Conclusion

The Chronicles of Narnia are best approached, then, through their narrative art. They are, above all, stories, of interest for their plots, characters, symbols, and structural patterns. They unite the emphasis of the romance on brave knights, courteous behavior, and heroic courage with the imaginary, self-contained world of fantasy, which the reader enters and participates in temporarily for enjoyment and enlightenment, and the magical world of fairy tales and their broad, clear-cut themes contrasting good and evil. The use of myth in the Chronicles, typical of fairy tales, gives them multiple levels of meaning, aimed particularly at the imagination and the emotions; and their use of archetypal plot motifs, character types, and symbols adds depth and universality by relating them to the rest of literature and involving them in matters of ultimate concern to all people. Lewis unifies each story about a distinctive theme or tone and creates in each the flavor of a particular part of the Narnian world. All these varied elements Lewis draws into a unique and appealing combination of adventure, charm, and numinousness in plot, characters, and theme.

The Christian thought of the Chronicles, too, is best [ß p. 131] approached through their narrative art; it is best accepted as part of the Narnian world rather than interpreted as allegory. The stories do have Christian themes, themes which go deeper than many readers, as they look for biblical parallels, suspect. And it hardly could be otherwise. Lewis claimed that he did not set out to write Christian stories, that the Christian element forced itself in of its own accord. Christianity was so deeply and fully a part of Lewis that his faith would inevitably infuse whatever he wrote. Walter Hooper called Lewis “the most thoroughly converted man I ever met.”¹ That being the case, it was almost certain that his faith would come through as he created such elementary works as fairy tales. Perhaps without deliberately planning to, Lewis includes in the Chronicles, through images and archetypes, an overview of the faith, an indirect introduction at a children’s level to the essential elements of Christianity, similar in scope and many details to Mere Christianity. It is one of the greatnesses of the Chronicles, however, that although they do have deeply Christian themes, they are not dependent upon Christianity. A non-Christian reader can approach the stories as fairy stories, be moved by the exciting adventures and the archetypal meanings, and not find the Christian elements obtrusive or offensive.

The Chronicles are not theological or evangelical books. There is no Narnian equivalent for the orthodox Christian belief that salvation is gained by awareness of what Christ has done and “acceptance” of him as savior. Neither Edmund, Eustace, nor Emeth, the three main examples of “salvation” in the Chronicles, knew Aslan before his conversion experience. Aslan, it is true, died in Edmund’s place, but according to Susan and Lucy, Edmund did not know that at the time.

“Does he know,” whispered Lucy to Susan, “what Aslan did for him?” Does he know what the arrangement with the Witch really was?” [ß p. 132]

“Hush! No. Of course, not,” said Susan.

“Oughtn’t he to be told?” said Lucy.

“Oh, surely not,” said Susan. “It would be too awful for him. Think how you’d feel if you were he.”

“All the same I think he ought to know,” said Lucy. But at that moment they were interrupted. (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, pp. 177-78)

Apparently he finds out later, for he tells Eustace, after hearing how the latter was freed from his dragon skin, about Aslan, “the great Lion, the son of the Emperor over Sea, who saved me and saved Narnia” (The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader,” p. 92). But at the time he is saved he knows only that Aslan is good and that he loves Aslan: “But Edmund had got past thinking about himself after all he’d been through and after the talk he’d had that morning. He just went on looking at Aslan. It didn’t seem to matter what the Witch said” (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, p. 138).

It is much the same for Emeth, the Calormene. Always, he says, “since I was a boy, I have served Tash and my great desire was to know more of him and, if it might be, to look upon his face. But the name of Aslan was hateful to me” (The Last Battle, p. 162). He is admitted, however, into the new Narnia and learns there from Aslan that he has not really been a servant to Tash: “Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me” (p. 164). He knows nothing about Aslan and of course has not “accepted” Aslan when he is admitted to the new Narnia; but he loves goodness and desires truth (indeed, his name means Truth²), and these bring him into the new Narnia and lead him to love Aslan at first sight:

He was more terrible that the Flaming Mountain of Lagour, and in beauty he surpassed all that is in the world, even as the rose in bloom surpasses the dust of the desert. Then I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have [ß p. 133] served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him. (p. 164)

And it is in terms of Emeth’s love of goodness that Aslan accepts him: “Unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek” (p. 165).

Lewis was not concerned in these books with the theology of redemption, with the steps and the means.³ I think, therefore, that John W. Montgomery misplaces his emphasis when he writes, “The theme [unifying the Chronicles] is that basic of all themes, Redemption through Christ.” He is much nearer the mark when he says later that the Chronicles can “establish in the hearts of the sensitive reader . . . a longing for the Christian story.”⁴ The books are, mainly, children’s books, and Lewis seems to have intended that they awaken in a child a love for Aslan and for goodness which can grow, as the child matures, into love for and acceptance of Christ. The Chronicles should not be expected to influence readers to “accept” Christ, but they may lead children to love and desire Aslan and, through him, eventually, Christ.

The thesis of this book—that the Chronicles are to be read as stories, responded to with the heart before they are reflected upon with the head—is especially important when the books are read to children. In addressing authors of children’s stories, Lewis argued that “We must meet children as equals in that area of our nature where we are their equals,” that is, “those elements in our imagination which we share with children” (“On Three Ways of Writing for Children,” Of Other Worlds, pp. 34, 33). Adults also, then, should read the Chronicles like children and share a child’s enjoyment of the elements which appeal to the imagination. But adults, out of “interests which children would not share with us,” will want to go beyond the imaginative qualities of the stories to their intellectual [ß p. 134] dimensions. The Chronicles are classics because of the way the intellectual reinforces the imaginative, and there is value for adults in seeing and discussing both aspects together; for them, and for children increasingly as they grow older, a response with the head can and should follow a response of the heart. But to explicate the “meanings” of the books to children would be, in Lewis’s words, “patronizing” (Of Other Worlds, p. 34), talking down to them out of superior adult interests and perspectives. The Chronicles are not allegories needing interpretation for full effect: they are stories to be enjoyed. Children should be left to enjoy them, imaginatively and emotionally, without being asked to reflect upon their “significance.” And because of the archetypal nature of the stories, because their roots reach down to basic human instincts and emotions, out of that enjoyment “meaning” will come, at its own time and in its own way. [ß p. 135]