The Chronicles of Narnia As C.S

“A Fabric Shot Through With Glory”: The Chronicles of Narnia as C.S. Lewis’ Affirmative Social Vision Andrew Haile A Senior Essay Presented to the Department of English in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts Spring 2007 Middlebury College Middlebury, Vermont “The tales of Narnia open up to us a certain kind of world. It is a world which has been made—made by Someone, beautifully made. Its fabric is shot through with glory.” Thomas Howard Table of Contents Introduction: The Chronicles of Narnia: Magical Fairy Tales or Insidious Religious Propaganda? Framing the Debate Around Lewis’ Classics 1 Chapter 1: Lewis Defines the Terms: Towards a More Nuanced Understanding of Morality 9 Chapter 2: “To Crush This Vile Traffic in Man’s Flesh”: Of Men, Marsh-wiggles, and the Triumph of Freedom over Slavery in Narnia 15 Chapter 3: “Deeper Magic from the Dawn of Time”: Of Traitors, Tisrocs, and the Redemptive Power of Merciful Justice in Narnia 34 Chapter 4: “A Peevish Blend of Racist, Misogynistic, and Reactionary Prejudice?”: Addressing the Accusations of Lewis’ Fairy Tales 45 Conclusion: Lewis’ Vision in Light of Today’s World 60 Works Consulted 67 The Chronicles of Narnia: Magical Fairy Tales or Insidious Religious Propaganda? Framing the Debate Around Lewis’ Classics As a twentieth-century scholar and philosopher, Clive Staples Lewis stands out as a figure of considerable stature, distinguishing himself for his fine writing, scholarship, and public speaking on Medieval and Renaissance literature and the Christian faith. A talented author, Lewis received much attention for his versatility in writing. Indeed, his friend Owen Barfield once noted that there existed, in fact, three “C.S. Lewises.” One Lewis garnered praise as an academic; as an Oxbridge scholar and medievalist, he was widely considered one of the foremost authorities on Medieval and Renaissance Literature. The second Lewis was known largely as a Christian apologist. The heralded “defender of the faith,” this Lewis rose to prominence through his series of World War II radio broadcasts on the basics of Christianity, and wrote fifteen books for adult audiences on various theological topics ranging from miracles to devils to love.1 It is the third Lewis, the children’s mythopoet, whom the public knows best today, owing largely to the popularity of his beloved children’s series, The Chronicles of Narnia, a seven-book cycle with some 85 million copies in print in 30 languages. This Lewis continues to captivate the minds of children all over the world and is currently enjoying resurgence as the Narnia books find their way to the Hollywood big screen. While this paper will deal most directly and specifically with Lewis the novelist, it will consider Lewis’ fiction in light of his other important work. One cannot fully understand Lewis’ motivation to write the Narnia books without considering his remarkable conversion to Christianity and his longtime devotion and commitment to the faith. At the same time, one also appreciates more deeply the world of Narnia through an 1 Lewis’ war broadcasts would later be compiled to form his bestseller, Mere Christianity. Haile 2 understanding of Lewis’ scholarly endeavors. This paper does not seek to separate these three Lewises, but rather, among other things, to understand more fully the whole Lewis and the ideas he illustrates through a critical study of his fiction. Known primarily for his scholarly and theological work, Lewis’ decision to write children’s stories puzzled many of his readers. “There was some surprise,” writes Walter Hooper, “when Lewis, very popular at the end of the 1940s for both his literary criticism and his theological writings, turned to writing fairy tales” (397). Such a reaction was perhaps due to the common notion that the “fairy tale” or “fantasy” genre had little to do with adults. Popular opinion dictated that while children could enjoy such a style of writing, once they came of age they would shed these fairy tales and embrace more “sophisticated” literature. Lewis had little patience for this point of view and vigorously defended the “fairy tale” genre. “When I was ten,” he writes, “I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly” (Of Other Worlds 22). Lewis believed that the association of fairy tale and fantasy with childhood was local and accidental, and pointed many of its critics to his friend J.R.R. Tolkien’s essay, On Fairy Stories, a thoughtful text arguing, among other things, that the fairy tale was one of the highest literary forms for adult enjoyment. Tolkien and Lewis both felt that “the association of children and fairy stories [was] an accident of our domestic history” and that fairy stories could and should be enjoyed by all people ages “six to sixty” (Hooper 398). More than that, each man felt that fairy stories spoke to the imagination in ways not afforded by other genres. Haile 3 Lewis believed that fairy tales communicated truth and meaning through the framework of story. He writes, At all ages, if [fantasy and myth] is used well by the author and meets the right reader, it has the same power: to generalize while remaining concrete, to present in palpable form not concepts or even experiences but whole classes of experience, and to throw off irrelevancies. But at its best it can do more; it can give us experiences we have never had and thus, instead of 'commenting on life,' can add to it. (Of Other Worlds 48) Lewis’ desire to “add to life” stands as one reason that after many years as a critic and controversialist he saw fit to begin writing fairy tales. Lewis agreed with Tolkien, who wrote, “Fairy stories offer also, in a peculiar degree or mode, these things: Fantasy, Recovery, Escape, Consolation, all things of which children have, as a rule, less need than older people” (Tolkien 15). Certainly post-World War II British adults had much need of recovery, escape, and consolation, and Lewis had already been engaged in providing this sort of aid to people through his radio broadcasts. Yet greater than these motivations for writing, Lewis had “a Picture” in his head which begged to be crystallized on paper, and powerful beliefs to give that “Picture” life. In his essay “It All Began with a Picture…,” Lewis credits his imagination more than his theological views or any allegorical formula as his inspiration for writing the Narnia books: Some people seem to think that I began [writing Narnia] by asking myself how I could say something about Christianity to children; then fixed on the fairy tale as an instrument, then collected information about child psychology and decided what age group I’d write for; then drew up a list of basic Christian truths and hammered out “allegories” to embody them. This is all pure moonshine. I couldn’t write that way. It all began with images; a faun carrying an umbrella, a Haile 4 queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion. At first there wasn’t even anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself in of its own accord. It was part of the bubbling. (Ryken 30) Lewis had apparently been toying with the idea of writing fairy tales for a while, and had even begun rough drafts of what would become The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe as early as 1939. These drafts and uncompleted sections of prose sat on Lewis’ desk through the war until 1949, when he began work to work on them in earnest, and in 1950 The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was published, and enjoyed immediate success. The first book in what would become the seven-book saga immediately thrust Lewis into fame even greater than that which he was already experiencing. Laudatory reviews were written, speaking engagements offered, and letters piled high on his desk. One Narnia book soon led to two as Prince Caspian was published in 1951; two books led to three; and before long, The Chronicles of Narnia became a seven-book set. “The series was not planned beforehand as [your mother] thinks,” Lewis wrote in response to a letter from a fan. “When I wrote The Lion I did not know I was going to write any more. Then I wrote P. Caspian as a sequel and still didn’t think there would be any more, and when I had done The Voyage I felt quite sure it would be the last. But I found I was wrong” (Letters Vol. 3, 848). Readers would be grateful for his willingness to keep writing. The Narnia books grew in stature as they received glowing reviews like that of Charles Brady, an America reviewer, who wrote, “[Narnia is] the greatest addition to the imperishable deposit of children’s literature since the Jungle Books. Narnia takes its place forever now beside the jasper-lucent landscapes of Carroll, Anderson, MacDonald and Kipling” (Hooper 451). Christian readers on several continents lauded Lewis for his brilliance in storytelling and theological clarity. Alan Jacobs remarks, “Since [Lewis’] Haile 5 death his fame as a writer of children’s books has probably put his other achievements in the shade—at least if one goes by sales figures—but he remains for many Christians a figure of unique authority” (Jacobs x). Lewis’ popularity amongst Christians has done nothing but grow, and today he enjoys unprecedented fame and status amongst the church-going crowd. The December 2005 cover of Christianity Today, a prominent evangelical magazine, reads, “C.S. Lewis: Superstar” (Smietana 1). The article later goes on to compare Lewis to Elvis Presley.2 Jacobs comments on Lewis’ current prestige amongst Christians: “The position held by Lewis is, I believe, that of Unofficial Spokesman for Orthodox Christianity” (The Second Coming of C.S.

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