This post contains spoilers.
In re-reading The Silver Chair I found only a few things to write about (I did find an-other, but I have to do some more research on that, so I'll come back to it later).
First, there's Prince Rilian's fight with the Lady of the Green Kirtle in Underland in Chapter Twelve. She turns herself into a serpent and wraps herself around his legs, but "the Prince caught the creature's neck in his left hand, trying to squeeze it till it choked." With his other hand, he strikes the serpent with his sword, and with some help from Puddleglum and Eustace, "they hacked off its head." The narrator then mentions that "the floor, as you may imagine, was a nasty mess."
Although it's been years since I've read it, I recognized the similarities between this event and Redcrosse Knight's battle with Error in Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene. Redcrosse Knight descends into a hole and "he saw the ugly monster plaine, / Half like a serpent horribly displaide, / But th'other half did womans shape retaine" (canto 1, stanza 14) Like Spenser's Error, Lewis' Lady of the Green Kirtle is half woman and half serpent (although she's either/or rather than a mix). Redcrosse Knight attempts to strike her with his sword, but he misses his mark. She then "lept fierce upon his shield, and her huge traine / All suddenly about his body wound" (canto 1, stanza 18), just like the Lady does to Prince Rilian. Next, "Knitting all his force, [he] got one hand free, / Wherewith he grypt her gorge with so great paine, / That soone to loose her wicked bands did her constraine" (canto 1, stanza 19). Redcrosse Knight is able to free himself merely by choking Error where Prince Rilian still has to use his sword before he's freed, but the situation is still quite similar. In the end, just as Rilian beheads his serpent, Redcrosse Knight "strooke at her with more than manly force, / That from her body full of filthie sin / He raft her hatefull head without remorse" (canto 1, stanza 24). Finally, Error's "scattred brood... flockéd all about her bleeding wound, / And suckéd up their dying mothers blood" (canto 1, stanza 25). Spenser's description is more graphic than Lewis', but the large amount of blood is common to both.
Second, there's the temptation with which the Lady of the Green Kirtle seduced Rilian. At the end of Chapter Fifteen, Rilian recounts "the whole adventure with the older and wiser Beasts and Dwarfs" of Narnia, and "they saw how she had dug right under Narnia and was going to break out and rule it through Rilian; and how he had never dreamed that the country of which she would make him king (king in name, but really her slave) was his own country." The situation is different, but there's some resemblance between this and the devil's temptation of Jesus in Luke 4. "And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, 'To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours'" (Luke 4:5-7). The devil tries to tempt Jesus with power over the world, but Jesus already had that power, just like Rilian already had (or would have) power over Narnia.
There's also the comparison between the Lady of the Green Kirtle and the White Witch from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Rilian and "the older and wiser Beasts and Dwarfs... all saw what it meant; how a wicked Witch (doubtless the same kind as that White Witch who had brought the Great Winter on Narnia long ago) had contrived the whole thing." In The Magician's Nephew, when the White Witch is still known as Jadis, she tries to tempt Digory with the fruit of the tree, just as the serpent tempts Eve in the Garden of Eden. So the comparison that Rilian and the Narnians make is more than just a comparison of devious plots; both the Lady of the Green Kirtle (literally) and the White Witch (allusively) have the guise of a serpent.
"Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough / Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades / For ever and for ever when I move."
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
This post contains spoilers.
When I re-read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader recently, one of the things I noticed is the magician's table in Chapter Eleven. The narrator says that "The table was bare when they entered, but it was of course a magic table, and at a word from the old man the tablecloth, silver, plates, glasses and food appeared." It reminded me of a similar table in "The Table, the Ass, and the Stick" in the Grimm Brothers' fairy tales. The eldest of three sons, after he becomes an apprentice to a joiner, received a table
Next, I noticed the birds in Chapter Fourteen (The Beginning of the End of the World). An old man comes out to meet the travellers, and a flock of birds flies to him. Lucy sees "one bird fly to the Old Man with something in its beak that looked like a little fruit, unless it was a little live coal, which it might have been, for it was too bright to look at. And the bird laid it in the Old Man's mouth." Shortly there-after, the old man introduces himself as Ramandu and explains that "every morning a bird brings me a fire-berry from the valleys in the sun, and each fire-berry takes away a little of my age. And when I have become as young as the child that was born yesterday, then I shall take my rising again" as a star.
The "live coal" to the man's mouth is the same description that's given in Isaiah 6: "Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: 'Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for'" (Isaiah 6:6-7). While the "live coal" in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader isn't actually a coal and doesn't serve the same function as the coal in Isaiah, its description as such seems to indicate the source of Lewis' image.
The other two things I noticed are in the last chapter and are also Biblical images. First, there's the lamb that Edmund, Lucy, and Eustace meet. After they have breakfast, the lamb's "snowy white flushed into a tawny gold and his size changed and he was Aslan himself, towering above them and scattering light from his mane." Throughout the series, there's an overtone of Aslan as Christ, and this is an-other example of that. In John 1, John the Baptist calls Jesus "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29). In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Aslan (as a Christ-like figure) is now literally a lamb. His "scattering light from his mane" might also be a subtle reference to the Transfiguration, when Christ "was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light" - Matthew 17:2. There's a similar description of Aslan in The Horse and His Boy.
Second, as the children are transported back to their own world, there's "a rending of the blue wall (like a curtain being torn)." I don't think a deeper similarity is intended, but just as a description, this also seems to be Biblical. After Jesus is crucified, "the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom" (Matthew 27:51). There's a literal curtain tearing and a simile involving one, and both circumstances involve a sort of transition.
When I re-read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader recently, one of the things I noticed is the magician's table in Chapter Eleven. The narrator says that "The table was bare when they entered, but it was of course a magic table, and at a word from the old man the tablecloth, silver, plates, glasses and food appeared." It reminded me of a similar table in "The Table, the Ass, and the Stick" in the Grimm Brothers' fairy tales. The eldest of three sons, after he becomes an apprentice to a joiner, received a table
which had certainly a very ordinary appearance, and was made of common wood; but it had one excellent quality: - If its owner placed it before him, and said, "Table, cover thyself," the good table was at once covered with a fine cloth, and plates, and knives and forks, and dishes of roast and baked meat took their places on it, and a great glass filled with red wine, which gladdened one's heart.I'm not sure if the table in the Grimms' fairy tale inspired Lewis' table, but I think there's pretty strong evidence for it. There's a famous Lewis quote advocating the reading of fairy tales (of which the Grimms' are among the most well-known), and the descriptions of the two tables are quite similar. It's not specifically given, but the "word from the old man" might very well be "Table, cover thyself," and the specific items that are spread on each table are the same (table cloth, cutlery, plates, food, and glasses) and are listed in a very similar order.
Next, I noticed the birds in Chapter Fourteen (The Beginning of the End of the World). An old man comes out to meet the travellers, and a flock of birds flies to him. Lucy sees "one bird fly to the Old Man with something in its beak that looked like a little fruit, unless it was a little live coal, which it might have been, for it was too bright to look at. And the bird laid it in the Old Man's mouth." Shortly there-after, the old man introduces himself as Ramandu and explains that "every morning a bird brings me a fire-berry from the valleys in the sun, and each fire-berry takes away a little of my age. And when I have become as young as the child that was born yesterday, then I shall take my rising again" as a star.
The "live coal" to the man's mouth is the same description that's given in Isaiah 6: "Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: 'Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for'" (Isaiah 6:6-7). While the "live coal" in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader isn't actually a coal and doesn't serve the same function as the coal in Isaiah, its description as such seems to indicate the source of Lewis' image.
The other two things I noticed are in the last chapter and are also Biblical images. First, there's the lamb that Edmund, Lucy, and Eustace meet. After they have breakfast, the lamb's "snowy white flushed into a tawny gold and his size changed and he was Aslan himself, towering above them and scattering light from his mane." Throughout the series, there's an overtone of Aslan as Christ, and this is an-other example of that. In John 1, John the Baptist calls Jesus "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29). In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Aslan (as a Christ-like figure) is now literally a lamb. His "scattering light from his mane" might also be a subtle reference to the Transfiguration, when Christ "was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light" - Matthew 17:2. There's a similar description of Aslan in The Horse and His Boy.
Second, as the children are transported back to their own world, there's "a rending of the blue wall (like a curtain being torn)." I don't think a deeper similarity is intended, but just as a description, this also seems to be Biblical. After Jesus is crucified, "the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom" (Matthew 27:51). There's a literal curtain tearing and a simile involving one, and both circumstances involve a sort of transition.
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Originally, I wasn't going to write about Prince Caspian because I didn't find a whole lot to write about in it, but then I finished The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (about which I did find a fair amount to write), and I figured I had to continue in the order I started. So, while I didn't find much, here's what I found in Prince Caspian.
In Chapter Fourteen (How All Were Very Busy), Bacchus drops a pitcher into an old woman's well, and when he draws it out, "it now was not water but the richest wine, red as redcurrant jelly, smooth as oil, strong as beef, warming as tea, cool as dew." The water-to-wine part of this was easy enough to place: Jesus does the same thing at the wedding at Cana (John 2:1-12). What I couldn't figure out at first was: if Aslan is the Christ-like figure, why is Bacchus the one changing water into wine? (My confusion over this is an-other reason why I initially wasn't going to write about Prince Caspian.)
Eventually, though, I think I figured it out. First, this isn't Bacchus acting by himself. Before Bacchus draws the water from the well, Aslan heals the old woman. "As he [Aslan] spoke, like the flush creeping along the underside of a cloud at sunrise, the colour came back to her white face and her eyes grew bright and she sat up and said, 'Why, I do declare I feel that better.'" The healing of the old woman is itself the miracle. Aslan effects that, and Bacchus' changing the water into wine, which - as the old woman notes - "makes a nice change," is only an-other aspect of that healing. Bacchus is acting under Aslan's power. As Susan notes in Chapter Eleven, "'I wouldn't have felt safe with Bacchus and all his wild girls if we'd met them without Aslan.'"
Second, Bacchus' working under Aslan is an example of how Lewis combined various elements to create his own world. Primarily, there are the Christian elements, but here he also includes mythology. In other places, there are elements from fairy tales and animal stories. Having Bacchus work under Aslan provides a hierarchy into which the disparate elements are organized.
The other thing I found is a phrase in Chapter Eleven (The Lion Roars). At first, I recognized just that the phrase "she [Lucy] fixed her eyes on Aslan" is similar to a Biblical verse, but once I looked up that verse, I found a deeper connection. The surrounding situation is significant. Lucy is the only one who can see Aslan, and he's told her to wake up the rest of the party and follow him. The others are annoyed at being woken up, especially because they can't see Aslan for themselves. "Susan was the worst," so when Lucy eventually starts leading them through the woods, she's "biting her lip and trying not to say all the things she thought of saying to Susan. But she forgot them when she fixed her eyes on Aslan."
It's a similar situation in Hebrews 12:1-2: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." Some translations (and I believe also some liturgies) have it as "let us fix our eyes on Jesus" - the same phrase that's in Prince Caspian. Once Lucy "fix[es]" her eyes on Aslan, she forgets the not-very-nice things she was going to say to Susan, similar to how the "sin which clings so closely" is "[laid] aside" when "looking to Jesus."
In Chapter Fourteen (How All Were Very Busy), Bacchus drops a pitcher into an old woman's well, and when he draws it out, "it now was not water but the richest wine, red as redcurrant jelly, smooth as oil, strong as beef, warming as tea, cool as dew." The water-to-wine part of this was easy enough to place: Jesus does the same thing at the wedding at Cana (John 2:1-12). What I couldn't figure out at first was: if Aslan is the Christ-like figure, why is Bacchus the one changing water into wine? (My confusion over this is an-other reason why I initially wasn't going to write about Prince Caspian.)
Eventually, though, I think I figured it out. First, this isn't Bacchus acting by himself. Before Bacchus draws the water from the well, Aslan heals the old woman. "As he [Aslan] spoke, like the flush creeping along the underside of a cloud at sunrise, the colour came back to her white face and her eyes grew bright and she sat up and said, 'Why, I do declare I feel that better.'" The healing of the old woman is itself the miracle. Aslan effects that, and Bacchus' changing the water into wine, which - as the old woman notes - "makes a nice change," is only an-other aspect of that healing. Bacchus is acting under Aslan's power. As Susan notes in Chapter Eleven, "'I wouldn't have felt safe with Bacchus and all his wild girls if we'd met them without Aslan.'"
Second, Bacchus' working under Aslan is an example of how Lewis combined various elements to create his own world. Primarily, there are the Christian elements, but here he also includes mythology. In other places, there are elements from fairy tales and animal stories. Having Bacchus work under Aslan provides a hierarchy into which the disparate elements are organized.
The other thing I found is a phrase in Chapter Eleven (The Lion Roars). At first, I recognized just that the phrase "she [Lucy] fixed her eyes on Aslan" is similar to a Biblical verse, but once I looked up that verse, I found a deeper connection. The surrounding situation is significant. Lucy is the only one who can see Aslan, and he's told her to wake up the rest of the party and follow him. The others are annoyed at being woken up, especially because they can't see Aslan for themselves. "Susan was the worst," so when Lucy eventually starts leading them through the woods, she's "biting her lip and trying not to say all the things she thought of saying to Susan. But she forgot them when she fixed her eyes on Aslan."
It's a similar situation in Hebrews 12:1-2: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." Some translations (and I believe also some liturgies) have it as "let us fix our eyes on Jesus" - the same phrase that's in Prince Caspian. Once Lucy "fix[es]" her eyes on Aslan, she forgets the not-very-nice things she was going to say to Susan, similar to how the "sin which clings so closely" is "[laid] aside" when "looking to Jesus."
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