The Contours of Narnia

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The Contours of Narnia In Anticipation of The
Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (Disneys
Production December 9, 2005) Compiled by Paulo
F. Ribeiro, MBA, PhD, PE, IEEE Fellow Winter
2005

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Introductory Observations

• The Dedication of the LWW Myth and the Reality
  of Life
• A Series Which Almost Never Was
• JRR Tolkien and Roger Lancelyn Green Reactions
• Jack Not very familiar with children
• Jack in the Boxen
• What is it Allegory, Fantasy, Faire Tales, Myth
  ?
• Fantastic Creations Mythological Figures vs.
  Father Christmas
• How it all begun
• Relation to our world
• Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve
• It took me a while (my children helped to
  appreciate it ----)
• The British humor
• The right time for the new movie (52 / 53)
• The idea of Aslan
• Moral Stories

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Introductory Observations

• LWW Fall 1950 Cautious Reviews
• Pre-baptism of imagination
• Aslan a supreme creation
• b-

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C.S. Lewis Making Pictures To forbid the making
of pictures about God would be to forbid thinking
a about God at all, for man is so made that he
has no way to think except in pictures. Dorothy
Sayers ". . . When people try to get rid of
man-like, or, as they are called,
'anthropomorphic,' images, they merely succeed in
substituting images of some other kinds. 'I don't
believe in a personal God,' says one, 'but I do
believe in a great spiritual force.' What he has
not noticed is that the word 'force' has let in
all sorts of images about winds and tides and
electricity and gravitation. 'I don't believe in
a personal God,' says another, 'but I do believe
we are all parts of one great Being which moves
and works through us all' -not noticing that he
has merely exchanged the image of a fatherly and
royal-looking man for the image of some widely
extended gas or fluid. A girl I knew was
brought up by 'higher thinking' parents to regard
God as perfect 'substance.' In later life she
realized that this had actually led her to think
of Him as something like a vast tapioca pudding.
(To make matters worse, she disliked tapioca.) We
may feel ourselves quite safe from this degree of
absurdity but we are mistaken. If a man watches
his own mind, I believe he will find that what
profess to be specially advanced or philosophic
conceptions of God, are, in his thinking, always
accompanied by vague images which, if inspected,
would turn out to be even more absurd than the
manlike images aroused by Christian theology.
Miracles
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Myth Lewis believed that Christian truth must
be defended with sound logic and philosophy. But
this apologetic needed to be explicated in order
that its meaning could be made clear to its
hearers. That is why he felt this could best be
accomplished through the proper use of myths. By
myth he did not mean legends and fairy tales but
a real unfocused gleam of truth falling on human
imagination. In his classic Experiment in
Criticism, a book on how to read a book, Lewis
lays out six characteristics of literature that
that make a myth 1. it is extra-literary , or
independent of the form of the words used 2.
the pleasure of myth depends hardly at all on
such unusual narrative attractions as suspense or
surprise 3. our sympathy with the character is
minimal 4. myth is always fantastic and deals
with impossibles and preternaturals 5. though
the experience may be sad or joyful , it always
is grave and never comic 6. the experience is
not only grave but awe inspiring. We feel it to
be numinous. It is as if something of great
moment has been communicated to us. From a
theological perspective Lewis saw true myths as
memories or echoes of God Himself and He left us
with human imagination as their receptor. He
explained this relationship in describing how he
came to write the Narnia Chronicles, as a
mythological expression of the Gospel story "It
was he the imaginative man who, after my
conversion, led me to embody my religious belief
in symbolical or mythopoeic form, ranging from
Screwtape to a kind of theological science
fiction. And it was of course he who has brought
me, in the last few years, to write the series of
Narnian stories for children not asking what
children want and then endeavoring to adapt
myself (this was not needed) but because the
fairy tale was the genre best fitted for what I
wanted to say." Lewis undertook the daunting
task of awakening modernity's deadened
imagination to the eternal realities by telling
stories of worlds of fixed moral order, serenity
and blissfulness. He had help from a few friends
in understanding imagination as a vehicle to
convey the Reality who stands behind and above
the visible world.
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Lewiss Concept of Nature Spoiled
Goodness Lewiss Response to Nature 1
Romantic Appreciation and Idealization 2
Acceptance of the Supernatural The Experience
with the supernatural Lucys tale - several
hours in Narnia - less than a minute 3 Moral
Awareness of the force of evil in nature and the
temporal transient quality of our
world. Nature is more than a background setting
for the action of his characters Either there is
significance in the whole process of things as
well as in human activities, or there is no
significance in human activity itself. C.S.
Lewis, The Personal Heresy, 1939. Fresh
exuberance of nature (This is no thaw this is
spring) - Glimpses of Redeemed Creation Creation,
Fall, Redemption They say Aslan is on the Move
- Perhaps has already landed
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Lewiss Concept of God The Coming of the
Lion "Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe
of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed.Rev.
55 They say Aslan is on the move perhaps
has already landed And now a very curious thing
happened. None of the children knew who Aslan
was any more than you do but the moment the
Beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite
different. Perhaps it has sometimes happened to
you in a dream that someone says something which
you dont understand but in the dream it feels as
if it had some enormous meaning either a
terrifying one which turns the whole dream into a
nightmare or else a lovely meaning too lovely to
put into words, which makes the dream so
beautiful that you remember it all your life and
are always wishing you could get into that dream
again. It was like that now. At the name of
Aslan each one of the children felt something
jump inside. Edmund felt a sensation of
mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and
adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious
smell or some delightful strain of music had just
floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you
have when you wake up in the morning and and
realize that its the beginning of the holidays or
the beginning of summer. The LWW
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Lewiss Concept of Humanity Possible Gods and
Goddesses It is a serious thing to live in a
society of possible gods and goddesses, to
remember that the dullest and most uninteresting
person you talk to may one day be a creature
which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly
tempted to worship, or else a horror and a
corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only
in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some
degree, helping each other to one or other of
these destinations. It is in the light of these
overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe
and the circumspection proper to them, that we
should conduct all our dealings with one another,
all friendships, all loves, all play, all
politics. There are no ordinary people. You have
never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures,
arts, civilization--these are mortal, and their
life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is
immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry,
snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or
everlasting splendors. The Weight of Glory and
Other Addresses
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Narnia Many Christian doctrines (Classical
Christianity) Doctrines fall into three
categories Nature, God, Mans Relationship to
Nature, God and his fellow man. Animal-Land (7-8
years old) The Narnia Series Different from
other Stories - Magic, Fantasy the Glimpsing
of Other-Worlds Stories -(1-4)London Children
being evacuated to the country during WW II.
Children Transported from this world into a world
faire-tale creatures belonging to a great lion
(four books on this scheme). The Lion The Witch
and the Wardrobe, - (5)The tale of two native
children of that world who are also chosen by the
great lion to serve the land of Narnia and to
know him in a special way. - (6)The beginning
of the world of Narnia - the intrusion of two
Victorian children into the newborn world begins
the complications which give rise to all the
later adventures. (The Magicians Nephew)
-(7)The end of Narnia (Last Battle) Each story
complete in itself - George MacDonald
style. Fragmented - Strong unity of philosophy
and consistency of doctrine.
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Narnia Myth Made Truth The Origins of the
Chronicles of Narnia In the process of writing
the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis gradually
expanded the breadth and scope of his literary
ambitions. What was foreseen from the outset as a
collection of stories for children developed into
a complex depiction of an entire moral universe.
As the seven books progress, Lewis unfolds the
whole Divine plan for this universe from its
creation to its apocalypse. However, the
uniqueness of Lewis' literary achievement stems
from the fact that Lewis manages to do two things
at once. That is, he remains faithful to his
original intention to write stories for children
while adding in subtle moral and spiritual
complexities. Thus, the Chronicles of Narnia are
a series of books that can delight the senses as
they challenge and stir the soul. (Mark Bane)
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Moral education. . . does not look much like
teaching. One cannot have classes in it. It
involves the inculcation of proper emotional
responses and is as much a "knowing how" as a "
knowing that." . . . The picture we get when we
think of knowing how" is the apprentice working
with the master. And the inculcation of right
emotional responses will take place only if the
youth has around him examples of men and women
for whom such responses have become
natural. Lewis, like Aristotle, believes that
moral principles are learned indirectly from
others around us, who serve as exemplars. . . .
This is also the clue to understanding the place
of the Chronicles of Narnia within Lewis's
thought. They are not just good stories. Neither
are they primarily Christian allegories (in fact,
they are not allegories at all). Rather, they
serve to enhance moral -education, to build
character. . . . To overlook the function of the
Chronicles of Narnia in communicating images of
proper emotional responses is to miss their
connection to Lewiss moral thought.
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THE KINGDOM OF NARNIA LEWIS RIGOROUSLY DEFENDS
THE FAIRY TALE AGAINST ANY who claim that it
gives a false conception of life. The fact is,
says he, that this is the direct opposite of the
truth and it is the so-called realistic stories
which deceive children. The fairy tale, like the
myth, on the one hand arouses longing for more
ideal worlds and on the other gives the real
world a new dimension of depth. The boy "does not
despise real woods because he has read of
enchanted woods the reading makes all real woods
a little more enchanted." The child reading the
fairy tale is delighted simply in desiring, while
the child reading a "realistic" story may
establish the success of its hero as a standard
for himself and, when he cannot have the same
success, may suffer bitter disappointment. It
seems obvious that two purposes guided Lewis in
the writing of his Narnia stories. One was to
tell a good tale, the other to suggest analogies
- I do not think Lewis would wish them called
allegories - of the Christian scheme of things.
These books have been among Lewis's most widely
read. Charles Some think that they mark "the
greatest addition to the imperishable deposit of
children's literature since the Jungle Books.
Chad Walsh says that he himself felt the
fairy-tale atmosphere was curiously cut-and-dried
but that two of his daughters, aged six and
eight, re-educated him after he had read them the
first chapter and they required two chapters a
night thereafter, some times followed by tears
when a third chapter was not forth-coming.
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WHERE IT ALL BEGAN C.S. Lewis played in this
wardrobe as a child.
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe The Main
Theme Frozen to Thawed Winter to Spring Key
Symbol The Stone Table Favorite Quotes LWW and
the Bible (see next page) When and Where in
LWW 1. Lucy accidentally found herself in
Narnia 2. After a visit with Mr. Tumnus the Faun,
Lucy returned to England 3. Edmund accidentally
found himself in Narnia and met the Queen of
Narnia 4. Edmund became addicted to magic candy
(Turkish Delight) 5. Peter and Susan assumed that
Lucys Narnia was unreal 6. All four children
found themselves in Narnia 7. The four learned
about Narnia while visiting Mr. And Mrs.
Beaver 8. Edmund sneaked away to betray the
others to the White Witch 9. Edmund made his way
to the Witchs castle and became captive
there 10. As the children and the Beavers fled,
Father Christmas arrived with gifts 11. The Witch
discover that her perpetual winter was beginning
to thaw 12. Aslan appeared, greeted his friend
ands knighted Peter 13. The Witch demand her
right to kill Edmund 14. Aslan gave himself to
the Witch to die in Edmunds place 15. Aslan came
back to life 16. Aslan revived all victims of the
Witch who had turned to statues 17. The children
ruled Narnia for many happy years before
returning to England
Prof. Digory
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The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and The
Bible Daughter of Eve (9,8) Romans 512 I
should live to see this day (68, 58) Luke
230 Wrong will be right when. ..(74, 64) Mat.
1218-20 At the sound of his roar. ..(74, 64
) Hosea 1110-11 Sorrows will be no more (74,64)
Isaiah 6519 When Adam's flesh and Adam's bone
(76, 65 ) Genesis 223 They are tools, not toys
( 104, 87 ) Eph. 611-17 No need to talk about
what is past ( 136, I 12) Is. 6516 Deep Magic (
138, I 14) I Corinthians 25-8 He just went
on looking at Asian (138, 114) Hebrews 122 I
should be glad of company tonight (147, 121 )
Matthew 2638 I am sad and lonely ( 147, 121
) Matthew 2638 Let him first be shaved
(150,124) Matthew 2728 Jeering at him saying
( 150, 124 ) Matthew 2729 In that knowledge,
despair and die (152,126) Matthew 2746 Warmth of
his breath. ..came all over her ( 159, 132 ) John
2022 A magic deeper still ( 159, 132 ) I
Corinthians 27-8 Asian provided food (178,
147) John 61-14 He has other countries to
attend to (180, 149) John 1016
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The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe The first of
the adventures, after the creation of Narnia by
Asian, began about sixty years later when the
four Pevensie children, Peter, Edmund, Susan, and
Lucy, left London because of air-raids during the
war and went to stay with old Professor Kirke in
his great country mansion. One day Lucy, while
playing in an old wardrobe, accidentally
discovered it was a doorway - one never reached
Narnia twice in the same way to Narnia and
eventually all four of the children got in. Just
inside was the lamp-post of Jadis the White
Witch. She was now queen of Narnia, having slain
most of its inhabitants and turned its weather to
perpetual winter yet with never any
Christmas. Jadis had overcome most of Narnia and
had as her henchmen a vast number of giants,
werewolves, . bull-headed men, evil dwarfs. and
spirits of evil trees and poisonous plants_ Even
though Jadis magically turned all her enemies to
stone, there were many loyal Narnian talking
beasts hidden away and eager for her downfall.
One of these was Tumnus the Faun, whose
friendship with Lucy brought on Jadis's wrath and
lined up the forces of good and evil. Mr. and
Mrs. Beaver led the children southwards toward
the Stone Table. They were followed by the
furious Jadis, who had learned of Asian's return
to Narnia. In the south, where once again spring
had returned, Asian took Peter to a high hill and
showed him in the distance on a peninsula jutting
into the sea the castle of Cair Paravel where he
and the other children were to reign. AsIan also
predicted the death of Jadis. Meanwhile she and
her cohorts arrived at the Stone Table and she
was about to kill Edmund,..now her prisoner, with
her stone knife when Aslan volunteered to die in
his place and thus appease the Deep Magic
involved. That night Lucy and Susan met AsIan
near the Stone Table, wept bitterly at the
sadness in his countenance, and later horrifiedly
saw Aslan bound by his enemies, spit upon, jeered
at, and finally slain by the White Witch. At
sunrise the Stone Table itself split into two
great pieces. Later Lucy and Susan returned
sorrowfully to the dead body of their leader.
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The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe Yet with
the coming of daylight Lucy and Susan were
overjoyed to hear a great voice behind their
backs and turning saw Aslan shining in the early
sunrise. He was larger and more more glorious
than ever. When they inquired how he could be
alive again, he told them it was a very Deep
Magic. After a happy romp, Aslan took the two
girls upon his back and traveled like the wind to
the White Witchs castle in the West. There he
brought all the stone animals back to life and
laid her castle waste. Hurrying back eastward,
they found peter and his friends in deadly combat
with the White Witch and her followers. The
result was a complete victory, Aslan himself
joining the battle and slaying the White Witch
herself. Then Aslan and all the loyal inhabitants
of Narnia took the children to Cair Paravel and
crowned them, and they grew up to be as dignified
kings and queens as one could imagine. Long
afterwards while one day in the west hunting the
White Stag, who could give you wishes if you
caught him, they came upon the lamp-post in the
Lantern Waste. At first they did not recognize
it. Later they became convinced that if they
passed the post they would either find strange
new adventures or else some great change in their
fortunes. They passed through the thicket in
which the post was located and the next moment
were children again among the clothes hung in the
wardrobe of the old professor's mansion. To their
amazement they found that though they had been in
Narnia a great many years no earth time at all
had elapsed. Old Professor Kirke comforted.
them by saying, Once a King in Narnia, always a
King in Narnia and assuring them that sooner or
later they would again discover an entrance to
that marvelous country.
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The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe "Have
you forgotten the Deep Magic?" asked the Witch.
"Let us say I have forgotten it," answered Aslan
gravely. "Tell us of this Deep Magic." "Tell
you?" said the Witch, her voice growing suddenly
shriller. "Tell you what is written on that very
Table of Stone which stands behind us? Tell you
what is written in letters deep as a spear is
long on the fire-stones on the Secret Hill? Tell
you what is engraved on the scepter of the
Emperor-beyond the sea? You at least know the
Magic which the Emperor put into Narnia at the
very beginning. You know that every traitor
belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for
every treachery I have a right to a kill." "Oh,"
said Mr. Beaver. "So that's how you came to
imagine yourself a queen -- because you were the
Emperor's hangman. I see." (Deep Magic from The
Dawn of Time)
Lucy and Mr. Tumnus
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The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe "Oh, you're
real, you're real! Oh, Aslan!" cried Lucy, and
both girls flung themselves upon him and covered
him with kisses. "But what does it all mean?"
asked Susan when they were somewhat calmer. "It
means, said Aslan, that though the Witch knew the
Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which
she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to
the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a
little further back, into the stillness and the
darkness before Time dawned, she would have read
there a different incantation. She would have
known that when a willing victim who has
committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's
stead, the Table would crack and Death itself
would start working backward." (Deeper Magic
From Before The Dawn of Time) "Of course,"
said Aslan. "And now! Those who can't keep up -
that is, children, dwarfs, and small animals -
must ride on the backs of those who can - that
is, lions, centaurs, unicorns, horses, giants and
eagles. Those who are good with their noses must
come in the front with us lions to smell out
where the battle is. Look lively and sort
yourselves." And with a great deal of bustle and
cheering they did. The most pleased of the lot
was the other lion who kept running about
everywhere pretending to be very busy but really
in order to say to everyone he met, "Did you hear
what he said? Us Lions. That meant him and me. Us
Lions. That's what I like about Aslan. No side,
no stand-off-ishness. Us Lions. That meant him
and me." At least he went on saying this till
Aslan had loaded him up with three dwarfs, one
dryad, two rabbits, and a hedgehog. That steadied
him a bit." (What Happened About The Statues)
And I saw a strong angel, who shouted in a loud
voice "Who is worthy to break the seals on this
scroll and unroll it?" But no one in heaven or on
earth or under the earth was able to open the
scroll and read it. Then I wept because no one
could be found who was worthy to open the scroll
and read it. But one of the twenty-four elders
said to me, "Stop weeping! Look, the LION of the
tribe of Judah, the heir to David's throne has
conquered. He is worthy to open the scroll and
break the seven seals." Rev 52-5 And Aslan
stood up and as he opened his mouth to roar his
face became so terrible that they did not dare to
look at it. And they saw all the trees in front
of him bend before the blast of his roaring as
the grass bends in a meadow before the wind. The
Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
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The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe "Is--is he
a man?" asked Lucy. "Aslan a man!" said Mr.
Beaver sternly. "Certainly not. I tell you he is
the King of the wood and the son of the great
Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don't you know who is the
King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion--the Lion, the
great Lion." "Ooh!" said Susan, "I'd thought he
was a man. Is he--quite safe? I shall feel rather
nervous about meeting a lion." "That you will,
dearie, and no mistake,' said Mrs. Beaver, 'if
there's anyone who can appear before Aslan
without their knees knocking, they're either
braver than most or else just silly." "Then he
isn't safe?" said Lucy. "Safe?" said Mr. Beaver.
"Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who
said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe.
But he's good. He's the King I tell you." "I'm
longing to see him," said Peter, "even if I do
feel frightened when it comes to the point.
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Christian Creed in Narnian terms I believe in
the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea who has put within
time the Deep Magic, and, before all time, the
Deeper Magic. I believe in his Son Asian who sang
into being all the worlds and all that they
contain Talking Beasts and humans, dumb animals
and shining spirits. And I believe that Asian was
a true beast, the king of beasts, a Lion that
for Edmund, a traitor because of his desire for
Turkish Delight, he gave himself" into the power
of the White Witch, who satisfied the
requirements of the Deep Magic by killing him
most horribly. At the dawn following that
darkest, coldest night, he was restored to full
life by the Deeper Magic, cracking the Stone
Table and, from that moment, setting death to
work backwards. He exulted in his new life and
went off to rescue all those who had been turned
into stone by the Witchs want and to deliver the
whole land from everlasting winter. He will be
behind all the stories of our lives and, when it
is time, he will appear again in our world to
wind it up, calling all of his creatures whose
hearts' desire it is to live "farther in and
farther up" in his country which contains all
real countries. I believe that upon us all falls
the breath of Asian and that ours are the sweet
waters of the Last Sea which enable us to look
steadily at the sun. I believe that all who have
thrilled or will thrill at the sound of Asian's
name are now our fellow voyagers and our fellow
kings and queens that all of us can be for ever
free of our dragonish thoughts and actions and
that one day we will pass through the door of
death into "Chapter One of the Great Story, which
no one on earth has read which goes on for ever
in which every chapter is better than the one
before. (Paul Ford)
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Conclusion It is the way Lewis thoroughly
integrated his Christian faith into his scholarly
work that leaves the largest legacy. Lewis
taught me... how to long for God and seek true
joy. How to integrate a Christian worldview with
my vocation, my family life, and my inner
self. In all his writings, Lewis tried to point
to Christ. The impact of Lewis on my life has
been great. He has challenged me to grow in my
faith so that Im not afraid to engage
spiritually and intellectually with a world
hostile to God. But above all he has taught me
that the power of the imagination is one of the
greatest tool we have to bridge the gap into the
secular mind.