The land of Narnia is a place where something as simple as a wardrobe is the key to something as magical as Narnia. In C.S Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, four children go on an adventure of a lifetime. The main characters are Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, are siblings that travel to Narnia as the Sons of Adam and the Daughters of Eve. There is controversy whether or not the book is well-suited for children. Lewis uses different literary techniques including character development, animal personification, and censorship to help make the book more appropriate for children. One of the literary techniques Lewis uses to suit to his younger audiences is the use of his characters. In Narnia, we get to see and hear everything described …show more content…
through the kids. By having the reader join the characters in the adventure of Narnia, it helps create a bond between the characters and the reader. When she first discoved Narnia “Lucy felt a little frightened, but she felt very inquisitive and excited as well” (Lewis 8). Children reading this sentence are familiar with the feeling that Lucy is going through the way that Lewis describes it. If Lewis would have used adults as the main characters for the novel, it would not have had the same effect. However, the book still contains adults, such as: Professor Kirke, Father Christmas, and the White Witch. These figures bring authority to the novel and can help bridge the gap between reality and a fairy tale. The reader does not fully get drawn into Narnia because of how realistic these adults are. Because the audience are children, they can connect better to how the main characters think and look at situations, rather than if the main characters were adults. Peter, who is the oldest, acts as a leader with his bravery and good judgement. Being the second oldest, Susan takes on the motherly role. Lucy, being the youngest, is open minded and has the best imagination. Edmund is the middle child who always has to listen to his older siblings. Lewis makes the characters protagonists in order to help the children connect with them in the form of good. Betrayal is crucial to the plot of the novel.
Out of all the siblings, Edmund is the one who commits betrayal. The constant need to be obedient to his siblings does not make him very happy. So when Edmund stumbles his way into Narnia, and meets the White Witch, he is easily persuaded by her. She convinces him to join the dark side with the use of turkish delights. This encounter is the start of Edmund's betrayal toward his siblings. On his way to the castle, hoping to gain power in Narnia, Edmund speaks to the White Witch. If he gains power, he knows there may be consequences for his siblings. Edmund does not want his sibling to be turned to stone, but “he did not want her to be particularly nice to them”(Lewis 89). Edmund may betray his siblings, but he transforms into a much better character at the end of the novel. This transformation can show children even if they make a mistake, they can learn from it. Some argue Lewis could use some improvement on making the book more fitting for children. Having Edmund turn on his siblings may be too cruel for some children to comprehend, despite his transformation of becoming just at the end of the book. Edmund’s transformation has a deeper meaning that adults can understand easier than children. However, Lewis main purpose of the book is to help children, not adults, and the transformation can be interpreted on different
level. Animals and creatures are located everywhere in Narnia and help give a friendly vibe to the young readers. Another literary technique used by Lewis is the personification of these animals. By having animals talk and giving them other humanistic features, it creates a sense of comfort for the characters and the reader. However, not only does it have magical animals, but Narnia also has Dwarfs, Giants, Unicorns, Centaurs, Fauns, Witches and many more mythological creatures. Kids typically have a short attention span. By having them read about so many interesting creatures, it grabs their interest more effectively. As where children might imagine these creatures to be real, adults know that these creatures couldn't possibly exist, and that animals can not actually talk. Perhaps some of the most important animals are Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, who act as parents for the kids. The kids are unsure about where they should go in Narnia, until a robin leads them right to the Beavers dam house. Lucy immediately trusts the beavers they run into, who soon begin to talk about how they can talk inside and eat dinner. While eating, “(t)here was a jug of creamy milk for the children (Mr. Beaver stuck to beer)”(Lewis 74). Mr. Beaver is personified in a way that makes him seem like a human father. This fatherly figure makes the lost kids more comfortable in this land they don't know much about. The beavers both inform the children on what is going on in Narnia and also help protect them from the White Witch. Aslan the lion is also personified by Lewis. Aslan is the king of Narnia who has been missing for a number of years but comes back to save Narnia with the Sons of Adam and the Daughters of Eve. Aslan is personified as humble, friendly, and devotes all of his time to help out the children. After the battle the girls ask Aslan if he is ill and he replies “I am sad and lonely. Lay your hands on my mane so that I can feel you are there and let us walk like that” (150). Aslan is able to connect with the girls through the human features Lewis gives him. These reassure the reader about the source of good in the novel and can make the reader more comfortable and happy. The beavers, Aslan, and the other animals human characteristics are used by Lewis to help connect children to his novel. The amount of violence can have a huge impact on a novel. What audience it is best intended for will depend on how graphic the descriptions of gruesome events are. To make an example out of her enemies, or anyone who is against her, the White Witch uses her wand to turn them to stone. It is more appropriate for kids to read about stone, rather than bloody deaths. An example of Lewis censoring the book to make it more appropriate for children is when Aslan is on the his deathbed while Susan and Lucy “did not see the actual moment of the killing. They could not bear to look”(Lewis 155). Having the girls look away does not only help lower the age of the intended audience but it also helps hide the terrible event that is happening. The Witch may kill Aslan, but he comes back to life shortly after, just in time for the final battle. Aslan brings an army with him to help defeat the White Witch's army. During the final battle, many creatures are killed by various weapons. The White Witch is also killed by Aslan during the fight. The killing of the Witch is appropriate because of her cruel, wicked, evil role in the novel. Also, without her death, the kids would have never become kings and queens of Narnia. To make the novel more appropriate for young children, Lewis could have made the deaths less obvious by just hinting at them and not describing them. On the other hand, the storyline wouldn't have been quite as good, and the point wouldn't have gotten across. For example, when Peter “had just enough time to duck down and plunge his sword, as hard as he could, between the brute’s forelegs and into its heart” (131). He kills the wolf to save his sister from death, it is a crucial character development point for him. It would not have been the same if Peter just knocked the wolf unconscious. Lewis does a nice job of writing about violence at the right times, and not getting too graphic for the reader. In order to be intended for children, a novel must be written with extreme care. Lewis’s use of this care includes different literary techniques throughout Narnia. First, he uses character development in a way that the children reading are able to relate to the book. He also uses animal personification and strange creatures to help keep the children interested in the book. Lastly, he uses censorship in his ability to cleanly describe fight scenes to keep it appropriate. Narnia is a book that can be read by both adults and children. However, Lewis aims his novel more towards children who can enjoy the novel as an interesting fairytale. His style works in a way where there could be minor improvements to make it a little more fitting for children, but overall it works extremely well in the fairytale of Narnia.
Their are also many trees that the children first use as hiding places. This becomes the middle ground for the adventure that they go on. Narnia in this book is being created by Aslan. It is created by the tune that Aslan sung. It is here where their are many different types of animals that can talk.
...hey are made to try his experiment for teleportation. The children travel to different worlds and are followed back by a witch who, after destroying her own world, wants to rule theirs. The children work together to stop the witch and send her back to her original world. Unfortunately, the place they expect to go is not where they end up, which results in the witch escaping in to the newly created world of Narnia. On the bright side, Diggory nourishes his mother back to health and plants a tree which will later be used to build a wardrobe that becomes a doorway to Narnia. Because The Magician’s Nephew is written late in the series, the reader, who already knows about Narnia, learns how Narnia came into being and how the human race became involved there.
The characters in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe are symbolic of other characters featured in the Bible. Peter, the eldest child, became the “rock” everyone clung to. He waged the war against the white witch and he is a representation of the Apostle Peter. Susan, the second eldest child, is seen as the nonbeliever who must always have facts. She is a represe...
There is a picture of a ship on the wall and as Eustace calls Narnia, fake water begins coming into the room out of the picture. The next thing they know is they are in the ocean and the ship is on their side. The ship is a group of Narnians sailing east looking for the seven lost lords of Narnia. Caspain, the king of Narnia, leads the search group along with Ripecheep, the leader of the talking mice. In Narnia, animals talk and walk around like humans: Edmund, Lucy, and Eustace.
... getting punished for what she has done. Effectively, after the battle, good prevails. At the end of the story, Aslan fight and defeat the White Witch. Consequently, this is really a classic children book that covers good against evil.
C.S. Lewis created a story of a fictional world called Narnia that was inside of a wardrobe. There were four siblings who found this world, once inside they saw numerous creatures like witches and centaurs that were symbols for something bigger. C. S. Lewis uses Christian symbolism in The Lion Witch and the Wardrobe through the characters of Aslan, Edmund, and the White Witch.
Within The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis creates a question in the reader's mind on whether or not the story was meant to symbolize a Christian allegory. Throughout the story, Lewis utilizes the use of symbolism through his characters, their actions, and the places they travel. All of the main characters in the novel symbolize something within the Holy Bible. The Pevensie children are evacuated from war-torn London and sent to live in the country with Professor Kirke, an eccentric old man. While playing hide and seek on a rainy day, Lucy, the youngest Pevensie, discovers a colossal wardrobe in an empty room. She decides to hide inside, but "she had, of course, left the door open, for she knew that it is a very silly thing to shut oneself into a wardrobe" (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Lewis, 7). She discovers that the wardrobe has no ending and it leads to a world full of snow and strange creatures. Lucy meets a faun, Mr. Tumnus, and she follows him back to his home. Mr. Tumnus confesses that he is a servant of the White Witch, Queen Jadis. He states, "I had orders from the White Witch that if I ever saw a Son of Adam or a Daughter of Eve in the wood, I was to catch them and hand them over to her" (Lewis, 21). This is when the reader sees the first sign of symbolism. Lucy is extremely trusting. She represents children and their absolute innocence. When she enters back into the real world, she starts yelling that she is back and she is alright. However, her siblings have no idea what she is talking about. After they hear her story, the three eldest Pevensie children f...
Fiction has always been used as a way to relay different types of messages throughout time. In many cases authors use fiction to make political commentary, use stories to bring out the major flaws that society has, as well as a way to spread different types of beliefs or ideals. C.S. Lewis’s used his work, “The Chronicles of Narnia”, to reiterate the messages of the Bible to those who might have gotten lost during their lifetime. Though his whole series was full of connections the book that have the most prevalent connections are The Magician’s Nephew and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. In both there are places that are very similar to and very different books in the Bible. Taking into context when Lewis wrote this series is extremely important to see what some of his motivations might have been. These stories were started soon after World War II had ended. These stories were a way to teach the next generation some of the morals that the Bible was teaching. By creating these fantastical stories Lewis was able to make connections to help bridge the learning gap between the two generations. Also by using children as a target audience Lewis was able to remind adults as well, instead of being ignored because of the recent war. Lewis was able to address these lessons and morals in a way that both taught the children the way of the Bible, as well as to put a new spin on old tales so that adults were able to come back to religion, after losing some faith during the brutal war.
It is regular learning that C. S. Lewis is a Christian and much, if not every, of hello there composing is attached to Christianity or philosophy in some structure or way. A regular response to C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia is one of a Christian nature. Lewis is undoubtedly very purposeful in his utilization of imagery in Narnia. What is maybe not as normally known, on the other hand, it is safe to say that is, that the same kind of imagery is utilized as a part of a comparable book arrangement. This arrangement is the well known Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling.
I believe a retention of knowledge, as well as the love for a book (whether as an adult or child) is partly linked to the quality of words and imagination utilized in the author's tales. C. S. Lewis is a wonderful example of an author whose work extends to reach beyond the level of children, and brings into view the scenery of Narnia as an expression of life. His storytelling style brought the lands and people of the chronicles intothe view of my mind's eye as a child, and in the same way let my imagination interact with the story. Now I am an adult, and I have come to realize that the symbolism and parallels in the Chronicles of Narnia, which I may have overlooked with my child's mind, are presently real to me.
Narnia: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, based off of the novel written by C.S. Lewis, Edmund
The Narnia Chronicles have already established themselves as timeless works of literature. They appeal to both the atheists and the God-fearing, to both the uneducated and to scholars; to children and adults. An understanding of the Biblical allegory in these books is not essential to their appreciation. A critical analysis of these works, however, does allow the reader to more fully appreciate Lewis' unique gift to simplify complex narratives and craft beautiful children's fantasies. This, in turn, allows the reader to gain both a deeper understanding of Lewis as a skilled creative writer, and a deeper satisfaction of his art. To be able to appreciate C.S. Lewis as such an artisan can only add to one's enjoyment of his works.
In ancient times, mythology was used as a way of explanation. It may have explained a natural phenomenon, religious truth, it could have been told for entertainment, or for structuralism in a society. Although we are unable to prove the truth behind the stories, they surely have been entertaining people for many years. As the stories may have been told in ritual at bedtime for children, or around a campfire for the town, they surely were memorable. In modern times we even see similarities in some modern western movies. Although some movies such as Hercules and Percy Jackson blatantly use the stories as their plot line, some authors and directors discretely put stories similar to mythology into their works. An example of this would be the similarities in The Myth of Osiris and Isis compared to The Lion King.
Narnia's first characteristic of note is the portal through which it is reached the wardrobe. By connecting the secondary world with the first, real' one, rather than simply beginning the story within Narnia, Lewis is able to introduce thoughts about truth and rationality. As the first to discover Narnia, Lucy must convince her siblings that the second world does indeed exist. Here, the Professor gives the children a lesson about finding truth in a logical and considered manner:
...o who would die for another person. Aslan was made to resemble Jesus, but Aslan was one of the last characters to be added into the novel. “He'll be coming and going" he had said. "One day you'll see him and another you won't. He doesn't like being tied down--and of course he has other countries to attend to. It's quite all right. He'll often drop in. Only you mustn't press him. He's wild, you know. Not like a tame lion” (Lewis,C.S.). C.S. Lewis wrote the novel, but the general public made the novel. The public transformed a well crafted children’s fantasy into a bible for children. For this reason and many more previously stated is why Without the Christian conversion of C.S. Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe’s content would not change but the focus on the meaning would change from a Christian allegory to a children’s fantasy novel.