Creation Parallels in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician's Nephew

Last month, I started reading The Chronicles of Narnia (I have an edition where all seven books are printed in one volume).  While reading The Magician's Nephew, I found multiple parallels between the founding of Narnia and Creation.

Chapter Nine (titled The Founding of Narnia) starts with "The Lion was pacing to and fro about that empty land and singing his new song.  ...  And as he walked and sang, the valley grew green with grass."  Polly notices that there's a "connection between the music and the things that were happening" and that "when you listened to his song you heard the things he was making up: when you looked around you, you saw them."  The Lion's singing is similar to God's speaking at Creation.  The first six days of Creation start with "And God said," followed by the existence of whatever God called into being.

A few chapters later (in Chapter Twelve), Aslan (The Lion) gives a horse wings.  He then asks the horse whether it's good, to which the horse replies, "It is very good."  It's not as similar as the parallel between God's speaking and Aslan's singing to call their respective worlds into existence, but it does bear some resemblance to the repeated "And God saw that it was good" throughout the account of Creation.

In Chapter Eleven, after the creation of Narnia, Aslan tells the Cabby and his wife that "You shall rule and name all these creatures, and do justice among them, and protect them from their enemies when enemies arise."  Aslan gives them dominion over Narnia in the same way that God gave dominion over the Earth to man:  "Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.  And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name" (Genesis 2:19).  Chapter Nine details how Aslan also brought forth creatures from the Earth:  "The humps moved and swelled till they burst, and the crumbled earth poured out of them, and from each hump there came out an animal," which is similar to God's forming the animals from "out of the ground."

Both accounts (Creation and the founding of Narnia) also contain the entrance of evil into the world.  In Chapter Eleven of The Magician's Nephew, Aslan declares that "before the new, clean world I gave you is seven hours old, a force of evil has already entered it; waked and brought hither by this son of Adam."  This parallels with the serpent's deception of Eve, which results in man's "knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:22).  Aslan's calling Digory a "son of Adam" strengthens the Biblical connection.

Both entrances of evil are linked with a tree, although not in the same way.  In the Bible, the tree is what evil uses in order to enter the world; in The Magician's Nephew, the tree will provide the seed for an-other tree that Aslan will plant in Narnia so that it will be protected from the Witch, the representation of evil.  The trees function differently, but both are accompanied by temptation.  The serpent tells Eve that if she eats of the tree in the Garden of Eden, "your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5).  In Chapter Thirteen of The Magician's Nephew, the Witch tells Digory that if he eats the fruit of the tree within the gates, "you and I will both live for ever and be king and queen of this whole world."  This tree within the gates actually bears some resemblance to the second tree in the Garden of Eden - the tree of life, which would grant man life forever if he ate of it (Genesis 3:22).

I've only just started to really get into C.S. Lewis' works, so while I've recognized a lot of the Biblical parallels he includes in The Chronicles of Narnia, I don't really know why he includes so many.

Companionship in Frankenstein

I've been re-reading Frankenstein lately, and I've been noticing a lot of comparisons that the creature makes between himself and Adam & Eve and - by extension - the Garden of Eden.  (I feel like I should note that I don't want to use appellations like "the creature" or "the monster," but that character never gets a proper name, so....)

The creature wants a companion.  In Chapter 20, he rhetorically asks, "Shall each man find a wife for his bosom, and each beast have his mate, and I be alone?"  The creature casts himself as Adam in Genesis or - more appropriately - Milton's Paradise Lost, which, in earlier chapters, he mentions that he's read.

But what's more interesting than just the creature's wanting a companion with whom he can live is how that wish parallels Victor Frankenstein's wish.  At the beginning of Chapter 17, the creature explains to Frankenstein that if he consents to make him a companion, "neither you nor any other human being shall ever see us again; I will go to the vast wilds of South America."  He also says, "It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another.  Our lives will not be happy, but they will be harmless and free from the misery I now feel."  The creature sees having a companion as a sort of escape from the miserable situation that he is now in, and Victor Frankenstein views his impending marriage to Elizabeth in the same way.  In Chapter 18, he narrates, "For myself, there was one reward I promised myself from my detested toils - one consolation for my unparalleled sufferings; it was the prospect of that day when, enfranchised from my miserable slavery, I might claim Elizabeth and forget the past in my union with her."  Both Frankenstein and his creature seek a solace from their misery (both use inflections of the word) in companionship.  Both of these are akin, if not exactly parallel, to Adam's companionship with Eve.

What I'm still a bit confused by is the creature's self-imposed exile.  I can understand it as it is, but if the creature's meeting a companion is reminiscent of Adam's meeting Eve, then the creature's exile is similar to their banishment from the Garden of Eden.  If the Garden of Eden is a paradise, it doesn't make sense for the creature willingly to "quit the neighbourhood of man," as Frankenstein calls it in Chapter 20.  Maybe I'm just extending the similarities too far.

Frankenstein never actually makes the companion for his creature, so maybe it doesn't matter that the Adam & Eve/Garden of Eden parallels don't quite match up, but it is really interesting how Shelley mixes up some of the elements in Genesis and Paradise Lost.