longer
one that can be resolved by sincere apology and asking Aslan’s forgiveness. This book
describes war. Nor does this story have a happy ending—in Narnia, at least. (In
another sense, it has the ultimate happy ending.) King Tirian is consistently referred to
as the last king of Narnia, and in the final battle, nearly all of those on the side of
Narnia are killed. The stakes in the conflict of good and evil are very high indeed.
The story opens with Shift and Puzzle discovering the skin of a dead lion. Shift
proposes that Puzzle should wear the skin and pretend to be Aslan, in order to put right
all the wrongs with which Narnia is afflicted. When thunder from heaven warns them
against such a strategy, Puzzle understands it correctly (“I knew we were doing
something dreadfully wicked”), but Shift is quick to reinterpret it as a sign of Aslan’s
32
affirmation (“No, no. It’s a sign the other way”81 ). The “blasphemy against the Holy
Spirit,” against which Jesus warned, was to say that good is evil and evil good.82 This
is precisely what Shift does.
With the supposed authority of Aslan now behind him, he makes an agreement
with the neighbouring country of Calormen for them to fell and remove Narnian trees
(“holy trees” 83), to use Narnian talking animals for slave labour, and to transport the
dwarves of Narnia to work in the mines of Calormen. Shift keeps the pliable Puzzle in
a small, dark stable, and only brings him out at night, by the uncertain light of a
bonfire, to add the supposed authority of Aslan to his commands.
In Narnia, it has always been important that every person and animal know
who or what it is, and to fulfill the function to which Aslan has called it. It is thus a
sign of the Ape’s sinfulness that he wants to be something other than himself. He says
to the other animals:
“I hear some of you saying I’m an ape. Well, I’m not. I’m a man. If I look like
an Ape, that’s because I’m so old: hundreds and hundreds of years old.”84
If people in Narnia go wrong when they begin to behave like “beasts,”85 animals in
Narnia go wrong when they begin to pretend to be human. Mr. Beaver had warned the
children in the first book:
81 C.S.Lewis, The Last Battle (London: The Bodley Head 1956; London: Collins 1980), 17.
82 Mark 3:28-30.83 Battle 24. It had been a sign of Narnia’s health centuries
earlier when the four kings and queens “made good laws and kept the peace and saved good trees from being unnecessarily cut down.” Lion 166.
84 Ibid. 31.85 Cf. Lion 45, 46, 55, 139.
33
“[T]ake my advice, when you meet anything that’s going to be human, and
isn’t yet, or used to be human once and isn’t now, or ought to be human and
isn’t, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet.”86
There is a worse way in which the reality Aslan has put into Narnia is
challenged and distorted. The line between good and evil becomes blurred. The
religions of Narnia and Calormen are now said to be the same:
“Tash is only another name for Aslan. . . . The Calormenes use different words
but we all mean the same thing.”87
The loving creator god who is Aslan is incorporated into the cruel and destructive god
Tash. Of course, once good and evil, truth and falsehood, are obliterated, even in the
name of tolerance, all that is actually left is unprincipled power--and that the ape is
determined to wield.
However, it is a principle of all Lewis’ theology that “All find what they truly
seek.”88 Those who claim to be servants of Tash will find him. Those who seek Aslan,
though it may be by a different name, will also find their heart’s desire. Thus, at the
end of the story, Tash comes to claim his own:
“[T]his fool of an Ape, who didn’t believe in Tash, will get more than he
bargained for! He called for Tash: Tash has come.”89
The evil Tash devours both Shift and Rishdah Tarkaan, leader of the Calormene
forces. The fear of Tash also turns Ginger the scheming cat back into a dumb animal:
86 Ibid., 77. Mr. Beaver is speaking of the White Witch, who wants to be human but is not.
87 Battle 35.88 Ibid. 156.89 Ibid. 80.
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[E]very one of them had been taught . . . how Aslan at the beginning of the
world had turned the Beasts of Narnia into Talking Beasts and warned them
that if they weren’t good they might one day be turned back again and be like
the poor witless animals one meets in other countries.90
Ginger may have chosen the side of Tash, but even in his encounter with Tash, Tash
has no real power: all that happens is that the words of Aslan, spoken thousands of
years before, are fulfilled.
Then all of Narnia comes to an end at Aslan’s bidding, and, in the
Narnian version of the final judgement, all the creatures of Narnia have to
come before Aslan:
[A]s they came right up to Aslan one or other of two things happened to each
of them. They all looked in his face; I don’t think they had any choice about
that. And when some looked, the expression of their faces changed terribly—it
was fear and hatred. . . . And all the creatures who looked at Aslan in that way
swerved to their right, his left, and disappeared into his huge black shadow . . .
But the others looked into the face of Aslan and loved him, though some of
them were very frightened at the same time. And all these came in at the Door,
on Aslan’s right.91
The judgement, in other words, is what the animals have chosen for themselves. When
they are confronted with Aslan, the ultimate symbol of good and of God, the reality
that has grown and been nurtured in their hearts over their lifetime becomes visible on
their faces. Some know, as they look on Aslan, that this is what they have been
90 Ibid. 105.91 Ibid. 146.
35
searching for all of their lives. Others realise that this is what they have been seeking
to avoid and hide from all of their lives. None who truly want to enter Aslan’s new
world are turned away. None who hate Aslan and what he stands for are forced to
enter.
As a result, there are some surprises. One is that the children discover a
Calormen soldier in Aslan’s country. Surely he should not be there? After all, he
fought on the side of evil against Aslan. But Aslan is interested in a person’s deepest
allegiance, not in outward appearances:
[Tash] and I are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be
done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore, if any
man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has
truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man
do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom
he serves and by
Tash his deed is accepted.92
The soldier, Emeth (the name means “truth” in Hebrew), has actually been seeking
Aslan all of his life, though he did not know the true nature of Aslan. Thus it is to
Emeth that Aslan says the crucial words, “All find what they truly seek.” Sin is to seek
something less than Aslan. Sin is to choose against the Creator.
This truth is underlined by the fate of the dwarves. They too find themselves in
Aslan’s country, but they behave as though they are still in the dark, smelly stable.
Lucy feels sorry for them, and begs Aslan to help them, but he replies: “Dearest,” said
92 Ibid. 156.
36
Aslan, “I will show you what I can, and what I cannot, do.” Even his best efforts
cannot shake them out of their illusion, and he concludes:
“They will not let us help them. They have chosen cunning rather than belief.
Their prison is only in their own minds, yet they are in that prison; and so
afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out.”93
The dwarves, like Emeth, have chosen, but they have chosen to be shut in on
themselves, and Aslan will not force them to do otherwise. Like Uncle Andrew, who
chose only to hear the animals making animal noises, so the dwarves can only
experience the world in the way they have chosen to experience it. Choice and faith
are closely related in Aslan’s world, so it is equally true to say that the dwarves have
chosen a reality without Aslan and to say they have refused to believe in Aslan (they
will not be taken in).
But what becomes of Puzzle, the false Aslan? He says he is sorry, but, unlike
proper apologies in Narnia, he makes excuses for himself:
“I’m sure I’m very sorry if I’ve done wrong. The Ape said Aslan wanted me to
dress up like that. And I thought he’d know. I’m not clever like him. I only did
what I was told.”94
His excuse (“I only did what I was told”) sounds innocent enough--until one realises
that the same words were used by Nazis to excuse the atrocities they performed in
Word War II concentration camps.95 It is Eustace who tries to confront Puzzle:
93 Ibid. 140-141.94 Ibid. 66.95 The second World War ended in 1945. The Last Battle was
written in 1956, when the memory of that war was still fresh, and war trials were still continuing. The verbal echo is almost certainly deliberate.
37
“If you’d spent less time saying you weren’t clever and more time trying to be
as clever as you could--”96
Ultimately, however, Puzzle, like everyone else, has to meet Aslan face to face:
the Lion bowed down his head and whispered something to Puzzle at which his
long ears went down; but then he said something else at which his ears perked
up again. The humans couldn’t hear what he had said either time. 97
It may be presumptuous for humans to guess what was said by Aslan in private
conversation, but presumably the words which caused Puzzle’s ears to droop were
words about his sin and guilt, and the words which caused him to perk up were words
of forgiveness and reassurance: bad news preceding good news. For us too, there is
bad news about sin and there is good news about forgiveness, and the more we
understand sin, the more we shall appreciate forgiveness.
ON FAIRY STORIES
C.S.Lewis’ friend, Tolkien, wrote an essay called On Fairy Stories, where he
suggested that the Christian account of the world “embraces all the essence of fairy
stories.” The Bible’s story is the greatest story of all—the story of our world from
beginning to end—and yet the Christian story does not make other stories redundant.
No, says Tolkien, “in God’s kingdom the presence of the greatest does not depress the
small”. He suggests that other stories actually resonate for us to the extent that they
96 Battle 81.97 Ibid. 172.
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remind us of the Big Story, and thus they contribute to the “the multiple enrichment of
creation.”98
This is certainly true of the Narnia stories. Lewis claims that he did not set out
to write stories which secretly conveyed Christian ideas to an unsuspecting reader, as
if he “drew up a list of basic Christian truths and hammered out allegories to embody
them.” Rather, he recalls, “[e]verything began with images; a faun carrying an
umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion.”99 Yet he became increasingly
conscious that he was communicating basic Christian ideas through his stories. The
stories do resonate with the Big Story, and Lewis the teacher saw the advantage of
this:
I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition
which had paralyzed much of my own religion in childhood. . . . [S]upposing
that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their
stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the
first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those
watchful dragons? I thought one could.100
Thus the ultimate test of Narnia’s success is not only how good the stories are.
Lewis himself invites us to measure them by a second criterion. The real test is
whether the stories manage to steal past the watchful dragons. Do they send the reader
back to the Big Story of which the Narnia stories are only an echo—the Bible’s story
98 J.R.R.Tolkien, “On Fairy Stories”, in Tree and Leaf (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd. 1964), 62-63.
99 C.S.Lewis “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to be Said”, in Of This and Other Worlds (London: Collins Fount Paperbacks, 1984), 72.
100 Ibid. 74.
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of creation, of human rebellion and alienation, the story of God’s great renewal
program, with its climax in the story of Jesus, his life, his death for sin and his
resurrection—and bring that story to life in a fresh way? Do they, in this context, slay
the dragons which insist that sin is interesting and creative and life-giving, and make
us see and feel and taste that sin is self-destructive? Only the reader can decide.
Tolkien suggests that it is in The Big Story that “legend and history have met
and fused”, where “story has entered History.”101 And this, in a sense, is the point of
Narnia. At the conclusion of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the children are
surprised to learn that Aslan exists in their world, as well as in Narnia.
“Are—are you there too, Sir?”
“I am,” said Aslan. “But there I have another name. You must learn to know
me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia,
that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.” 102
The watchful dragons have to give way before the energy of a renewed spiritual
imagination.
101 Tolkien 72.102 Dawn Treader, 209.
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