C.S. Lewis' Passages: Chronological Age and Spiritual Development in Narnia

Volume 11 Number 3 Article 10 Winter 2-15-1985 C.S. Lewis' Passages: Chronological Age and Spiritual Development in Narnia Doris T. Myers Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Myers, Doris T. (1985) "C.S. Lewis' Passages: Chronological Age and Spiritual Development in Narnia," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 11 : No. 3 , Article 10. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol11/iss3/10 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Admires the ways the Chronicles balance the idea that chronological age of characters is relatively unimportant with the concept of “spiritual age”—tasks of spiritual development associated with particular stages in life. Additional Keywords Lewis, C.S.—Characters—Chronological age; Lewis, C.S.—Characters—Spiritual development; Lewis, C.S. Chronicles of Narnia This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol11/iss3/10 MYTHLORE 41: Winter-Spring 1985 Page 52 C.S. Lewis' Tassages Chronological Age and Spiritual Development in J^arnia D oris T. M y e rs In the essay "On Stories" C. S. Lewis praises l if e the major issue for Lew is's ch ild protagonists The Mind iji the Willows for the way the characters is whether to accept God or go against the grain of seem simultaneously to be both adults and children. the universe; but th is major issue takes different He says: "They are lik e children in so far as they forms at different stages in l if e and at different have no responsibilities, no struggle for existence, levels of spiritual maturity. no domestic cares. But in other ways i t is the l if e of adults. They go where they lik e and do what Part of the complexity and beauty of the they please, they arrange their own liv e s" (Of Other Chronicles is the interplay of two kinds of age. On Worlds, 14). Although Lewis did not explIciTTy make the one hand there is the sense 1n which the connection, I believe that he admired th is chronological age is re lative ly unimportant, and the achievement of Grahame's partly because i t reflects a child protagonists experience flexibility of age. In deep conviction of his own about the importance— and one paragraph of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe unimportance— of chronological age. the four children become adults and live Tong Tn Narnia. Then they go back through the wardrobe, and Chronological age is unimportant in that in one paragraph become children again. There is a children and adults are e ssentially alike. Lewis similar flexibility of chronological age in all the cited as an example the instant sympathy he achieved subsequent books except perhaps The M agician's with a child in a restaurant on the basis of their Nephew. Like Kenneth Grahame in The Wind and the common hatred of stewed prunes: "We both knew that Hi 11ows, Lewis has succeeded in portraying characters prunes are far too nasty to be funny" (Of Other who are simultaneously child-like and adult-like. Worlds, 34). On the other hand, each one of the Chronicles Chronological age is also unimportant in that (with the possible exception of Dawn Treader) also people do not have specific ages in A slan 's country, presents a task of sp iritu a l development associated or Heaven. In The Last B a ttle , Tirian appears in our with a particular stage in life. This "spiritual world before the Seven Friends of Narnia. He sees age" is conveyed through images and narrative Polly and Digory as "very old," Peter and Edmund as d e ta ils, the elements which give each book it s "hardly fu ll grown, certain ly younger than Tirian p articu lar flavor and tone. him self," Lucy as younger than Peter and Edmund, and Eustace and J il l as "younger s t i l l " (The Last B attle . The Lion, the Wi tch and the Wardrobe presents 42).1 When Tirian meets them again in Aslan's the sp iritu a l state oT- a very young cF lld . For country, Polly and Digory have been ''unstiffened," children born into a re ligio u s home, the f ir s t Edmund is a mature man with a fu ll beard, and J il l awareness of C h ristia n ity comes through it s two great "seems to have become older" (The Last Battle, 133, feasts, Christmas and Easter, and the experience of 134, 138). ------------------------ each feast i s p rim arily physical sensation, not a theological concept or an act of the will.2 This In th is handling of chronological age Lewis 1s is what we find in Wardrobe. The sadness of l if e following a Christian tradition that goes back at under the domination of the witch is "always winter least as far as St. Augustine. In his own "last but never Christmas." The children hear of Aslan, b attle ," the 22nd book of The City of God, St. but the one who actually comes is Father Christmas, Augustine speculates that all the saints will be bringing presents and a good dinner. In the same resurrected "neither beyond nor under youth, but in way, the coming of Easter is presented as physical that vigour and age to which we know that Christ had sensation: the delicious languor of the spring thaw; arrived" (p. 833), and that each person w ill rise in the early-morning romp and 11 on-back ride of A slan 's the prime that he or she either had attained in l if e resurrection; and the celebratory high tea after the or would have attained (p. 839). At the end of The b attle. One of the central contrasts between good Silv e r Chair, when Caspian Is resurrected as a young and evil is that of food— the junk food of Turkish man, Lewis comments, “Even in th is world, of course, Delight, which never s a tis f ie s , but merely whets the i t Is the stupidest children who are most child ish appetite, against the homely, nourishing tea with the and the stupidest grown-ups who are most qrown-UD" faun, or supper with the beavers. (The Silv e r Chair, 212). Another way the book depicts a very young stage Although chronological age is unimportant in of life is that the children simply accept the some ways, i t is important in that there are certain destiny that has been prepared for them— to be kings developmental tasks unique to each age. One of the and queens of Narnia— ju st as young children 1n our reasons Susan became a Narnia dropout, as J il l says, world accept the fact that baptism has made them is that "she always was a jo lly sigh t too keen on inh eritors of God's kingdom. Prince Caspian, on the being grown-up" and Polly adds, "She wasted a ll her other hand, deals with a late r stage of sp iritu a l school time wanting to be the age she is now, and development— a time when children, even i f they do she 11 waste a ll the rest of her l if e tryin g to stay not actively doubt the fa ith , begin to be bored with that age" (The Last B attle , 135). At each stage of it . They lis te n to the sto rie s, but the woods are MYTHLORE 41: Winter-Spring 1985 Page 53 dead and impersonal, as i t were, and the beasts no community, for the Church, as Lewis said in another longer talk. They begin to realize that the events context, is not old-fashioned--it is just very old recounted in the Scriptures happened a very long time (That Hideous Strength, 146). ago, and that many people doubt whether they happened at all. This is the spiritual stage depicted in I f Dawn Treader i s defining images o f the Prince Caspian. The children come back to Narnia to Church, i t is appropriate that the s h ip 's company TTn<3 that the joy of childhood is past. As should be mostly human, and that i s what we find. Wordsworth put it , "The glory has departed." The talking animals are represented only by Reepicheep; the Narnians of c la s sic a l and Northern Lewis conveys the sense of an older age by mythology— fauns and centaurs, dwarfs, e tc .— appear emphasizing re s p o n sib ility and the stru ggle for not at a ll .

Load more