Recovering Vision: C.S. Lewis and Augustine on Pride and Humility

Kayla Goetz

Religion 410

Dr. Hammerling

November 19, 2010

2

“There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one [sic] in the

world loathes when he sees it in someone else…And the more we have it ourselves, the more we

dislike it in others.”1 Thus C.S. Lewis begins his discussion in Mere Christianity of how and why the sin of pride is the ultimate sin. It is not surprising that pride is one of the most important

themes in Lewis’s writings, because it makes sense that such a notable, pervasive sin would

naturally emerge in his works, especially since it was an admittedly problematic sin for Lewis

himself, as he states in some of his letters.2 As a result, themes regarding pride are found in every fiction work he wrote, whether subtly or in obvious ways, including in each of his seven

Narnia stories.

Not only is pride displayed in each Narnia tale, but whenever it manifests itself in a

character’s personality or actions, there is always a humble foil character paired with the prideful

character to provide contrast. Though the prideful characters are typically easy to spot due to

their tendency to provide the evil or negative presence in each story, their humble counterparts

are not always apparent at first because they are not confined to one specific character type;

rather, they cover a range of characters and their humbleness is not something that necessarily

stands out on an initial reading. In fact, if it were not for their pairing with prideful characters,

one might not even notice their humility at all. The pairing of prideful and humble characters

provides the necessary contrast for seeing each character’s respective traits of pride or humility

more clearly. Lewis himself acknowledged the contrast between pride and humility in his

discussion on pride in Mere Christianity, stating that “the virtue opposite to [pride], in Christian morals, is called Humility.”3

1 C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1952), 121. 2 See Lewis, Collected Letters: Vol. 1, p. 878; Vol. 2, p. 125; Vol. 3, p. 191, 259. 3 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 121. 3

When analyzing the themes of pride and humility in the Narnia tales, the characters with the most pride are “blind” to their situation, and in order to start along the path to humility, they must first have their unseeing eyes opened to the fact that they are proud. In this way, the issue of pride and humility in Narnia can be viewed in terms of sight: to be proud is to be blind, and to be humble is to go through life with one’s eyes open to those around you and to thus have an awareness of the surrounding world and one’s proper role within society.

While some of the main characters are humble throughout the series, there are several characters that move from pride to humility, or from blindness to sight, and eventually become beloved characters themselves. Even the generally humble characters go through one or more instances of pride, indicating that this truly is a sin that no sentient being is totally free from, though some are subject to it to a greater extent than others are.

In most of his writings on and examples of pride and humility, Lewis bears a strong resemblance to Augustine of Hippo’s views on these issues. Augustine was greatly influenced by certain aspects of Neo-Platonist thought, and because Lewis, too, demonstrated a debt to Plato in his Narnia series (which he ‘bookends’ with Platonic elements in both The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, with Professor Kirk discussing logic and using the Socratic method of conversing with Peter and Susan, and in The Last Battle, with the concept of Shadowlands and the physical world being less ‘real’ than the divine original), it is appropriate to use Augustine’s ideas to bring clarity to Lewis’s own thoughts on pride and humility. Regardless of whether Lewis was directly influenced by Augustine’s views on these issues from having read Augustine’s works, a comparison between the two can be seen as using one Neo-Platonist to interpret another.

Before any analysis can be made of these themes within the Narnia stories, it is first necessary to examine Lewis’s views on pride and humility, comparing them to the similar 4

teachings of Augustine on these subjects. After comparing Lewis and Augustine on pride and

humility, this paper will then analyze each of the seven Chronicles in the order in which they

were written, examining the way these opposing themes are manifested in pairings of contrasting

pivotal characters, with emphasis placed upon the occurrences of these themes in the children,

since they are consistently the ones who are either humble throughout or else are redeemed of

their initial pride.

Comparing Lewis & Augustine on Pride & Humility

When comparing Lewis’s and Augustine’s writings on pride and humility, it is

astonishing how similar they are despite the fact that their writings were separated by 1500 years.

The fact that Lewis read Augustine’s work may perhaps account for some of this similarity, but

it is difficult to determine the extent of Lewis’s familiarity with Augustine’s writings on pride

and humility, so a comparison of the two is therefore useful in developing a more ordered

analysis of Lewis’s views on these issues.

In one of the chapters in Mere Christianity, Lewis identifies what he considers to be “the

great sin”4 as being that of “Pride or Self-Conceit.” According to Lewis, “the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride,”5 which “comes direct from Hell.”6 He says that many of the other vices

“are mere fleabites in comparison…it was through Pride that the devil became the devil…Pride

leads to every other vice.”7 Elsewhere, Lewis referred to pride as “the mother of all sins,”8 thus

emphasizing his belief that pride is at the root of all other sins. Not only did Lewis believe pride

4 C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1952), 121. 5 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 121. 6 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 125. 7 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 122. 8 C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves, 1930, in The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, vol. 1, ed. Walter Hooper (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004), 882. 5

was Satan’s sin, but he also believed it was the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. As

he states in a 1943 letter, “The corruption of the first sinner consists…in preferring a lesser good

(himself) before a greater (God). The Fall is, in fact, Pride.”9

Holding a similar view to Lewis, Augustine saw pride as the root of all other vices. In his

writings, he often quoted Ecclesiasticus 10:13, which begins with the statement that “pride is the

beginning of sin.”10 Furthermore, Augustine also believed the devil’s sin was rooted in pride. In

his Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love, Augustine states that “some of the angels…in their

pride and impiety rebelled against God, and were cast down from their heavenly abode,”11 and

that the devil “was with his associates in crime exalted in pride, and by that exaltation was with

them cast down.”12 Also, Lewis’s idea about how pride was the way “the devil became the devil”

strangely parallels something Augustine preached in 411, when he stated, “Pride is a great vice,

and the first of vices, the beginning, origin and cause of all sins. It’s what cast down an angel and

made him into the devil.”13 Moreover, Lewis is also in agreement with Augustine in seeing the

sin of Adam and Eve as a sin of pride, in which humans turned away from God to focus on

themselves instead. As Augustine states in The City of God, “This then is the original evil: man

regards himself as his own light, and turns away from that light which would make man himself

a light if he would set his heart on it. This evil [the sin of pride] came first, in secret, and the

result was the other evil [the eating of the forbidden fruit], which was committed in the open.”14

Augustine had also stated the same concept earlier in his City of God, saying that the pride of the fallen angels consisted of “their turning away from him who supremely is, and their turning

9 Lewis to Joyce Pearce, 1943, in The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, vol. II, 585. 10 Frank P. Riga, “Augustinian Pride and the Work of C.S. Lewis,” Augustinian Studies 16 (1985): 129-36. 11 Augustine, The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love, (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 1966), 34. 12 Augustine, Enchiridion, 35. 13 Qtd. in Augustine through the Ages: an Encyclopedia, s.v. “Pride.” 14 Augustine, The City of God, trans. Henry Bettenson (London: Penguin Books, 1984), 573. 6 towards themselves, who do not exist in that supreme degree.”15 Because Lewis and Augustine both agree that pride involves a turning of one’s focus away from God and to oneself, this will be a key concept to keep in mind when analyzing how Narnia characters are sometimes blind to their pride and to Aslan and others because their focus is on themselves.

In addition to viewing pride as the origin of all sin, Lewis categorized pride as a spiritual—rather than a fleshly—sin. Because of its spiritual nature, Lewis saw pride as

“consequently…far more subtle and deadly” than “the simpler vices.”16 In fact, Lewis calls it

“spiritual cancer,” because “it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.”17 If people are proud, they are unable to truly love others or be content because their pride is always seeking superiority and dominance, as well as more of everything in order to have more than their neighbor. Most importantly for making it the worst of the sins, pride is

“the complete anti-God state of mind,”18 because, among other problematic results, it causes one to view oneself as greater than others, and it is therefore through pride that a person may set oneself up as his or her own god. Pride is concerned with superiority and with being better than everyone else. As Lewis put it, “Pride is essentially competitive—is competitive by its very nature—while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. … It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest.”19

Augustine, too, saw this competitive aspect of pride that made people want to be elevated above all others. In The City of God, he asks, “And what is pride except a longing for a perverse

15 Augustine, City of God, 477. 16 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 125. 17 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 125. 18 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 122. 19 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 122. 7

kind of exaltation?”20 Augustine’s views on pride also fit with Lewis’s notion of it being the

“complete anti-God state of mind,” since Augustine states in The Trinity that other than pride,

“no vice is more vehemently opposed by divine law [or] gives a greater right of control to that proudest of all spirits, the devil…”21 If Augustine thought that no other sin goes more against

God’s law than pride, he would agree with Lewis about pride being an “anti-God” state of mind.

Similarly, Lewis saw an intimate connection between pride and the desire for power. In

Lewis’s words, pride is, above all, “the wish for power.” He goes on to explain that “power is

what Pride really enjoys: there is nothing [that] makes a man feel so superior to others as being

able to move them about like toy soldiers.”22 Augustine expressed this desire of pride to be

above others and to take the place of God’s authority when he stated in The City of God, “pride

hates a fellowship of equality under God, and seeks to impose its own dominion on fellow

humans, in place of God’s rule.”23 He also spoke in The Trinity of proud people as having a

“preference for power.”24 Along the lines of pride’s competitive nature and its wish for

dominance, Lewis states, “If I am a proud man, then, as long as there is one man in the whole

world more powerful, or richer, or cleverer than I, he is my rival and my enemy.”25 Indeed, pride always acts as a disruptive force in relationships, both those with other people and, especially, with God.

According to Lewis, “Other vices may sometimes bring people together…But pride

always means enmity—it is enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to

God.”26 This is because one is unable to delude oneself with notions of his or her own superiority

20 Augustine, City of God, 571. 21 Augustine, The Trinity, trans. Edmund Hill (Brooklyn, NY: New City Press, 1990), 167. 22 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 123. 23 Qtd. in Augustine through the Ages: an Encyclopedia, s.v. “Pride.” 24 Augustine, Trinity, 162. 25 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 123. 26 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 124. 8

after coming in contact with God, who is above all else. As Lewis states, “In God you come up

against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know

God as that—and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison—you do not know God at

all.”27 Along similar lines, Augustine saw the sin of Adam and Eve as having its source in pride,

since it is pride that is “the haughty vice which made them want to be better than the one person

who was above them: God himself.” Thus, their disobedience represented “the pretense of an inferior to be superior,”28 which demonstrates a blindness on their part to the true superiority of

God as well as to their own pretentiousness in thinking they can live by their own rules, ignoring those put in place by God.

Furthermore, Lewis points out that because pride is the “anti-God state of mind,”29 it

prevents people from having positive contact with God: “As long as you are proud you cannot

know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as

you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you”30 (emphasis added). In writing about a similar view held by Augustine, Donald Burt noted that prideful people “who claim to know everything …will never be able to see the true God because they think themselves divine”31 (emphasis added). In this inability to “see” God, prideful people demonstrate the

blindness that results from taking their eyes off of God and focusing them instead on themselves.

In order for proud people to recover their sight and “see” God enough to understand who he is

(and who they are in relation to God), they must let go of the pride that is keeping them blind.

27 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 124. 28 Donald X. Burt, Augustine’s World: An Introduction to His Speculative Philosophy (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1996), 146. 29 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 122. 30 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 124. 31 Donald X. Burt, Friendship & Society: An Introduction to Augustine’s Practical Philosophy (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1999), 50. 9

Indeed, on top of all the other dangers associated with pride, one of the most potentially

harmful aspects of pride for humans is their own blindness to it in themselves. Lewis states early

on in Mere Christianity that there is “no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves”

than pride.32 Similarly, when Lewis in The Four Loves speaks of pride in regard to friendship, he

states that “it is in our own [relationships] that we should be slowest to recognise [sic] it.”33 In a similar way, Augustine saw prideful humans as guilty of not having a proper perspective on their position and relative lack of importance in the universe. As he pointed out in one of his sermons, it was “for your sake God became man…are you not willing to recognize yourself for the man

you are?”34 From both Augustine’s and Lewis’s points of view, blindness is an inherent part of pride, for in focusing one’s thoughts upon oneself (as is the case with a prideful person), one ceases to pay attention to others and it becomes impossible to see oneself clearly in relation to others and to get a proper sense of perspective on one’s importance (or lack thereof).

For both Lewis and Augustine, humility is ultimately found through God. From Lewis’s point of view, an encounter with God inevitably leads away from pride and toward humility, which is, according to Lewis, “the virtue opposite to [pride], in Christian morals.”35 He states,

“The real test of being in the presence of God is, [sic] that you either forget about yourself

altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object” (emphasis added). Of those two options, he concludes, “It is better to forget about yourself altogether.”36 Indeed, as Lewis writes, “He [God]

and you are two things of such a kind that if you really get into any kind of touch with Him you

will, in fact, be humble—delightedly humble, feeling the infinite relief of having for once got rid

32 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 121. 33 C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers, 1960), 86. 34 Augustine, Sermon 30.9, found in The Works of Saint Augustine: a Translation for the 21st Century, part III, vol. II, Sermons (Brooklyn, NY: New City Press, 1990), 128. 35 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 121. 36 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 125. 10

of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless and unhappy all

your life.”37 All of this goes back to Lewis’s belief that the first step in acquiring humility “is to

realise [sic] that one is proud.”38 As Lewis discussed, when people come into contact with the

perfection of God, such an encounter puts their level of significance into perspective, and they cannot help but realize how unimportant they are in comparison. They must hereafter either view themselves with disgust or else cease to think of themselves and instead focus their thoughts

outward—upon God and upon their neighbor.

Just as how Lewis saw humility as something humans acquire from God, Augustine saw

humility as the cure for pride. He saw Christ’s act of coming to Earth in human form and

willingly dying on the cross to save humanity as the ultimate example of humility. As he stated,

“the Wisdom of God in healing man has applied Himself to his cure, being Himself healer and

medicine both in one. Seeing, then, that man fell through pride, He restored him through

humility.”39 Similarly, he wrote, “The Son of God came to this earth as a human being and

became humble. You too are commanded to be humble but this does not mean denying your

humanity…[rather,] you, a human being, must recognize that you are just that: a human being.”40

Augustine saw humility as the path laid out by Christ for Christians to follow, a view which he

summed up when he stated, “For our way is humility. Christ showed this Himself in His own

self.”41 Indeed, Augustine believed that one of the main purposes of Christ’s sacrifice (besides its

importance in bringing about salvation) was to set an example for humanity of what it means to

be humble. As he says to God in his Confessions, “You sent him [Christ] so that from his

37 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 127. 38 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 128. 39 Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, trans. J. F. Shaw (Mineola, New York: Dover, 2009), 10. 40 Qtd. in Burt, Friendship & Society, 49. 41 Qtd. in Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (Berkley: University of California Press, 1967), 459. 11

example they [humanity] should learn humility.”42 By looking to Christ’s example of humble

obedience, “even to death on the cross,”43 humans have (from Augustine’s view) a model of

perfect humility that they can emulate.

Indeed, in writing about humility and how to recognize it in others, Lewis warned, “Do

not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call ‘humble’

nowadays…Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap

who took a real interest in what you said to him. … He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.”44 In fact, the forgetting of one’s self is the ultimate

form of humility. In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis uses the demon Screwtape to explain this key

principle. As Screwtape writes to Wormwood, “the true end” of humility is “self-forgetfulness”;

“By this virtue, as by all the others, our Enemy [God] wants to turn the man’s attention away

from self to Him, and to the man’s neighbours [sic]. All the abjection and self-hatred are

designed, in the long run, solely for this end.”45 Furthermore, “the sooner the man turns his

attention outward, the better the Enemy [God] is pleased.”46 Through that ‘insight’ from

Screwtape, Lewis develops his view that humility boils down to focusing one’s thoughts on God and others instead of on oneself.

Augustine presented a slightly different approach to humility, but one which is in keeping

with the essence of the humility Lewis described. Instead of writing about the self-forgetfulness aspect of humility, Augustine saw humility as resulting in seeing the truth about oneself, thus viewing oneself as neither better nor worse than what one actually is. In one of his sermons,

42 Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 219. 43 Augustine, Trinity, 361. 44 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 128. 45 C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1942), 310. 46 Lewis, Screwtape Letters, 313. 12

Augustine stated, “With humility you speak equity,”47 and such equity involves recognizing

one’s sinful, imperfect nature. If humble people see themselves fairly (or with “equity”), then it

is reasonable to say that by assessing themselves accurately, they are thus seeing themselves as

they truly are. In another sermon, Augustine continues this idea of humility involving a clear

self-perception, saying that “if you flatter yourself through pride, you will be more seriously ill

than ever.”48 Such prideful self-flattery signifies that those who do so are not seeing themselves clearly, because they are convincing themselves that they are better than they in reality are. Thus, the opposite of that type of pride would be a humility that does not engage in self-flattery or

unnecessary self-deprecation, but rather sees oneself clearly.

Finally, it must be noted that Lewis cautions against the danger that comes as soon as one

starts to think of oneself as humble. In his article “Christianity and Culture,” Lewis stated, “A

man is never so proud as when striking an attitude of humility.”49 Augustine saw a similar

danger in those who become proud of living a ‘humble’ life. As an example, Augustine cited the

case of a married woman and a virgin consecrated to the Lord, saying, “A humble married

woman is better than a proud woman consecrated to virginity.”50 In other words, it is better to

humbly live a life that is not praised as a ‘humble’ or righteous path than it is to become proud of

living such a life. In writing about Augustine on this idea of pride coming from living a humble

life, Mary T. Clark notes, “If one becomes proud of living such a life, its purpose is vitiated, its

value lost.”51 Indeed, Screwtape reveals that all virtues, especially pride, become “less

formidable” to demonic purposes once humans are made aware of having them. As Screwtape

advises Wormwood, “Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into

47 Augustine, Sermon 16B.2, found in Works of Saint Augustine, 363. 48 Augustine, Sermon 175.9, found in Works of Saint Augustine, Vol. 5, 270. 49 Qtd. in Wayne Martindale and Jerry Root, eds., The Quotable Lewis, (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 1990), 495. 50 Qtd. in Mary T. Clark, Augustine (London: Continuum, 2000), 89. 51 Clark, Augustine, 89. 13

his mind the gratifying reflection, ‘By jove! I’m being humble’, and almost immediately pride—

pride at his own humility—will appear. If he awakes to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt…”52 Thus, self-forgetfulness protects against such attempts to bring a humble person back to a state of pride, because in forgetting oneself, the temptation of self-congratulation over ‘humble’ actions is removed.

Now that a foundational understanding of Lewis’s and Augustine’s views of pride and

humility has been established, it is possible to analyze how the contrasting character pairings in

the stories reveal the way these themes play out in each of the seven Narnia tales, beginning with

the first one Lewis wrote: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Of the many examples of blinded, prideful characters found in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (published in 1950), Edmund is an example of a character that starts out blinded by pride but eventually has his eyes opened and gains the ‘sight’ of humility.

In the case of Edmund, his pride is multifaceted and brought on by both internal and

external factors. His own desire for power and superiority over his siblings is what initially brings him under Jadis’s power and blinds him to her evil, and his blindness continues until he is trapped under her power and almost out of reach of any external help or rescue. Even before he meets Jadis, however, Edmund demonstrates his pride in the way he interacts with his siblings.

When Lucy tells the others about her visit to Narnia, Edmund reveals his scorn for her story and

his own self-satisfaction when he “sneered and jeered” at her and kept taunting her about finding

“other new countries in other cupboards all over the house.”53 When Edmund sneers at Lucy in

52 Lewis, Screwtape Letters, 309. 53 C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (New York: HarperCollins, 1950), 121. 14

this way, he acts similarly to those who in their pride “scoff at the death of Christ,”54 as

Augustine spoke about in The Trinity. Both cases involve people falsely thinking themselves

better than another. Furthermore, in belittling Lucy, Edmund reveals that he views her as beneath

himself, meaning that he thinks himself superior to her, which fits with Lewis’s point that a

“proud man is always looking down on things and people.”55 Thus, by looking down on Lucy,

Edmund reveals that he is full of the superiority-type of pride, because he is blind both to Lucy’s value and to an accurate perception of his own station in relation to her.

Once he meets Jadis, however, this sense of personal superiority is increased. She appeals

to the vanity side of his pride by calling him “the cleverest and handsomest young man I’ve ever

met,” which relates to Lewis’s ideas on the competitive nature of pride. Jadis did not just tell him

that he was ‘clever’; instead, she used the superlative forms—cleverest and handsomest— implying that he had those traits in a greater amount than any other boy his age. Lewis stated that a part of being prideful is that one only gets pleasure out of “having more of [something] than the next man,” because “it is the comparison that makes you proud...”56 Therefore, if Edmund

internalizes what Jadis says about him here, then it can only add to his pre-existing sense of

superiority. Edmund is obviously already blind to the inconsistency of Jadis’s tactics, since he

does not seem to remember that she had initially called him “an idiot,”57 which does not fit with

the idea of him being clever.

He is also blind to the suspicious nature of her many inquiries as he is stuffing himself

with Turkish Delight, “never [asking] himself why the Queen should be so inquisitive.”58

Instead, the pride he already had from his own sense of superiority is magnified by the external

54 Augustine, Trinity, 165. 55 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 124. 56 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 122. 57 Lewis, Lion, 124. 58 Lewis, Lion, 125. 15

influence of the flattery of Jadis. All he can focus on is himself and doing whatever pleases him

best, and in this self-focus, he is blind to the danger in which he is putting himself and his siblings. His selfish consumption of Turkish Delight is another manifestation of his self-centered

pride, because his behavior in this respect fits with the type of pride Augustine spoke of when he

said, “the proud are given another name in holy Scripture; they are called ‘self-pleasers.’”59

Edmund allows his desire for Turkish Delight to direct his actions, leading him to deceive his siblings about having met Jadis and to sneak away from the beavers’ house to betray them to her in order to get more Turkish Delight.

As further evidence of his prideful focus on himself, Edmund wants to keep Jadis’s

attention on himself. When she speaks of wanting him to bring his siblings to her, he tries to

dismiss her attention toward them by declaring that “there’s nothing special about them,”60

implying that he thinks there is something special about him that makes him deserving of being

elevated to the position of prince (and, eventually, king). In thinking this way, he demonstrates

the aspect of pride Augustine noted as being characterized by a “perverse kind of exaltation,”61

since it is “perverse” in the sense that it goes against the proper order, where Peter would hold

the highest authority of the siblings (which is proper not only according to the traditional age

order, but also because it conforms to Aslan’s will).

Even after Edmund is no longer in the presence of Jadis, the poison of his self-exalting

pride continues to blind him. When he runs into Lucy in Narnia, she is delighted that he was able

to get in too, not just so that the others will believe her, but also because she wants her siblings to

share in the experience of Narnia. Lucy’s selfless happiness and excitement contrast with

Edmund’s sulkiness and the way he speaks to her “snappishly” when he asks where she has

59 Augustine, City of God, 572. 60 Lewis, Lion, 126. 61 Augustine, City of God, 571. 16 been.62 Furthermore, though Lucy is eager to return to the others so that they can take part in experiencing Narnia, Edmund does not want to “have to admit that Lucy had been right [and that he had been wrong in taunting her] before all the others.”63 In fact, in order to maintain his pride by not having to admit he was wrong, he lies to Peter and Susan, claiming that he and Lucy were just “pretending.”64 Though not quite the same, Edmund’s avoidance of accepting the blame for having been wrong and treating Lucy unjustly seems similar to what Augustine meant when he said that people’s “pride seeks to pin the wrong act on another.”65 Even though Edmund was not making an excuse or overtly trying to shift the blame to someone else, he was still demonstrating the same prideful avoidance of humbly accepting the blame for his own wrongdoing. Thus, as

Lewis scholar Kathryn Lindskoog states, “It was pride that caused Edmund to deny his experience in Narnia to his brother and sister who had never been there.”66 Even more troubling is that he puts on airs of superiority as he does so: “Edmund gave a very superior look as if he were far older than Lucy” and included her in a generalization he makes about “young kids,” even though he is only a year older than she is.67 In believing himself superior to Lucy, Edmund fits Lewis’s notion of pride’s fixation on superiority.

Edmund also reveals his blindness in his irrational desire for revenge on his siblings.

Even though he had been the one at fault in lying about having been to Narnia and his siblings pass over it relatively quickly, Edmund afterwards tells himself, “I’ll pay you all out for this, you pack of stuck-up, self-satisfied prigs.”68 He is blind to the fact that he is the one who is the “self- satisfied prig,” which fits with Lewis’s statement that there is “no fault which we are more

62 Lewis, Lion, 127. 63 Lewis, Lion, 128. 64 Lewis, Lion, 129. 65 Augustine, City of God, 574. 66 Kathryn Lindskoog, Journey into Narnia, (Pasadena: Hope Publishing, 1998), 57. 67 Lewis, Lion, 129. 68 Lewis, Lion, 135. 17

unconscious of in ourselves” than pride, “and the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.”69

The most notable aspect of Edmund’s pride, however, is its competitive characteristic,

which is revealed in Edmund’s desire to be elevated above his siblings, especially above Peter.

As one source states, “Edmund turns traitor because of his desire to be more important than his

brother and sisters.”70 In thinking about what Jadis would do with his siblings once he turned

them over to her, Edmund “didn’t want her to be particularly nice to them” and “certainly not to

put them on the same level as himself.”71 Not only is this motivated by his desire to be superior

to his siblings, which fits with Lewis’s idea of how “the pleasure of being above the rest” is a

natural part of pride (and also goes back to Augustine’s idea that pride is “a longing for perverse exaltation”72), but Edmund especially wants to gain dominion over Peter, who he resents for having called him (Edmund) a “beast” for lying to Lucy.73 In thinking about being a king, he

wonders about “how Peter will like that,” which causes “horrible ideas [to come] into his

head,”74 suggesting that he plans to use his promised future power to serve his own purposes of

getting back at Peter. Similarly, there is a moment later on when Edmund is thinking of all the

fancy material possessions he will acquire as king, and he finishes his daydreams with planning

“some schemes for keeping Peter in his place.”75 The ironic aspect of this wish, and the part

which reveals Edmund’s blindness to his own pride (through which he has mentally exalted

himself to a higher station than he truly holds, thus not seeing reality), is the fact that Edmund is

the one who needs to be put back “in his place.” He is the younger of the two brothers, yet he

69 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 121. 70 Jeffrey D. Schultz and John G. West, Jr., eds., The C.S. Lewis Readers’ Encyclopedia (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998), 336. 71 Lewis, Lion, 151. 72 Augustine, City of God, 571. 73 Lewis, Lion, 135. 74 Lewis, Lion, 142. 75 Lewis, Lion, 152. 18

thinks himself superior to all the others, particularly the eldest. In writing about humility,

Augustine stated that “humility…consists in knowing exactly who you are” in relation to others,

especially in recognizing those who are above oneself in authority or power, with God being the

one who is above all others.76 Therefore, in being blind to his proper position in relation to his

siblings and to others in Narnia, Edmund displays his prideful blindness.

Furthermore, this prideful pretentiousness of Edmund’s is made even clearer by its

contrast with Peter’s humbleness and rightful role as High King of Narnia. Though Peter had

been wrong in not believing Lucy early on, he immediately apologizes once he realizes his error.

In fact, after the children find themselves unexpectedly all in Narnia, Peter “turned at once to

Lucy” and humbly apologized, wasting no time in admitting he was wrong and seeking her

forgiveness. This is similar to when he admits to Aslan that the reason Edmund became a traitor

was “partly my [Peter’s] fault.”77 Peter’s promptness in apologizing and admitting when he is

wrong testifies to his humility (and it is the opposite of the pride Augustine talked about where

people seek to shift the blame to others,78 since Peter accepts blame even when he is not even

greatly at fault, such as in his indirect role in Edmund becoming a traitor), and it stands in stark contrast to Edmund’s sneaky behavior in lying to the others about having been in Narnia, as well as the fact that he never actually apologizes to Lucy either before or after the others figure out his lie. The closest he comes to apologizing is when Lucy comes upon him just after Jadis departed and he says Lucy was right about the “magic wardrobe” and that “I’ll say I’m sorry if you like,”79 signifying that he does not willingly let go of his pride and humble himself enough to

apologize and ask for her forgiveness.

76 Qtd. in Burt, Friendship & Society, 49. 77 Lewis, Lion, 169. 78 Augustine, City of God, 574. 79 Lewis, Lion, 127. 19

Moreover, in a scene that contrasts the one where Jadis points out her house to Edmund

and makes her empty promise that she will make him a prince and eventually a king, Aslan

shows Peter the far-off castle of Cair Paravel, where he “will be High King over all the rest.”80

This scene is so similar to the earlier one with Jadis and Edmund that it almost makes the first

one seem like a twisted parody of this, the ‘real’ promise of kingship, since it is Aslan’s promise

to Peter that has authority and will hold true. Through this scene, it becomes even clearer that

Edmund’s wishes for superiority represent the prideful “longing for a perverse kind of

exaltation”81 mentioned by Augustine in Book XIV of The City of God.

The eye-opening turning point for Edmund comes during his sleigh ride with Jadis, when

they try to track down his siblings at the beavers’ dam. During the misery of this time, Edmund

begins to realize that Jadis (who he now thinks of in terms of “the Witch” instead of “the

Queen,” as he formerly referred to her) had been lying about making him a king, and he begins

to wish to be back with the others—“even Peter!”82 The first moment when Edmund can be decisively identified as fitting Lewis’s description of a humble person is when he cries out on behalf of the animals celebrating a feast from Father Christmas, just before the Witch turns them to stone. As the narrator points out, it was “the first time in this story” that Edmund “felt sorry for someone besides himself.”83 Therefore, Edmund can be said to have been healed of his

blindness, for his eyes have finally been taken off of himself and opened to the plight of others

(thus changing the prideful condition Augustine had pointed out in the proud being “turn[ed] towards themselves”84). According to Lewis, this is the key to being humble—taking an interest

80 Lewis, Lion, 170. 81 Augustine, City of God, 571. 82 Lewis, Lion, 162. 83 Lewis, Lion, 163. 84 Augustine, City of God, 477. 20

in others instead of thinking about oneself. As he stated, a humble man “will not be thinking

about himself at all.”85

In light of viewing Edmund as having gained more sight, it is interesting to note the way

he is described as looking around at the changing scenery when the end of winter comes shortly

after his eye-opening moment. Even when the dwarf tries to stop Edmund from looking around,

it “didn’t prevent Edmund from seeing”86 (emphasis added), and this seems applicable in not

only the literal sense, but also figuratively as well, since he now sees more clearly after letting go

of his pride.

Finally, it is even clearer later on that Edmund’s newfound humility was not just a

temporary whim, but that he has in fact been healed of his prideful blindness and now has the

proper focus. In the scene where the Witch comes to stake her claim to Edmund because of his

former treachery, the narrator notes that “Edmund had got past thinking about himself…He just

went on looking at Aslan” and it “didn’t seem to matter what the Witch said.”87 From this, it is apparent that Edmund has lost his blind focus on himself and instead sees matters from the proper perspective because he is focusing his thoughts and attention on Aslan. He has turned away from himself and back to “him [God/Aslan] who supremely is,”88 which Augustine

suggests is an essential part of humility. There is the understanding that if he were to look at himself, his opened eyes would reveal to him the wretchedness of his past actions as well as his own unworthiness of the grace of Aslan, but he has already moved far enough along the path of humility that he has passed beyond self-focus (even in the “humble” way of thinking about his

faults) to the point of caring only for Aslan and trusting in him.

85 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 128. 86 Lewis, Lion, 165. 87 Lewis, Lion, 175. 88 Augustine, City of God, 477. 21

Prince Caspian

In Lewis’s second Narnia story, Prince Caspian (published in 1951), these themes of

pride as blindness and humility as sight are present among a range of characters, and there are

many notable pairs of characters who function in inverse relationships to one another, with one

character being notably prideful while the other character demonstrates humility. Included

among these contrasting pairings are Miraz set against Caspian, and Susan opposite Lucy.

Early on in the story of Caspian’s upbringing, Miraz and Caspian have contrasting

responses to the stories of Old Narnia. Caspian loved to listen to the stories his nurse would tell,

and through youthful ignorance, he made the mistake of mentioning in front of his uncle Miraz

that he wished he “could have lived in the Old Days.”89 Miraz, demonstrating his pride through

his contempt for stories about the Old Days, immediately dismisses the stories, telling Caspian,

“That’s all nonsense, for babies…You’re getting too old for that sort of stuff.” After

reprimanding Caspian, Miraz ends their talk with a warning: “And never let me catch you talking

– or thinking either – about all those silly stories again.”90 By ignoring the truth of the “fairy

tales” he scoffs over, Miraz fails to see reality and recognize the threat to his power that comes

when the talking Narnian animals later band together to meet him in battle. As king, Miraz

falsely sees himself as above that which he rules over (despite the fact that he is a usurper to the throne and not rightfully king), so he is blind to the stirrings outside his castle and to how miserable the country is under his high taxes and “stern” laws.91 This blindness to reality thus not only causes him to view the “fairy tales” with contempt since he cannot see their truth, but it also eventually brings about his undoing, as he remains blind to reality until it is too late to change his fate.

89 C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian (New York: HarperCollins, 1951), 334. 90 Lewis, Prince Caspian, 335. 91 Lewis, Prince Caspian, 341. 22

Furthermore, in scoffing over the humble stories, Miraz demonstrates a similarity to the

pride of some of the philosophers, which was something Augustine condemned in several of his

writings. In one section of The Trinity, Augustine discusses the philosophers’ notion of “do-it- yourself purification” and raises the question, “But what good does it do a man who is so proud that he is ashamed to climb aboard the wood [of the cross]…?”92 Just as some philosophers were

too proud to humbly let go of their notions of self-sufficiency and accept Christ’s sacrifice

without scorn, Miraz’s pride gets in the way of his ability to view the stories of Aslan without

scorn.

In contrast to Miraz, Caspian was enthralled by the stories of Narnia’s history and the Old

Days, and in choosing the humble route of seeking to serve the Narnians instead of trying to set

himself above the stories and the creatures as Miraz had done, Caspian is eventually led into his

rightful, fulfilling position as king over Narnia. Caspian first learns of his rightful position—both

as a Telmarine foreigner to Narnia and as the rightful king of Narnia—through the instruction of

Doctor Cornelius, who as a half-dwarf represents a connection to the Old Days and still holds on

to stories of that time. Furthermore, it is through gaining the trust of the Talking Beasts that

Caspian finds support for his position of kingship, and when he eventually meets Miraz and his

troops in battle, it is with an army of Old Narnians. Therefore, because Caspian is humble, he is

able to see things more clearly, unlike Miraz, who remains blind throughout his reign to anything

but his own desire for power and the kingship.

In fact, not only does Miraz’s blind, domineering pride bring about the battle by instilling

animosity toward him among the Narnians, but it also makes him blind to the treachery of his

advisors, Glozelle and Sopesian, as they trick him into meeting Peter in single combat and

ultimately bring about Miraz’s doom. When Edmund comes with Peter’s challenge to Miraz,

92 Augustine, Trinity, 167. 23

Glozelle and Sopesian decide to manipulate Miraz into agreeing to the challenge so that Miraz would either “kill or be killed.” Either result would benefit the two advisors, since with the first they would win the war, and with the second they could still step in to win the war and would benefit by being “both victorious and kingless,” leaving the rule of the country open for them to usurp.93 By subtly playing to Miraz’s pride of seeking to maintain his dignity by making it look like refusing Peter’s challenge would cause others to view Miraz as either a coward or an old man, the advisors are successful in getting Miraz to agree to single combat, despite the fact that he had the military advantage of a larger, stronger army than Caspian’s forces. As a result of

Miraz’s pride in himself blinding him to the treachery and manipulation of his advisors, he engages Peter in combat and ends up giving Glozelle the opportunity to murder him, thereby bringing about his downfall through his death.

Though Miraz lost his kingship through his prideful quest for power and domination over others, Caspian ascends to the throne through his humility. As mentioned above, Caspian’s humility helped him become aware of his rightful claim to the throne and helped bring about the events that enabled him to claim that position of authority, but he continues to demonstrate his humility right up through his encounter with Aslan. When Aslan greets Caspian, he asks, “Do you feel yourself sufficient to take up the Kingship of Narnia?” In an answer exemplifying his humility, Caspian replies, “I – I don’t think I do, Sir. I’m only a kid.” Aslan commends his humility, saying, “If you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been a proof that you were not.”94 As Kathryn Lindskoog notes, “Aslan [in the Narnia stories] commended every display of humbleness,”95 and this is an example of such a case.

93 Lewis, Prince Caspian, 399. 94 Lewis, Prince Caspian, 411. 95 Lindskoog, Journey into Narnia, 57. 24

Furthermore, Aslan’s action of exalting the humble Caspian exemplifies the Bible verses

speaking of Christ exalting the humble, which was a key element of Scripture that Augustine

brought up in his writings. Among the numerous verses that Augustine quotes on this subject

throughout his writings, he quotes the second part of Luke 18:14 (“For everyone who exalts

himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”96) in eight97 of his

sermons, thus showing that it was an important aspect of humility in Augustine’s teachings.

Augustine even calls Christ “the over-thrower of pride, the exalter of humility.”98 Thus, it is only

fitting that Aslan, the ‘Christ’ figure in Narnia, take on the same role as Christ in exalting the

humble.

In addition to being able to see the blindness of pride and the sight that comes with

humility through the contrasted pairing of Miraz and Caspian, there is also a similar contrast

between Susan and Lucy when their group is trying to decide on the best route to the place where

the Narnian army is camped. When Lucy first sees Aslan on top of the gorge, only Edmund is

willing to humbly trust her and take that route, but the others still treat her kindly enough when they choose a different route. Later on, though, when Lucy meets Aslan that night and is directed to wake the others and get them to follow her as she follows him (though he would be invisible to them at first), Susan becomes much more spiteful. She dismisses the validity of Lucy’s claim to see Aslan when they cannot by saying snappily, “No, of course I can’t [see anything]…Because there isn’t anything to see. She’s been dreaming.”99 She then tells Lucy to

just go back to sleep, since that is what she herself wants to do and is therefore demonstrating her prideful focus on herself. Just as how Edmund had done back in The Lion, the Witch and the

96 Luke 18.14b (New International Version). 97 Sermons 16B.4, 36.11, 53.1, 60A.4, 115.2, 136A.3, 136B.2, 290.7. 98 Augustine, Sermon 198.32, found in Works of Saint Augustine, Vol. 11, 204. 99 Lewis, Prince Caspian, 383. 25

Wardrobe, Susan acts as if she is superior to Lucy because she is older than her, saying, “You’ve no right to try to force the rest of us like that. It’s four to one and you’re the youngest.”100 Susan views their age difference in such a way as to gain a false sense of superiority from her elevation position in the age hierarchy, and as a result, she assume that Aslan would reveal himself to her before he would to Lucy.. Even when the others decide to follow Lucy’s lead, Susan continues to be sulky and complain, thinking only of herself and her own comfort and wishes.

Not only does this behavior illustrate Susan’s pride, but the whole episode of the children’s night march illustrates the connection of blindness and pride, with sight coming as people begin to move from pride to humility. Lucy sees Aslan first because she is the most open to seeing him, whereas the others rely on their own judgment and are lights unto themselves (or, as Augustine phrased it in The City of God, “man regards himself as his own light, and turns away from that light which would make man himself a light if he would set his heart on it.”101).

As they walked through the night, Lucy let go of the retorts she would like to make to Susan’s remarks and “forgot them when she fixed her eyes on Aslan.”102 Over the course of their walk, the other children begin to see Aslan one by one. Edmund is the next one of the children to see

Aslan, because he had been the humblest in trusting Lucy’s sighting of Aslan, whereas Susan does not see Aslan until last of the children. Instead of seeing him because she was humble, though, it seems that his appearance is the circumstance that humbles her, forcing her to tell

Lucy, “I see him now. I’m sorry.”103 Even though the sight came before the humility in this case, it is still involved with a transition from pride to humility because it is what humbles Susan. As evidence of her humility, she goes on to confess to Lucy that she has been “far worse than you

100 Lewis, Prince Caspian, 384. 101 Augustine, The City of God, trans. Henry Bettenson (London: Penguin Books, 1984), 573. 102 Lewis, Prince Caspian, 384. 103 Lewis, Prince Caspian, 386. 26

know”104 and fears to approach Aslan when they arrive at the camp, showing that she is at least

aware of how prideful she has been in thinking herself superior to Lucy, which is, as Lewis said, the first step toward humility.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Another story that features both prideful and humble characters whose contrasts highlight

the qualities of their counterpart characters is Lewis’s third Narnia tale, The Voyage of the Dawn

Treader (published in 1952). In this story, the main character who struggles with pride is Eustace

Clarence Scrubb, the cousin of the Pevensie children. Eustace’s pride is contrasted with the

humble actions of other characters in the story, but even some of the humble characters deal with

bouts of pride themselves, suggesting that it is always a danger, even for the humble.

Even from the narrator’s description of him on the first page, the reader starts to sense

that Eustace is a spiteful, mean character who pridefully sees himself as better than others.

Among other undesirable traits, Eustace “liked bossing and bullying” others, even his cousins.

When they are on board the Dawn Treader, Eustace continually complains about everything

(lodging, food, the ways the others treat him, and so on) and selfishly begrudges the fact that

Lucy, as a lady, gets a room to herself. Though he displays his pride and selfishness in several

ways, one of the notable places where it comes into contrast with the humility of others is when

they have to start rationing food and, especially, water aboard the ship. With the food, Eustace

complains in his diary that he “got less than anyone,” and he is blind to the generosity of Lucy in

offering him some of her food, thinking only what an “interfering prig” Edmund is for not letting

her actually give Eustace any of her own food.105 Lucy’s selflessness can be attributed to her

104 Lewis, Prince Caspian, 386. 105 Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (New York: HarperCollins, 1952), 457. 27

humility, since she is thinking of Eustace’s needs over her own, despite the fact that she is a

queen. This humility also enables Lucy to look beyond Eustace’s priggishness and to see him as

person who deserves compassion despite his faults. Her humble generosity brings Eustace’s

selfishness into sharper relief, showing that his pride consists of blindly thinking himself better

than the others and actually deserving of the food Lucy started to offer.

Eustace demonstrates a similar attitude of blind pride when Lucy selflessly shares her

water ration with him, keeping it a secret so that Edmund or Caspian will not prevent her from

following through on her offer this time. As with the attempt to share her food, Lucy’s humility

allows her to see her cousin as a person worthy of sympathy even if he has not earned her

generosity, so she pretends that she does not need her water as much as Eustace does, saying that

“girls don’t get as thirsty as boys.”106 In his arrogance, Eustace takes this pathetic claim at face

value, writing in his diary, “I had often thought this but it ought to be more generally known at

sea.”107 The implication of the latter part of this phrase is that he thinks he personally should be getting more water than the others, or at least more than Lucy. Such selfish blindness to the truth would have been apparent to the reader on its own, but when taken in contrast with Lucy’s humble generosity, it seems downright despicable.

This same blindness to truth because of a prideful focus on himself is further

demonstrated when Eustace tries to steal water in the middle of the night and creates excuses to

justify his attempt. In making excuses to himself in his diary entry, he writes that he “woke up in

the night knowing [he] was feverish and must have a drink of water. Any doctor would have said

so.” He goes on to claim that he “never dreamed that this water-rationing would be meant to apply to a sick man,” and he was only trying to be quiet because he “thought it would be selfish

106 Lewis, Voyage, 458. 107 Lewis, Voyage, 458. 28

to wake” the others.108 Everyone else aboard the ship immediately sees through his excuses, even

if he has deceived himself and is blind to his true motives. Though his professed explanation for

his actions seems innocent to him, it reveals the pride of thinking himself more deserving of

water than the others (as a “sick man”) and thus exempt from the rules that apply to everyone

else. In seeking to make excuses for his own selfish behavior, Eustace exemplifies the type of

prideful behavior Augustine condemns in The City of God when he says that “even worse, and

more deserving of condemnation, is the pride shown in the search for an excuse, even when the

sins are clear as daylight.”109 Thus, not only does Eustace’s pride take the form of self-

superiority and selfishness, but it is also found in the need to justify his actions to himself and to

others. Eustace’s real motives were “clear as daylight” to everyone else aboard the ship, but he

was blind to a true understanding of himself and settled for a false version of reality.

Furthermore, Eustace’s selfish behavior here is seen in obvious contrast with

Reepicheep’s nobility in going without sleep in order to keep watch on the water supply. As

Reepicheep explains, he is “too small to be any use on deck,” so he chose to help out by doing

“sentry over the water every night so that one more man could go to sleep.”110 Unlike Eustace’s

self-centeredness, Reepicheep humbly helps out in whatever ways he is able to, gladly putting

others’ need for sleep over his own.

Eustace’s selfish pride reaches its pinnacle when his greedy concern for self-gain causes him to turn into a dragon, and it is this event which reveals his blindness giving way to sight in looking upon himself and others and which ultimately leads to his humbling encounter with

Aslan. When Eustace first wakes up as a dragon and begins to hear the sounds of a dragon moving around in the cave, he panics and thinks there is dragon in the cave with him because he

108 Lewis, Voyage, 457. 109 Augustine, City of God, 574. 110 Lewis, Voyage, 458. 29

is unaware that it is actually himself who turned into a dragon. The key moment comes when he

flees to the pool of water and sees his own reflection, and “in an instant he realized the truth” that

he has become a dragon on the outside to match the “dragonish thoughts in his heart.”111 This is

an important moment of self-discovery for Eustace, as the very fact that he can “see” himself for

the first time suggests the recognition of his pride and selfish greed, and this recognition is

(according to Lewis) the “first step” toward acquiring humility.112 As part of his increased

understanding of himself, Eustace realizes that he no longer wants to get revenge on Edmund or

Caspian, nor does he want to use his newfound power to force them to do what he wants; instead,

he just “wanted to be friends” and to be “back among humans and talk and laugh and share

things” (emphasis added). Not only does his selfishness seem to be waning, but he also begins to

have a clearer understanding of the others: he “began to see that the others had not really been

fiends at all”113 (emphasis added), and he “realized now that Caspian would never have sailed away and left him.”114 With his blindness falling away and his sight increasing, Eustace is able to

see others as they truly are, without his blinding pride interfering with his perception. His

newfound humbleness as a dragon even leads him to be “anxious to help,” doing everything from

scouting the island and bringing back a pine tree to make into a new mast, to providing

provisions for the ship and allowing the others to lean against him for warmth on cold nights.115

The culmination of Eustace’s humbling comes with his un-dragoning at the hands of

Aslan. Though Eustace tried to “undress himself” of his dragon skin on his own, he finally

realized that he was unable to do more than peel off outer layers and had to surrender himself to

111 Lewis, Voyage, 466. 112 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 466. 113 Lewis, Voyage, 466. 114 Lewis, Voyage, 467. 115 Lewis, Voyage, 471. 30

Aslan to “let him do it” instead.116 Eustace’s humble surrender to Aslan fits with Augustine’s statement that “devout humility makes the mind subject to what is superior,” and “nothing is superior to God”117 (or Aslan, in this case). By acknowledging his own inability and submitting to Aslan’s authority, Eustace reaches his humblest point yet, showing that he has finally let go of his need for control and his former notions about his own excellence. The narrator notes that he often “had relapses” after this point, but the important step of recognition had been taken and he

“began to be a different boy”118 overall after his experience as a dragon.

While Eustace’s journey from pride to the beginnings of humility is the key example of prideful behavior among the characters in the story, some of the generally humble characters are not without their own periods of prideful behavior as well, most notably Lucy and Caspian.

Though she is usually the most humble of all of the characters in the Narnia series, Lucy falls prey to both the competitive and the self-justifying forms of pride when she is reading the

Magician’s Book and comes upon the spell to make her “beautiful…beyond the lot of mortals.”119 In desiring to be more beautiful than anyone else—and in particular, more beautiful than Susan—Lucy demonstrates Lewis’s notion of pride being in “the comparison…the pleasure of being above the rest.”120 This is also similar to Gareth B. Matthews’s statement that “many acts of pride…are often motivated by contempt for other creatures or by a desire for superiority over them.”121 Lucy is not satisfied with her own beauty and it seems she would only gain satisfaction by being more beautiful than Susan.

116 Lewis, Voyage, 474. 117 Augustine, City of God, 572. 118 Lewis, Voyage, 476. 119 Lewis, Voyage, 495. 120 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 122. 121 Gareth B. Matthews, ed., The Augustinian Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 312. 31

Furthermore, even though she seems to know she should not say the spell, she pridefully

declares, “I will say the spell. I don’t care. I will.”122 In trying to justify her actions to herself by

saying this, she demonstrates the truth of Augustine’s claim that humans after the fall “live ‘by

the rule of self,’ and to live by the rule of self is to ‘become like the Devil,’ in whom ‘pride

reigns’ as the ‘fountain-head’ of all transgression.”123 In acting according to her own rules

instead of in accordance with a sense of right and wrong, Lucy is guilty of the same pride that

Augustine saw as being at the root of the Devil’s fall from Heaven. Notably, Lucy demonstrates

blindness during her lapse into pride. When Aslan appears to her after she says the spell “to

make hidden things visible,” he reveals that he did not just arrive but had in fact “been [there] all

the time” and had only been invisible to Lucy at first. In her moments of prideful concern with

becoming more beautiful, she is literally blind to Aslan’s presence because he is invisible to her.

It is only when she demonstrates obedience in reciting the spell she had been sent there to find

(by the invisible inhabitants of the island)—which signifies humility on her part because of its

inherent connection with obedience (Augustine stated that “obedience can belong only to the

humble”124)—that she is able to see Aslan and be gently reprimanded for the wrongdoing her lapse into pride brought about.

Lucy is not the only humble character who temporarily falls into pride, however. Though

Caspian had originally set out on his voyage to track down the seven missing Narnian lords, he

stubbornly tries to send the Dawn Treader back without him and sail on with Reepicheep to “see the World’s End.”125 The children, Reepicheep, and a couple of the crew members try to remind

Caspian of his duty to Narnia and why he cannot just “please [himself] with adventures as if [he]

122 Lewis, Voyage, 496. 123 Augustine qtd. in Russell R. Reno, “Pride and Idolatry,” Interpretation 60, no. 2 (2006): 172. 124 Augustine, City of God, 572. 125 Lewis, Voyage, 537. 32 were a private person,” but in response to their opposition, Caspian becomes irritable and prideful about his position of power, similar to how his uncle, Miraz, had pridefully been concerned with power in Prince Caspian. In his pride, Caspian speaks of the others aboard as his

“subjects,” not his “schoolmasters,”126 displaying an uncharacteristic haughtiness and show of power on his part, and when Edmund agrees with Reepicheep that Caspian will have to be forcibly disarmed and restrained if he will not listen, he (Caspian) becomes angry enough to start to reach for his sword. In this, he demonstrates the aspect of pride Donald Burt was talking about when he stated that pride “makes us think we are answerable to no one else; indeed, it convinces us that we are better than everyone else.”127 Caspian’s pride in this instance led him to think that he is above all the others on board (even those who are older than him) and can do whatever he pleases just because he is the king.

When Caspian finally does concede his desire to sail on, however, he selfishly determines that “the quest is ended” and that they are “all” going to return,128 ignoring the protests of

Reepicheep, who has a rightful claim to continuing on to the World’s End because, among other reasons, that was the agreed-upon motive for him joining the voyage in the first place.129 In forgetting both his own proper duty and the prophesied destiny for Reepicheep at the World’s

End, Caspian is guilty of the pride Augustine linked with forgetting one’s proper place. In writing about this Augustinian notion in relation to humility, Donald Burt notes that as part of being humble, “one must accept one’s place in reality, making oneself neither more nor less than

126 Lewis, Voyage, 537. 127 Burt, Friendship & Society, 8. 128 Lewis, Voyage, 538. 129 Lewis, Voyage, 433. 33

what one actually is.”130 Therefore, in not conforming to the role he is supposed to fill, Caspian

acts contrary to humility, which is to act in a prideful manner.

Throughout this episode, Caspian remains blind to reason and to his duty, and unlike

Edmund in LWW (who was blinded by another, as well as by himself), Caspian’s blindness is

brought on completely by himself and his own pride, both in his position of power and in his competition with others aboard (as seen in his attempt to use his power to elevate himself above

them and exempt himself from the normal statutes that would term his plans ‘deserting’ if he

were a regular crew member). It is only when Aslan speaks to Caspian in his cabin through the

“gold lion’s head on the wall” that his usual humbleness is restored and he is able to view the

situation clearly. He realizes that he acted wrongly with his “temper and swagger,”131 and he

humbly submits to Aslan’s command that he return to Narnia and let Reepicheep and the

children go on to the World’s End without him.

While it is enjoyable to witness characters moving from pride to humility, one may be

tempted to think that once the character reaches a humble state, either through an encounter with

Aslan or through being convicted in some other way, he or she will continue to live humbly from

that point onward. This is not so, however. Lewis himself stated that “pride is a perpetual

nagging temptation,”132 and he even admitted that it was his “besetting sin.”133 Therefore,

through the examples of Eustace, Lucy, and Caspian in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Lewis

reveals a truth he had learned personally: that pride is always something people need to be on

their guard against, since even the most humble can experience relapses.

130Burt, Friendship & Society, 49. 131 Lewis, Voyage, 538. 132 Lewis to Genia Goelz, 1952, in Collected Letters, Vol. 3, 191. 133 Lewis to Arthur Greeves, 1930, in Collected Letters, Vol. 1, 878. 34

The Silver Chair

Lewis’s fourth Narnia tale, The Silver Chair (published in 1953), continues the theme of

presenting characters who are in contrast with each other’s pride or humility. As with Eustace in

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, one of the main characters in this story struggles with pride,

even though she becomes more humble by the end and ends up being a beloved character in the

final Narnia tale. Ironically, it is Eustace in this story who must deal with the trials of pride in

another, since the prideful character in question is his schoolmate, Jill Pole.

Jill’s pride mainly consists of not seeing the truth about herself and of focusing on herself

instead of on Aslan’s instructions. The former (seeing herself as other than what she is in reality)

is brought on by herself (in other words, she blinds herself to seeing the truth) and is most

apparent in the first few minutes she spends with Eustace on the Mountain of Aslan. When

Eustace pulls her back from the edge of the cliff to protect her from potentially falling, Jill gets

“annoyed” with him for treating her “just as if [she] was a kid,”134 thus showing that she does not

see the truth that she is a child. She is the type that is not scared of heights, and though she is just

“lucky” to have that trait and it is not something that she acquired of her own merit, it is evident

that she takes pride in it. When she sees how “very white” Eustace’s face turned because of his

fear of heights, “she despised him,” thinking herself better than him because she does not share

the same fear. In her pride, she foolishly chooses to show off in front of Eustace by standing

“very near the edge…a good deal nearer than even she liked.”135 As a result of such blinding

pride in wishing to be something other than what she really is (an adult instead of a “kid”), Jill becomes paralyzed with fear, and when Eustace selflessly ignores his own fears to try to save her, he ends up falling over the edge of the cliff. If it were not for Aslan appearing and saving

134 C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair, (New York: HarperCollins, 1953), 554. 135 Lewis, Silver Chair, 554. 35

Eustace, Jill’s pride might have brought about Eustace’s death. As it is, her pride complicated their task, in large part because she is now the only one present for Aslan to entrust the directions to for the mission he is sending her and Eustace on, and she needed to learn the signs for their mission by herself.

Perhaps the most problematic way Jill’s pride interferes with the mission, though, is in how she fails to remain focused upon Aslan’s signs and instead allows her own wish for comfort to distract her from the task. After encountering the Green Lady and the silent knight, all that Jill

(and Eustace) can think about is getting to Harfang and having hot baths, warm beds, and good food. Only Puddleglum keeps his attention fixed on the mission and consistently trusts in and looks for Aslan’s signs. In fact, despite his pessimistic outlook on life, Puddleglum is actually the most humble of the main characters in the story, because he is the most obedient of the three travelers, and Augustine linked obedience with humility.

From Augustine’s perspective, Christ is the ultimate example of humility. According to

Augustine, Christ came “in order that the pride of man might be exposed and cured through the humility of God…that an example might be set to disobedient man in the life of obedience of the

God-Man.”136 Augustine saw Christ’s death upon the cross as demonstrating the type of obedience that is an inherent part of humility. As he asked in The Trinity, “what greater example of obedience could be given to us, us who had been ruined by disobedience, than God the Son obeying God the Father even to death on the cross…?”137 Furthermore, Augustine believed that

“obedience can belong only to the humble,” since in order to be obedient, one must be humble enough to submit to the authority of another. As Augustine stated, “devout humility makes the

136 Augustine, Enchiridion, 126. 137 Augustine, Trinity, 361. 36

mind subject to what is superior,” and “nothing is superior to God.”138 Therefore, obedience can be seen as a sign of humility, since humility is a prerequisite for obedience.

When considering Augustine’s thoughts on the connection between humility and

obedience, one can see how this distinguishes the difference between Puddleglum and Jill in

terms of humility and pride. Puddleglum’s humble obedience is in contrast to Jill’s self- centeredness, especially when they first come upon the ruined giant city and are unaware of it.

Jill and Eustace are blinded by their desire to reach Harfang and do not pay attention to their surroundings or notice the suspiciously “squarish rocks” that would have suggested ruins “if

[they] looked at them carefully, but no one did,”139 since the children, at least, had thoughts only

for their own comfort. Their blindness is partially self-inflicted through their selfish concern with comfort, but it is largely brought on by external forces, since the Green Lady sought to monopolize their focus on Harfang instead of on their task. When they are among the ruins, it is

Puddleglum who brings up the signs, asking Jill, “Are you still sure of those signs, Pole? What’s the one we ought to be after, now?” Intent upon her own wishes to reach Harfang and get out of the snow, Jill dismisses his inquiry in annoyance, saying “Oh, come on! Bother the signs.”140 If

Jill had been obedient and had kept to her duty of remembering and looking for the signs, they

might have realized where they were and avoided the dangers of Harfang, but she had “[given]

up her habit of repeating the signs over to herself every night and morning”141 ever since meeting

the Green Lady, so by this point they were far from her thoughts and not easy to recall.

Puddleglum was focused on the signs enough to suspect that Jill mixed up the order, and he

persists for awhile in trying to get the children to pause to examine their surroundings. Both Jill

138 Augustine, City of God, 572. 139 Lewis, Silver Chair, 593. 140 Lewis, Silver Chair, 595. 141 Lewis, Silver Chair, 591. 37

and Eustace are set on going to Harfang and ignore him, however, so he eventually gives up and

they do not discover their error until they are within Harfang as virtual prisoners. Still, the fact

that Puddleglum “did see, or nearly” saw that their surroundings “looked uncommonly like a

ruined city”142 fits with the notion of having a better ability to see his surroundings than the other

two in their prideful blindness because he is more humble than they are at this point, since he is

at least trying to submit to Aslan’s authority by recognizing (i.e., seeing) and obeying the signs.

Even the difference between Jill’s and Puddleglum’s reactions to discovering they had

missed the writing on the ruins reveals the contrast between his humility and her pride. Though

Eustace tells Puddleglum, “You’re the only one who isn’t to blame. You did try to make us

stop,” Puddleglum does not accept the excusal from blame. Instead, he realizes that he “didn’t try

hard enough” and could have stopped them if he had chosen to exert himself more forcefully.143

In accepting blame for something in which he was the least at fault of the three, Puddleglum

further reveals the dissimilarity between Jill and himself.

Jill admits she was wrong for not remembering the signs, but in wondering how they

“didn’t see the lettering” when they were among the ruins, she looks for excuses, hoping that

perhaps Aslan did not put the writing there until after they had been there the night before.144

Just like how Eustace in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader had made excuses to justify his attempt to steal water, Jill’s search for a way to shift the blame is the same type of self-justifying pride Augustine saw evidenced in “the search for an excuse, even when the sins are clear as daylight.”145 Augustine saw this behavior present in Adam and Eve’s behavior in trying to cast

off their own guilt on another, pointing out that it was “their pride [that] seeks to pin the wrong

142 Lewis, Silver Chair, 604. 143 Lewis, Silver Chair, 604. 144 Lewis, Silver Chair, 604. 145 Augustine, City of God, 574. 38 act on another…as if anything should have priority over God in a claim for credence or obedience!”146 In light of this, then, even Eustace can be seen as more humble than Jill here, since he acknowledges their failure. He points out that Jill’s explanation seems easier to deal with, since “then it would have been [Aslan’s] fault, not ours,” that they missed the writing. He rejects this notion, though, stating, “We must just own up. We’ve only four signs to go by, and we’ve muffed the first three.”147

Furthermore, the humblest mode of conduct for the children would have been to fully submit to Aslan’s authority and to realize that his signs should be followed regardless of how much that obedience may interfere with their own comfort. They need to reach a level of humility that will allow them to fully trust in Aslan and his instructions as Puddleglum does, which he demonstrates when he declares, “Aslan’s instructions always work: there are no exceptions.”148

The Horse and His Boy

Another of Lewis’s Narnia tales that features contrasting pairings of prideful and humble characters is The Horse and His Boy (published in 1954). The most notable among these pairings are the two children, Shasta and Aravis, and the two horses, Bree and Hwin.

One character pairing that highlights the themes of pride and humility in the story is that of Shasta and Aravis. Throughout the story, Shasta remains consistently humble, continuing to see himself and others accurately despite his changing circumstances. At the beginning of the tale, his situation as the son of a poor Calormene fisherman is so lowly as to make pride absurdly unlikely. His humility does not change, however, even when he discovers his true identity as

146 Augustine, City of God, 574. 147 Lewis, Silver Chair, 604. 148 Lewis, Silver Chair, 605. 39

Prince Cor, the crown prince of Archenland (a country between the borders of Narnia and

Calormen) and has reason to become prideful and haughty over his station and the fact that he

saved Archenland from grave danger. Instead, when he returns to the Hermit’s dwelling to talk

with Aravis, he is embarrassed to be announced by a herald and to have Aravis see him in fine

clothes instead of in his old rags and hurries to tell her (in a way that is further evidence of his

continued humility) that he is not trying to show off or “impress” her.149 Even when Shasta (Cor)

has a momentary lapse in his humility by adopting a “rather lordly tone” as he talks of his battle

wound as “a mere scratch,” such boastful, self-superior pride is dispelled “a moment later” as he

“burst[s] out laughing” at his uncharacteristic haughtiness and resumes his regular humbleness,

admitting that it “isn’t a proper wound at all.”150 In sticking to the truth and being able to laugh at himself for trying to act prideful, Shasta/Cor shows that he is truly humble at heart, despite his changed circumstances.

Aravis, on the other hand, is proud and haughty for much of the tale, which is even more clear when her pride is contrasted with Shasta’s humility. As Peter J. Schakel notes, “In contrast to both Shasta and Hwin,” Aravis “is haughty and self-centered, as is seen especially in her indifferent attitude toward the punishment that the servant…will receive.”151 Along these lines,

Paul F. Ford points out that Aravis’s “arrogance is especially revealed in her attitude toward

Shasta, whom she initially takes to be a common horsethief. Learning otherwise, she

nevertheless shows her ignobility by resenting his inclusion on the journey to Narnia [since it is

apparent that in her prideful sense of self-superiority, she does not consider him important

enough to be worth her attention]. Furthermore, his sensitivity to her maidservant’s fate offends

149 Lewis, The Horse and His Boy (New York: HarperCollins, 1954), 300. 150 Lewis, Horse, 301. 151 Peter J. Schakel, The Way into Narnia: a Reader’s Guide (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2005), 86. 40 her. Thus she speaks to him only when necessary.”152 As a princess from Calormen (known as a

Tarkheena), Aravis is accustomed to being elevated above most others, and her insensitivity to the treatment of the servant reveals her belief in her own superiority. The fact that Shasta and

Aravis view the servant’s punishment differently reveals the difference between how his humility allows him to view the matter more clearly, whereas Aravis’s prideful air of superiority blinds her to the cruelty and injustice of her attitude. It must be noted that much of Aravis’s pride in this manner is the result of her upbringing and the cultural customs that applied to those in the nobility, such as herself. This is similar to the pride Augustine saw in earthly rulers who rejected

Christian humility. In his Enchiridion, he stated that Christ’s example of humility was “‘for kings, and for all that are in authority,’ who might be supposed, in the pride and pomp of worldly station, to shrink from the humility of the Christian faith.”153 Therefore, even though some of her

‘blindness’ is imposed on her by external influences, she cannot be excused from being held accountable for that pride. Like Edmund in LWW, she accepted and internalized these notions and thus is still responsible for her blinding pride.

Not only are the children inverses when it comes to pride and humility, but so are the two horses. In fact, other than Prince Rabadash from Calormen, Bree is the most prideful character for much of the story. Throughout the tale, Bree’s words and actions reveal him to be filled with pride, vanity, and self-conceit. One aspect of his background that Bree prides himself on is his status as a war horse. As Schakel notes, “Bree’s attitude is marked by pride in his class and status.”154 Similar to how Aravis’s position as a princess had affected the way she viewed those who were socially beneath her, this status of Bree’s gives him an air of superiority, blinding him to accurately ‘seeing’ the merit and quality of those who are socially inferior to him. In many

152 Paul F. Ford, Companion to Narnia (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1980), 8-9. 153 Augustine, Enchirdion, 121. 154 Schakel, Way into Narnia, 86. 41 places, this prideful superiority makes Bree condescending toward those he views as inferior to him, such as Shasta and Hwin. Right from the start of their journey, Bree comments to Shasta that it is “funny to think of me who has led cavalry charges and won races having a potato sack like you in the saddle.”155 Indeed, if it were not for the fact that he needed Shasta as a rider in order to not raise suspicion in his journey to Narnia, it is arguable that Bree might be too proud to let one as lowly as Shasta ride him at all.

Later, Hwin humbly suggests that they disguise themselves by having packs on their backs and the children dressed in rags leading them so “people will think we’re only pack- horses.” Aravis responds “rather scornfully” to this, saying, “As if anyone could mistake Bree for anything but a war-horse however you disguise him!” While this in itself would not necessarily be evidence of any conceit on the part of Bree, he reveals his sense of superiority when he indignantly exclaims, “I should think not, indeed,”156 showing that he fully agrees with

Aravis’ acknowledgment of his stature. The fact that the two prideful travelers both react scornfully to Hwin’s plan further highlights their own prideful haughtiness because it is set against the contrast of Hwin’s humility.

In thinking so much of himself, Bree exemplifies the competitive aspect of pride Lewis spoke of in Mere Christianity when he said, “It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest.”157 Bree definitely thinks he is above those he has been around in Calormen, as well as above his traveling companions. Because Aravis is a princess, he views her as closer to himself in status, but because she is younger than he is, he would still view himself as superior to her as well as to the other two.

155 Lewis, Horse, 211. 156 Lewis, Horse, 226. 157 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 122. 42

Another aspect of his past that Bree derives a sense of self-satisfaction from is the fact

that he is a talking horse of Narnia, instead of a “dumb and witless” horse like those found in

Calormen.158 In fact, a lot of Bree’s vanity stems from his concern for adhering to behavior that

is fitting for a talking horse, and he is continually plagued by the fear that certain behaviors

might only be fitting for “dumb” horses. One such habit that is of enormous consequence in

Bree’s mind is the issue of whether it is dignified enough for a talking horse like him to roll in

the grass. When Shasta first sees Bree roll in the grass, he laughs and says, “You do look funny

when you’re on your back!” Bree at first dismisses this as untrue, but after a few moments he

starts worrying about whether Shasta is right, earnestly asking, “You don’t think…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.”159 In saying this, Bree reveals his vain concern over how he appears to others, as well as

his own sense of superiority as a talking horse. He does not see that this rolling behavior may be something that is an enjoyment essential to being a horse, whether a talking or a regular one.

Because of his vanity, Bree is unable for the rest of the story to enjoy rolling on the grass in the presence of others. It does not matter to him that he loves rolling on his back or that he finds it

“most refreshing.”160 Instead, he behavior is dictated by his “swollen self-esteem”161 (as

Augustine referred to pride in one of his works), and all he cares about is not becoming

undignified.

Bree’s pride and vanity become even more pronounced when his behavior is contrasted

with that of the humble Hwin. When Hwin suggests that they cover themselves with mud and

158 Lewis, Horse, 209. 159 Lewis, Horse, 214-15. 160 Lewis, Horse, 214. 161 Augustine, Trinity, 162. 43 have their tails cut short and ragged in order to disguise themselves before entering Tashbaan,

Bree is loathe to do it. He incredulously asks Hwin, “Have you pictured to yourself how very disagreeable it would be to arrive in Narnia in that condition?”162 Hwin, who is less concerned about how others view her or about maintaining a sense of dignity, humbly points out that “the main thing is to get there.” At this point in the story, Lewis (through the narrator) labels her “a very sensible mare,”163 and her humble ability to be sensible and view their plight without selfish concern for her comfort or appearance enables her to see the best way for them to get through the city safely, and it stands in contrast to Bree’s vanity and pride in thinking that such a disguise is beneath his dignity and status as a talking, free horse of Narnia (which is a position that he sees as superior to the being a regular, “dumb” horse of another land). Because Bree’s concern with his appearance almost interfered with their ability to get through Calormen safely and on to

Narnia, he seems to be guilty of the type of pride Augustine condemned in humans who would not accept Christianity because they could not accept Christ’s humility in dying on the cross. As

Augustine asked, “But what good does it do a man who is so proud that he is ashamed to climb aboard the wood, what good does it do him to gaze from afar on the home country across the sea?”164 Just as with how the proud man Augustine was speaking of let his pride get in the way of returning to his “home country,” instead leaving him content to “gaze [on it] from afar,”

Bree’s pride (if left to itself) would have had the same effect. In focusing on himself and his appearance, Bree is temporarily blind to what is truly important, and that is to reach Narnia and freedom.

This issue of his tail comes up later as well, again as a hindrance to reaching the happiness and freedom of Narnia. When they are at the Hermit’s abode and Hwin points out that

162 Lewis, Horse, 226. 163 Lewis, Horse, 226. 164 Augustine, Trinity, 167. 44

they could start for Narnia, Bree is reluctant to leave immediately, saying that there is “no need

to rush.”165 When prompted for an explanation for his hesitancy, he fumblingly mutters

something about “returning to one’s country,” entering “the best society,” and how it is

“essential to make a good impression,” so they might want to wait because they are “not perhaps looking quite ourselves, yet.”166 Hwin starts laughing as she realizes that Bree is still worried

about his short tail. She good naturedly points out Bree’s vanity, exclaiming, “I see it all now

[emphasis added]. You want to wait till your tail’s grown again…really, Bree, you’re as vain as

[Aravis’s friend,] that Tarkheena in Tashbaan!”167 Unlike the humble Hwin (whose ‘sight’

enables her to see the true motive behind Bree’s hesitation to enter Narnia), Bree has not yet been fully humbled by Aslan and is still blind to his own pride in thinking himself important enough to worry about making a dignified entrance into Narnia; he thus denies such a charge, claiming that he just has “a proper respect for myself and for my fellow horses, that’s all.”168 As

before (when they were about to enter Calormen), Bree’s prideful concern with maintaining a

superior appearance (or, at least, not being seen as inferior to others) is reminiscent of

Augustine’s words in The Trinity about the proud man being prevented by his pride from

reaching his home country.169 Since Bree’s own words invite the comparison (with him speaking

of returning to his country) and his behavior parallels the situation Augustine condemned, it

seems that Bree is exemplifying the type of prideful vanity that Augustine condemned in the

other situation.

Furthermore, Bree’s self-centered pride at times blinds him to the needs of others. This

blindness is most notable in the scene where the travelers are fleeing from the lion (shortly

165 Lewis, Horse, 297. 166 Lewis, Horse, 298. 167 Lewis, Horse, 298. 168 Lewis, Horse, 298. 169 Augustine, Trinity, 167. 45

before arriving at the Hermit’s place) and it attacks Aravis. Amidst the danger and fleeing to

save his own life, Bree is blind to the fact that the lion was almost upon Hwin and Aravis. As the

humble character, Shasta is looking out for the safety of others, and when he sees that the other

two are in danger, he demands that they go back to help. In his panic, Bree is deaf to Shasta’s

orders and continues to run toward the safety of the Hermit’s garden, so Shasta ignores his own

fear and jumps from Bree’s back. Despite the fact that he “had no weapon, not even a stick or a

stone,” Shasta “lurch[ed] towards the brute”170 and shouted rather “idiotically” at it to “Go

home!”171 Though his efforts would never have worked if the lion had not actually been Aslan,

Shasta’s selfless bravery stands in stark contrast to Bree’s seeming cowardice.

The contrast in their reactions is apparent even to Bree, and it marks the first significant

point of him starting to regain some measure of sight as he realizes that for all his prideful

superiority as “a war-horse [who] boasted of a hundred fights,” he has been humbled “by a little

human boy…who had never held a sword nor had any good nurture or example in his life!”172

Still, though Bree has been humbled somewhat by fleeing from the lion, it seems that he is more

shamed than humbled. It is not so much that he did not notice the others’ danger and return to

help them himself, so much as the fact that Shasta did so while he did not. He reveals this as he

laments that Shasta “ran in the right direction: ran back. And that is what shames me most of all.”173 It is important to note that there is a distinction—however slight—between shame and

true humility. In wallowing in his disgrace, Bree’s thoughts are still bent on himself, so though it

is a start toward humility, it is an imperfect form. As Peter Schakel notes, “In facing this shame,

170 Lewis, Horse, 271. 171 Lewis, Horse, 272. 172 Lewis, Horse, 275. 173 Lewis, Horse, 275. 46

Bree learns a first and necessary—but not yet adequate—lesson in humility.”174 He starts to

think less of himself, but his mind still revolves on himself and his actions, which sets himself up

for the danger of falling back into self-centered pride, since Augustine in one place defined the

pride of the fallen angels as “turning towards themselves.”175 To avoid this danger, Lewis would

say, “It is better to forget about yourself altogether” when moving toward humility.176

Indeed, Bree demonstrates his shame in how he is now too embarrassed and “disgraced”

to stay in Narnia, asking, “How can I ever show my face among the free Horses of Narnia?”177 It takes the advice of the Hermit to put the matter into proper perspective: “My good Horse…If you are really so 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 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 special, you’ll be a very decent sort of Horse…”178 This is similar to Augustine’s advice to his

audience, reminding them to remember that they are only human: “for your sake God became

man, and are you not willing to recognize yourself for the man you are?”179 For both humanity

and Bree, humility is found in seeing oneself clearly and remembering that in order to avoid

temptations to elevate oneself to a higher position than one really holds. Still, Bree does not seem

to fully take to heart the Hermit’s words, since he resumes some of his vanity later on in their

stay with the Hermit, as is discussed above with how he does not want to enter Narnia with a

short tail. Instead, it takes Aslan to further this process of humbling.

174 Schakel, Way into Narnia, 89. 175 Augustine, City of God, 477. 176 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 125. 177 Lewis, Horse, 275. 178 Lewis, Horse, 275. 179 Augustine, Sermon 30.9, found in Works of Saint Augustine, Vol. 2, 128. 47

When Aslan arrives at the Hermit’s garden, the difference between Bree’s and Hwin’s

reactions highlights the way they contrast when it comes to pride and humility. As David

Downing states, “when Aslan first appears to…Bree and Hwin, their responses are quite

revealing. Bree, the proud warhorse, is so startled that he bolts away and doesn’t look back until

he comes to a wall too high for jumping,” whereas “the usually timid Hwin…trots toward the

great lion, not away from him.”180 Despite her fear, she gravitates to Aslan and tells him, “I’d

sooner be eaten by you than fed by anyone else.”181 Her humility makes her open to submitting

to Aslan’s authority, and he commends her for being “not…long in coming to me,” saying, “Joy

shall be yours.”182 In The Trinity, Augustine stated that human pride “is the greatest obstacle to

[them] cleaving to God,”183 so it would follow that with humility comes the removal of this

obstacle. Thus, it can be said that Aslan knew that Hwin would “not be long” in coming to him

because her humble nature did not present any obstacles to her doing so.

Unlike Hwin, Bree has reason to fear approaching Aslan. Just prior to Aslan’s

appearance, Bree had been once again displaying his haughty pride, “talking in a rather superior

tone” to Aravis as he condescendingly explained to her that Aslan was not really a lion and that

she would “hardly understand” considering her young age.184 In a striking parallel to the

blindness that comes with pride, Bree talked “with his eyes half shut” and was not aware of

Aslan’s presence until he felt one of Aslan’s whiskers brush his ear.185 Only Hwin and Aravis

saw Aslan right away, and even Aravis is more humble than Bree here, since she had been

humble enough to ask Bree about why he swore “By the Lion” all the time.

180 David Downing, Into the Wardrobe: C.S. Lewis and the Narnia Chronicles (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005), 95. 181 Lewis, Horse, 299. 182 Lewis, Horse, 299. 183 Augustine, Trinity, 361. 184 Lewis, Horse, 298. 185 Lewis, Horse, 299. 48

For both Bree and Aravis, the two main prideful characters in the story, their encounter with Aslan is what humbles them. In a scene reminiscent of Jesus appearing before “doubting

Thomas” after the resurrection, Aslan tells the “poor, proud frightened” Bree to “draw near” and, like Doubting Thomas, examine Aslan’s paws, tail, and whiskers to see that he is “a true

Beast,”186 though Bree had just previously laughed off such a notion. As a result of this encounter, Bree is forced to admit “in a shaken voice” that “I [Bree] must be rather a fool,” which is the most humble thing Bree has said up until this point in the story, and Aslan commends him for it, saying, “Happy the Horse who knows that while he is still young.”187 Such a humble admission marks the recognition of his foolish pride in thinking himself wise in matters on which he is actually ignorant, and it also suggests that Bree is starting down the path toward becoming more humble.

He is not fully humble yet, though. The fact that he still refuses to roll in the grass in front of others because he worries about the dignity of it shows that he still has his thoughts focused more on himself than on Aslan. The description of him looking “more like a horse going to a funeral than a long-lost captive returning to home and freedom”188 shows that he has yet to attain the freedom that comes with humility; the type of freedom Lewis spoke of when he said that humility allows people to feel the “infinite relief of having for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless and unhappy all your life.”189

Bree’s pride may have been humbled enough to remove the obstacle preventing him from going home (as with Augustine’s illustration190), but it is still present enough to prevent him from

186 Lewis, Horse, 299. 187 Lewis, Horse, 299. 188 Lewis, Horse, 303. 189 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 127. 190 Augustine, Trinity, 167. 49

enjoying his arrival. Even if Bree has not yet reached a true, lasting humility, he has at least

taken the important first step.

For Aravis, her humbling is three-fold, and her encounter with Aslan is the catalyst for

the first stage as well as being the necessary second stage. It was because Aslan attacked Aravis that Shasta demonstrated remarkable bravery and selflessness in going back to help, and it was this action that first humbles Aravis. In speaking of this humbling experience, Aravis says,

“Shasta was marvellous [sic]….I’ve been snubbing him and looking down on him ever since you

[Bree] met us and now he turns out to be the best of us all.”191 Through Shasta’s humility, Aravis

realizes that she is not better than him as her pride had led her to believe, and she begins to learn

what it means to be humble. As a result, she is able to recognize Shasta’s superior inner qualities

and to humbly “speak [with] equity”192 about them, which is an inherent part of humility, according to Augustine.

The second stage of her humbling also involves Aslan, as he teaches her a lesson in

thinking about others and not just herself. By inflicting scratches on her back while she was atop

Hwin just before they reached the hermit’s abode, he put her through the same pain that her

stepmother’s servant endured when she was whipped for Aravis’s escape. Earlier in the story,

Aravis had not cared at all that the servant girl would have suffered because of her. She had

“coolly” talked of how she would have been beaten, saying, “I am very glad they should beat

her,” because the girl was a spy of her stepmother’s.193 When Aslan explains to Aravis that the

wounds he gave her “were equal to the stripes laid on the back of your stepmother’s slave”

because Aravis “needed to know what it felt like,”194 she humbly accepts his just punishment and

191 Lewis, Horse, 275. 192 Augustine, Sermon 16B.2, found in Works of Saint Augustine, 363. 193 Lewis, Horse, 224. 194 Lewis, Horse, 299. 50

even expresses concern for whether the servant would suffer any more on her behalf. By moving

her thoughts off of herself and to concern for another’s welfare, Aravis shows she is more

humble than she was earlier in the story. As Augustine stated, the proud “[turn] towards

themselves,”195 so if Aravis is no longer focused only on herself, then it follows that she has become more humble.

Her humbling becomes complete when, as the third and final stage, she discovers that

Shasta is not a “nobody”196 after all but is actually the crown prince of Archenland. The irony of

the situation is that at the start of their journey, Aravis had looked down on Shasta and did not

think he was “good enough”197 for her since she was a princess and he was only the son of a poor

fisherman, but now their roles are reversed: Aravis is a relative ‘nobody’ in Narnia and

Archenland, while Shasta has now discovered his true identity as Prince Cor. Aravis’s newfound

humility is evidenced in her ability to accept Shasta’s elevated position of authority, because

Augustine stated that “devout humility makes the mind subject to what is superior.”198 Though

Aravis’s encounters with Aslan had done the majority of the humbling work, the process is

complete in the exaltation of the humble Shasta and the humbling of the formerly proud Aravis.

The Magician’s Nephew

In Lewis’s penultimate Narnia tale, The Magician’s Nephew (published in 1955), readers

are shown how sin first enters the newly created world of Narnia in the form of pride through the

ultimate prideful character: Jadis, who was commonly referred to as the White Witch in The

Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe tale. More than any other character in the Narnia stories, she

195 Augustine, City of God, 477. 196 Lewis, Horse, 253. 197 Lewis, Horse, 220. 198 Augustine, City of God, 572. 51

displays her pride in all three types aspects discussed by Lewis and Augustine (combined): an

obsession with power, having superiority over others, and seeking to justify her behavior by shifting the blame for her actions to others.

Jadis exudes pride right from the moment of her introduction into the story when Digory awakens her from a spell in the dying world of Charn. In her vanity and self-importance, she assumes that Digory and Polly have been sent by a “great Enchanter of [their] world” who saw the “shadow” of Jadis’s face through magical means and sent the children to fetch her “for the love of [her] beauty.” Her vain self-love is not the only aspect of her pride, however. While talking to the children, she basks in the former glory of Charn and in her power of destroying it long ago through her use of the Deplorable Word. In just telling of how she destroyed it, Jadis reveals several layers of the pride identified by Lewis and Augustine. She first of all shifts the blame from herself to another, saying that it “was my sister’s fault. She drove me to it.”199 In this, she is guilty of the same pride Eustace (in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) and Jill (in The

Silver Chair) had displayed in earlier stories: the pride shown in “the search for an excuse, even when the sins are clear as daylight,” which is a behavior Augustine condemned in The City of

God.200 Furthermore, when Jadis says that “her [sister’s] pride has destroyed the whole

world,”201 she reveals that she is blind to the obvious fact that it is her prideful quest for power,

not her sister’s, that destroyed Charn, since she is the one who demanded the throne and she is

the one who used the Deplorable Word in her own selfish drive for power. Moreover, Kathryn

Lindskoog connects this to Mere Christianity, because in there “Lewis points out that the more

pride one has, the more one dislikes pride in others,” and “Jadis exemplified this behavior when

199 Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew (New York: HarperCollins, 1955), 41. 200 Augustine, City of God, 574. 201 Lewis, Magician’s Nephew, 41. 52 she blamed the destruction of Charn upon her sister,” showing that “Jadis was incapable of realizing that it was her own pride that had caused the tragedy.”202

In fact, Jadis’s quest for power is one of her most notable manifestations of pride.

Augustine stated that prideful people have a “determined preference for power,”203 and this is definitely true of Jadis. As soon as she discovers that the children are from a “younger world,” a

“hungry and greedy look” came into her face because she realizes that she can escape from her own dying world into a younger one where she can rule for many more years. She even brags to the children that “with [her] beauty and [her] Magic” she will “have [their] whole world at [her] feet before a year has passed,”204 displaying her pride in her vanity and her prideful confidence in her own power to subjugate others (as well as her general desire for power and domination). In

England, she tries to subjugate everyone to her will, ranging from the cowering Uncle Andrew who obeys her every command to the brave cabby who tries to calm his horse down and to convince Jadis to get off the horse so she will not get injured.

In commanding others and expecting them to all bow down and obey her, Jadis demonstrates Lewis’s point about how “power is what Pride really enjoys: there is nothing [that] makes a man feel so superior to others as being able to move them about like toy soldiers.”205

She also exemplifies the prideful opposite to Augustine’s definition of humility in Book XIV of

The City of God, where he stated that “devout humility makes the mind subject to what is superior.”206 Since Jadis thinks herself superior to everyone else, she can be said to display

“devout” pride more than anything else. Indeed, Jadis does think that she can order others around

202 Lindskoog, Journey into Narnia, 57. 203 Augustine, Trinity, 162. 204 Lewis, Magician’s Nephew, 43. 205 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 123. 206 Augustine, City of God, 572. 53 as if they were “toy soldiers,” and she seems to gain a sense of satisfaction out of doing so, most likely because it gratifies her pride, as Lewis would say.

When Jadis encounters Aslan in Narnia, she runs up against a force stronger than her own, and her competitive pride causes her to hate Aslan immediately because he is above her in power. Aslan is the Christ-type figure in Narnia (more on that at the end of this section), and as

Augustine stated, “Nothing is superior to God,”207 so therefore her own desire for superiority clashes with the reality of Aslan’s superior power. Lewis further explained this concept when he stated, “In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that—and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison—you do not know God at all.” For this reason, a proud person cannot know God, because a “proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.”208 For Jadis, this means that she is unable to see the goodness of Aslan, because she clings to her own notions of superiority and does not consider letting go of her quest for power in order to submit to his authority. As

Kathryn Lindskoog points out, “She hated Aslan and did not see him as he really was…This is why Jadis did not recognize Aslan to be the rightful king of Narnia.”209 Instead, as soon as she sees him singing the world around them into being, she declares, “This is a terrible world. We must fly at once.”210 She is unable to understand Aslan’s true nature and authority and only recognizes his power enough to realize that he is a threat to her own power, which is why she at first wants to flee.

207 Augustine, City of God, 572. 208 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 124. 209 Lindskoog, Journey into Narnia, 56. 210 Lewis, Magician’s Nephew, 63. 54

When she finds she is unable to escape, she pridefully decides to meet the challenge to

her power head on, setting herself against Aslan (similar to how Augustine spoke of the proud as

“lift[ing] up their hearts…against the Lord”211). In challenging Aslan, she stepped “boldly”

toward him and “flung the iron bar straight at [his] head,” striking him between the eyes. Instead

of injuring or killing him as one can assume Jadis hoped, the bar merely “glanced off” and fell to

the grass, and Aslan continued to walk closer, singing all the while as if nothing had happened. It

is at this point that Jadis’s prideful confidence in her own power fails and she “shrieked and ran”

in terror.212 Even in this instance, though, her behavior is not demonstrative of any humility on her part, since she is not willing to submit to Aslan’s authority but will instead seek greater power and will look for ways to overthrow his power without bringing her own life in danger.

The blinding result of Jadis’s multi-faceted pride is further manifested in the two key

instances of her failing to fully understand the commands of Aslan and the Emperor-beyond-the-

Sea: first, in her failure to understand the doom of the apple in the hilltop garden, not realizing that she would “loathe”213 the fruit after plucking it unbidden; secondly, in her failure later on (in

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) to understand the “deeper magic” that was behind the

“deep magic” involved with Aslan’s sacrifice on behalf of Edmund, thus causing Aslan’s resurrection and triumph over death to take Jadis completely by surprise. In both of these instances, her absorption with herself and her quest for power blinds her to the power that is above and greater than hers (which fits with Lewis’s point that “as long as you are looking down,

you cannot see something that is above you”214), and because she maintains this blinding pride

without repenting and submitting to the authority of Aslan, Jadis keeps her eyes closed to the

211 Augustine, Sermon 25.2, found in Works of Saint Augustine, Vol. 2, 83. 212 Lewis, Magician’s Nephew, 66. 213 Lewis, Magician’s Nephew, 100. 214 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 124. 55 possibility of humility (since Augustine stated that “devout humility makes the mind subject to what is superior,” and “nothing is superior to God,”215 so she would have to recognize Aslan’s superiority and submit to it in order to become humble). Thus, she blinds herself and is never redeemed of her pride.

It is also interesting to note that The Magician’s Nephew is perhaps unique among the other Narnia stories when it comes to the case of character pairings of prideful and humble characters, at least in relation to the character of Jadis. Aslan is her obvious counterpart, but since he is the Christ-like figure in the stories, he is also not the ‘typical’ humble character as can be found in the other stories. Unlike some of the other humble characters, he is perfectly humble and never falls into moments of pride. Rather, if he is to be seen as the ‘Christ’ figure in Narnia, then Augustine would say that he is the model to all other Narnians of what humility should look like, since Augustine saw Christ as the ultimate example of humility, even believing that Christ had “come [to Earth] to teach humility and overturn pride.”216 Therefore, though there is still a character pairing of pride and humility in The Magician’s Nephew between Jadis and Aslan, it is more of a ‘larger-than-life’ pairing than many of the other examples in the Chronicles, since it pits a Satan-like figure against the Christ-like figure.

The Last Battle

In The Last Battle (published in 1956), Lewis’s final work in the Narnia series, the themes of pride and humility are directly involved in the entire narrative structure of the work, since readers are presented with one of the most blinded prideful characters of all: Shift the Ape.

Along with Jadis in the Magician’s Nephew and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Shift is

215 Augustine, City of God, 572. 216 Augustine, Sermon 4A.1, found in Works of Saint Augustine, Vol. 1, 214. 56 one of the few key prideful characters whose pride is never redeemed, and he is the only prideful animal whose pride is never redeemed.

Throughout the story, Shift seeks after his own gain in power and pleasure at the expense of others, using his cunning cleverness to deceive others in order to get what he wants. He manipulates the humble donkey Puzzle into engaging in his (Shift’s) “Aslan” deception (having

Puzzle dress up in a costume made of lion skin and pretend to be Aslan to the other Narnians, with Shift acting as the “mouthpiece” of Aslan, ordering the Narnians around), all the while putting on an air of benevolence, pretending to Puzzle that he does everything out of kindness for others, even at moments when his selfishness is obvious, such as when he tricks Puzzle into going into the freezing cauldron pool to retrieve the lion skin floating there. Through the Aslan deception, he seeks to subjugate all of the Narnians—not only Talking Beasts, but also King

Tirian of Narnia. In talking to Puzzle about the “sensible orders” Shift would come up with to command through Puzzle, he says, “everyone would have to obey us, even the King himself.”217

Thus, not only is Shift’s pride a self-centered one, but it is also a power-hungry one. Shift’s behavior fits with Lewis’s notion that prideful people gain satisfaction from being above all others, “being able to move them about like toy soldiers,”218 which is exactly what Shift wants to do in ordering Narnian animals to fetch him his favorite foods (especially oranges and bananas) and other such items.

Furthermore, Shift’s behavior of seeking after his own pleasure through commanding the other animals to gather food for him fits with some of the patterns of behavior which Augustine connected to pride. In The City of God, Augustine states that “to abandon God and to exist in oneself…is to please oneself,” and “that is why the proud are given another name in holy

217 Lewis, The Last Battle (New York: HarperCollins, 1956), 673. 218 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 123. 57

Scripture; they are called ‘self-pleasers.’”219 Similarly, R.A. Markus in describing the various stages of pride laid out by Augustine includes “pleasing oneself rather than God” as the first, most apparent stage, with the second stage being “taking pleasure in God’s good things, but as if one had proprietary rights to them.”220 Shift is definitely a “self-pleaser,” and he also

demonstrates a belief that he has a right to “God’s [or in this case, Aslan’s] good things” (like

oranges and bananas). Therefore, Shift epitomizes the self-pleasing pride condemned by

Augustine.

Both in this instance of wanting to order others around as well as other places in the story

where Shift demonstrates a lack of respect and fear of Aslan (such as is blatantly demonstrated in

having no fear of being a ‘false prophet’ using the name of Aslan to lead others astray), he is

guilty of the pride condemned by Augustine of seeking to put oneself in the place of God. As

Gareth B. Mathews in writing about Augustine’s views states, “the pride that Christianity has

traditionally considered the deadliest of the deadly sins is often thought of as contempt of God or

as a desire to cast God down and to put oneself in his place,”221 and this is just what Shift does in

relation to Aslan. In shamelessly setting up his grand deception, Shift reveals his pride of

thinking of himself as superior to others because of his cleverness, and in this pride, he remains

blind to the reality of Aslan’s existence and power (as well as to the existence of the opposing

god, Tash) until the moment of his doom, when he is given over to Tash.

In contrast to the self-pleasing pride of Shift, Puzzle is the humble counterpart in their

pairing, but he is an imperfect example of humility because he represents humbleness gone too

far. Since part of Shift’s pride falls into the type that Augustine termed “swollen self-esteem,”222

219 Augustine, City of God, 572. 220 R.A. Markus, “De civitate dei: Pride and the Common Good,” Proceedings of the PMR Conference (1987): 7. 221 Matthews, Augustinian Tradition, 308. 222 Augustine, Trinity, 162. 58

it is therefore fitting that the direct opposite to him would be a character who has a ‘sunken’ self-

esteem that is not fully developed. Puzzle’s instincts are often correct and would lead him along

paths of right behavior if it were not for his complete lack of self-confidence, which leaves him susceptible to the lies and verbal abuse inflicted upon him by Shift. Unlike Shift, who does not really believe in Aslan and therefore has no respect for him, Puzzle sensed right away that it was wrong to masquerade as Aslan. As he says, “I don’t think it would be respectful to the Great

Lion, to Aslan himself, if an ass like me went about dressed up in a lion-skin.”223 Though he makes humble protests to Shift’s promptings and thereby demonstrates a correct understanding of the issues at hand, Puzzle eventually concedes to Shift’s supposed better judgment and goes along with the plan. Thus, Lewis reveals that the lack of a healthy level of humility (one which includes self-confidence) can set a person up for being manipulated and used for evil.

Even though Puzzle is an imperfect example of humility, good examples of humility are

presented through the characters of King Tirian and Jewel the unicorn. In a similar way to the

examples of Lucy and Caspian in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, these two otherwise humble characters are temporarily blinded by pride near the beginning of the story, thus continuing the theme of pride being a danger even to those who are usually humble.

When Tirian and Jewel receive word that talking trees are being cut down in Lantern

Waste, they are consumed by grief and anger and set out at once to find out who is doing such an awful crime. They ignore the advice of Roonwit the Centaur to wait for reinforcements, instead insisting that no more time be lost in avenging this crime. Even when they receive tidings that the crimes are being committed in Aslan’s name, they do not take sensible caution in approaching the situation, but rather determine that they must continue on to find out the truth.

Significantly, the narrator notes at this point that Jewel “did not see at the moment how foolish it

223 Lewis, Last Battle, 672. 59

was for the two of them to go on alone; nor did the King. They were too angry to think

clearly.”224 Thus, their anger has blinded them and led them into the pride of thinking that

Tirian’s royal station and their own combined skill will be enough to subdue the treachery of

those enacting the crimes. Moreover, once Tirian and Jewel witness Talking Horses being

overworked and whipped mercilessly by Calormenes, “there came over him and over Jewel such

a rage that they did not know what they were doing,” and a moment later the two Calormenes

“lay dead, the one beheaded by Tirian’s sword and the other gored through the heart by Jewel’s

horn.”225 As before, their rage blinds them so that they are unable to view the situation and the proper course of action clearly, causing them to engage in dishonorable murder that they regret a few minutes later.

It is shortly after their murderous act that they are humbled through reflection on their

actions. They come to the realization that they “have done a dreadful deed” in attacking the

Calormenes while they were unawares and unarmed; Tirian declares that he is “dishonored for ever [sic],” and Jewel, too, “was ashamed.”226 In reflecting upon the claim that all the disastrous

deeds (such as the cutting of the talking trees and the enslavement of Talking Horses) are done by Aslan’s orders, they humbly admit that they cannot assume to understand Aslan’s ways and

Tirian decides to turn himself over to the Calormenes so that they can bring him before Aslan and “let him do justice on me.”227 In submitting to the authority of Aslan, Tirian demonstrates

obedience such as “can belong only to the humble,”228 according to Augustine. From this point

on, Tirian is consistently humble almost without exception, but by showing his (and Jewel’s)

moments of blind pride, Lewis reinforces the idea that pride in its many forms is a universal

224 Lewis, Last Battle, 679. 225 Lewis, Last Battle, 680. 226 Lewis, Last Battle, 681. 227 Lewis, Last Battle, 682. 228 Augustine, City of God, 752. 60

problem for humanity and (as presented in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) is one which even

the humble need to be on guard against if they are to avoid falling into the sin of pride.

Ultimately, Lewis reveals the results of pride and humility in the way the varying destinies of the prideful and humble characters become clear once they go through the stable door.229 Prideful characters such as Shift, Rishda Tarkaan (the Calormene leader), and Ginger

(the talking cat who demonstrated a smugness in matters of philosophy) had all been led by their pride into arrogant confidence in their own power, and they all receive the unpleasant surprise of being met by Tash, the terrible god of Calormen, once they go through the stable door. Ginger is able to escape just before being snatched by Tash (though he is turned back into a “dumb” beast as a result of the encounter), but both Shift and Rishda Tarkaan are carried off to their doom by

Tash as a punishment for their prideful actions in setting themselves up as their own authority and rejecting belief in Aslan, acting against Aslan in effect while pretending to carry out actions by his orders. This relates to Lewis’s belief that in the afterlife, people (and creatures, as is the case here) get what they truly desire, though that does not always turn out to be pleasant. If they are prideful during their earthly life and care nothing for God (or Aslan), then they will not spend eternity with God and will instead be cut off from him and given over to their prideful, self- centered desires.

While the stable holds dreadful punishment for those who were prideful in Narnia, it

becomes the gateway to abundant joy for those who were humble, such as Tirian, Jewel, Eustace,

Polly, and even a young Calormene named Emeth, who (in a scene that has sparked much

discussion among scholars) is welcomed into Aslan’s country for having essentially followed

Aslan even though he was nominally worshipping Tash. Again, this fits with Lewis’s idea of

229 The following sorting theme is important for Lewis and can be found elsewhere in his writings, such as in The Great Divorce, where some enter Heaven, some send themselves Hell, and others remain in Purgatory. 61

being given what one ultimately desires. In this case, the reward is a good and satisfying one,

since the humble characters had sought after joy and lived lives that were pleasing to Aslan.

In between the other two groups, the band of dwarves enters into a ‘purgatory’-type state in the stable, since they are neither taken by Tash nor able to become aware of the joys of

Aslan’s country. The dwarves’ situation is complex enough that much could be written analyzing their fate, but in short, it seems that their selfish actions and refusal to be “taken in” resulted in a lesser pride than those whose actions consistently stood in opposition to Aslan, since they were on neither side and were only for themselves (emphasized by their repeated mantra of “the

Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs”230). Therefore, while they were not so far gone as to be taken away

to punishment by Tash, they were still blind to their surroundings and to Aslan. In fact, they were

literally in the dark, since they could only perceive the inside of an ordinary stable that was

“pitch-black” and “smelly,”231 instead of seeing the bright daylight of a summer day and the

pleasant grove of trees with “beautiful” fruit that the humble characters could easily perceive.232

They were also blind to Aslan’s presence, which relates to Augustine’s idea that God “revealed

himself to [those who were humble] and concealed himself from the pride of the others,”233 since

Aslan remains hidden to them while being apparent to the humble. Thus, the humble characters

are able to see reality (as Eustace tells the dwarves, “We’re not blind. We’ve got eyes in our

heads.”234) and to enjoy their surroundings, but the dwarves remain blinded by the “prison”235 of their own minds, preventing Aslan from helping impart sight and reveal reality to them. Their

230 Lewis, Last Battle, 733 (among other places). 231 Lewis, Last Battle, 746. 232 Lewis, Last Battle, 742. 233 Augustine, Sermon 198.32, found in Works of Saint Augustine, Vol. 11, 204. 234 Lewis, Last Battle, 746. 235 Lewis, Last Battle, 749. 62

ultimate desire was to not be “taken in” and to be left to their own authority, so that is the

situation they find themselves in at the end of the story.

Conclusion

As can be seen from analyzing the seven Narnia Chronicles, pride and humility are

themes that are central to the entire series, connecting each of the individual works together by

giving them the common factor of having the contrast between humble characters and prideful characters reveal the blindness of the proud ones and the ability of the humble ones to see themselves and others more clearly. Whenever characters are prideful or engage in prideful behavior, it is manifested in either a desire for power, a desire for superiority (competitive pride), a need to justify one’s actions, a self-pleasing focus, or a combination of any of the above. While some are blinded by others (external influence), many others blind themselves by focusing on themselves, rejecting the truth, and settling for a false version of reality that is more pleasing to them than the truth. Whether they are blinded by others or blinded by themselves, however, the main causes ultimately always involve either focusing on themselves instead of on others or else forgetting their proper roles in relation to others and to the divine (in the Chronicles that would mean Aslan, while in this world that would mean God).

In fact, those characters who eventually move away from pride and toward humility do so by first coming to a realization of their prideful state, and then by slowly taking their focus off of themselves and shifting it to concern for others instead. Characters who never take their focus off of themselves (such as Jadis, Shift, and the dwarves) remain blind to their pride and to Aslan, thus preventing them from coming to a humbling awareness of their own inferiority in contrast to 63

Aslan’s power and supreme goodness, and this pridefulness ultimately brings about their own

destruction (or in the case of the dwarves, their inability to enter into paradise).

It is worth noting that of all the characters who remain prideful until the end (such as

Jadis and Shift, as well as the dwarves), none of them are children. The fact that Lewis always

redeemed the children of their pride can be understood on a couple different levels. First of all, it

is reminiscent of Jesus’ statement to his disciples that unless they “become like little children,

[they] will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this

child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”236 This also relates Augustine’s belief that “no

one can return to that [perfect] life” without “the healthy condition of humility,”237 since “the safe and genuine highway to heaven is constructed by humility.”238 Thus, since Augustine saw

humility as the only sure pathway to heaven, it is therefore fitting that children in general should

be humble if they are the examples for how one must be in order to enter heaven, and that in

particular, the children in Narnia should either maintain humility throughout the stories or else

move from pride to humility as Edmund and Eustace did. On a different level, this redemption of

the children could also be interpreted as Lewis trying to redeem himself. Since he had seen

himself as a “prig” as the result of the schooling he received during his younger years,239 he may

have identified himself with characters such as Edmund and Eustace, who Lewis actually terms

“prigs” in various places and alludes to the fact that the two boys’ schooling had had a negative

effect on their character and could be connected to their priggishness. Thus, in redeeming

Edmund and Eustace, Lewis can be seen as portraying the redemption he aspired to and

encouraged others to emulate.

236 Matt. 18.3b-4 (New International Version). 237 Augustine, Sermon 4A.1, found in Works of Saint Augustine, Vol. 1, 214. 238 Augustine, City of God, 657. 239 See Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (Orlando: Harcourt, 1955), 100, 101, 104. 64

The connective function of pride and humility within the series is evidenced in the similar

lessons that can be learned from the various characters that encounter or undergo periods of pride. With the cases of Edmund and Eustace moving from pride to humility (in The Lion, the

Witch and the Wardrobe and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, respectively), Lewis reveals that

even after they recognized their pride and began to move toward humility, it is not an

instantaneous change. Rather, it is a journey, a continual battle, in which “relapses” into former

behavior are not uncommon, with the important point being that they start to become better

people overall. Furthermore, readers learn from Caspian and Lucy in The Voyage of the Dawn

Treader and from Tirian and Jewel in The Last Battle that no one is exempt from the continual

danger of falling into pride, and even people who are usually humble need to be on their guard

against this vice. As Augustine pointed out in one of his sermons, “Unless [God is] in control of

you, you fall.”240 Thus, the continual danger of falling into pride becomes most likely to happen

when people focus on themselves instead of on God (or Aslan). Finally, through Puddleglum’s

humble trust in Aslan’s signs, readers learn that obedience can be a safeguard against pride, since

obedience involves humbling oneself and submitting to a higher authority. As Augustine pointed

out, “obedience can belong only to the humble.”241

In understanding the prevalence of the themes of pride and humility in Lewis’s writings,

it is important to realize that not only did Lewis consider pride the most common yet deadly sin

(thus making it only natural that it emerged in his writings and stories), but pride was a continual

struggle for Lewis himself during his lifetime. In his essay “It All Began with a Picture,” Lewis

explains that all of his stories began with images which “bubble[d] up”242 in his mind, with the

240 Augustine, Sermon 156.10, found in Works of Saint Augustine, Vol. 5, 103. 241 Augustine, City of God, 572. 242 Lewis, “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to be Said,” in On Stories, ed. Walter Hooper (San Diego: Harcourt, 1982), 45. 65

stories flowing from the “mental pictures”243 he found there. Therefore, it seems that his personal

struggle with pride subconsciously influenced the way he interpreted the images and crafted his

stories, manifesting his own struggles in the words and actions of the prideful characters (such as

Edmund and Eustace in their initial prideful states) while at the same time creating examples of

the humility he aspired to through the humble characters (such as Lucy and Puddleglum).

Furthermore, in creating characters like Edmund and Eustace who move from pride to humility,

Lewis can been seen as subconsciously producing examples of the redemption through humility

that he desired to have happen in his own life.

Both Lewis and Augustine are in agreement that the cure for pride is found in humility

and that an encounter with God inevitably leads to such humility. Augustine “found the counter

to pride in the humility of Christ in the incarnation,”244 which he also viewed as “the supreme act

of humility that teaches humans how to love God and neighbor.”245 Furthermore, Augustine

believed that “only humility can lead humans back to God, and only God can teach humans true

humility.”246 Thus, in Augustine’s view, humility is not only the result of an encounter with God,

but it is also needed to heal relationships formerly divided by pride, bringing people back to God

and into fellowship with one another.

Lewis described this happening in Mere Christianity when he wrote, “And He [God] and

you are two things of such a kind that if you really get into any kind of touch with Him you will,

in fact, be humble—delightedly humble, feeling the infinite relief of having for once got rid of

all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless and unhappy all your

243 Lewis, “Sometimes Fairy Stories,” 45. 244 J. Patout Burns, “Augustine on the origin and progress of evil,” in The Ethics of St. Augustine, ed. W. S. Babcock (Atlanta, 1991), 82. 245 Michael P. Krom, “Modern Liberalism and Pride: An Augustinian Perspective,” Journal of Religious Ethics 35, no. 3 (2007): 463-64. 246 Krom, “Modern Liberalism,” 463. 66

life.”247 For Lewis, such an encounter brought the differences between humans and God into

stark contrast, with the perfection of God revealing the pridefulness of humanity in the same way

that the pairings of prideful and humble characters within the Narnia stories function to reveal

the differences between them on this issue. This idea of Lewis’s is similar to a key teaching of

Augustine on humility, since Augustine ultimately saw God as curing the vice of pride through humility, the virtue opposite it. As he writes in On Christian Doctrine, Christ was “our medicine” which “was by His assumption of humanity adapted to our wounds, curing some of them by their opposites…Seeing, then, that man fell through pride, He restored him through humility.”248

Such a restoration is portrayed throughout the Narnia tales, where characters are blinded

by pride but are given new sight through humility, which ultimately means ceasing to focus on

oneself and instead turning one’s eyes outward, to others. As long as people remain blind in their

pride, fellowship with God and other human beings is impossible; only when people are able to

look beyond themselves and truly ‘see’ others will they have begun to move from pride toward

humility, and thus recover their vision.

247 Lewis, Mere Christianity, 127. 248 Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 9-10. 67

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Secondary Sources

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