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The lion the witch and the wardrobe overview
The lion the witch and the wardrobe overview
The lion the witch and the wardrobe overview
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In the Narnia series there are many books. The Magician’s Nephew is the first book to start off the series, after comes The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Polly was one of the main characters in “The Magician’s Nephew” and Lucy is one of the main characters in “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. These two characters have some stuff common and also have their differences. Polly from “The Magician’s Nephew” was sent to Narnia without even knowing. Digory’s uncle (Uncle Andrew) tricked Polly of taking a magic ring, telling her it’s an ordinary ring but actually sending her to the other world. Uncle Andrew use Polly as an experiment to know what’s in the other side of the world. Lucy from “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”, she was
Fairy tale is a story that features folkloric chapters and enchantments, often involving a far-fetching sequence of events. Fairy tales have been around for thousands of years, whether it comes from Grimm’s Fairy Tales which is what most people consider the “classic” or “traditional” fairy tales to Disney movies, the idea of the fairy tale fills our society with lessons and examples of how we should behave and live; fairy tales teach the same things in different ways, or teach different things with the same tale. A couple of these tales are “Beauty and the Beast”, by Jeanne-Marie Leprince De Beaumont and “The Pig King”, by Giovanni Francesco Straparola. They are both tales about falling in love with someone despite their appearance. The similarities and differences between “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Pig King” is captivating while still depicting a similar tale. They are similar in the way they find love and their love story but they also share a similar behavior pattern in the way the girls behave towards the prince. However, the two tales do display a difference in the attitudes of the princes and their actions towards their love
C.S Lewis is the author of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Warrdrobe. Lewis was born on November 29, 1898, in Belfast, Ireland. He was born Clive Staples Lewis to Flora August Hamilton Lewis and Albert J. Lewis. Lewis’s mother passed away when he was on ten years old. After his mother died he went on to get his pre-college education at boarding schools and he also received help from a tutor. Lewis served in World War I with the English Army, but unfortunately was sent home when he was wounded. Lewis was a graduate of Oxford University with a focus on classic philosophy and literature. As a child, he was disappointed with the Christian faith, but when he became older he found himself embracing Christianity. During World War II, he gave popular radio broadcasts on Christianity and they won many converts. Lewis’ speeches were collected in Mere Christianity. In the year of 1954, C.S. Lewis joined the staff of Cambridge University as a literature professor. He met an English teacher by the name of Joy Gresham and in 1956 they married each other and became a happily married family. The two were joyful during their marriage; unfortunately in 1960, the wife became ill with cancer died. Lewis began publishing his works in the mid- 1920s. Lewis started to publish The Chronicles of Narnia during the 1950s. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was the first in the seven book series to be released. This was the story of four siblings who discovered a wardrobe with a magical land in the back of it (“Clives…”). In The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Lewis describes Aslan, Edmund, and Lucy.
“Let us suppose that there were a land like Narnia and that the son of God, as he became a man in our world, became a lion in theirs, and then imagine what would happen” (letters to children qtd. Gazora 9). Throughout Clive Lewis life, he changed his religion so many times from not believing in God to believing again. Lewis was always known for his fantasy, and his most known book The Chronicles of Narnia. Lewis wrote The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, to show his Christian faith. In Lewis’s novel, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, he uses the archetype of the hero, and the villain, as well as the symbol of the stone table.
In conclusion, C.S. Lewis’ The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe is not only a children’s story filled with creatures that are only of imagination, but an allegorical representation of biblical history and a quest to find one’s strength. Although author like J.R.R Tolkein once criticized his Narnia books, they remain among the most beloved books of classic Children’s Literature selling over 100 million copies.
The Magician’s Nephew is the genesis of Narnia. It all starts with a curious but cowardly Professor and two kids who want to find out what the Professor is doing so secretly in his lab. When they get there, the Professor tells the kids that he has found a way to travel between worlds and tricks them into trying his invention. Catastrophes and wondrous adventures follow.
“I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children’s story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story.” C.S. Lewis ' quote brings about some interesting question. What makes a classic? How can we test fantasy literature to see if it is, or can be a classic for all ages? Two important factors to consider in these questions are how good and evil are depicted and explained to the audience. Is the villain evil for evils sake? Or does the villain believe he is in the right under bad circumstances? We must also consider how the author uses narrative voice to tell their story to the audience. Does the author talk down to the readers? Or do they keep their voice light and playful? Looking at the course readings from the
The Wizard of Oz is a classic a universally loved film. It’s full of adventure, symbolism, and has a feel good story. It’s interesting though to see some parallels the Wizard of Oz had with other well-known classic fairytales. One example, is the famous story of Alice in Wonderland. A classic in its own right, and a staple in nearly everyone’s film repertoire. The similarities between these two stories are numerous. Starting with the main heroines themselves. Both Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland, have a young girl as their main character. Even the character’s appearances and lines are similar. Both sporting a blue dress, and describing their fantasies as curious. When Dorothy arrives in Oz she says, “What a curious place”.
In The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis introduces us to a great and powerful lion named Aslan. C.S. Lewis is quoted in saying, “He is an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question, ‘What might Christ become like if there really were a world like Narnia, and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?”(Snyder and Baehr). Aslan is, according to Mr. Beaver in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, “He’s the Lord of the whole wood……………I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea” (Lewis 78-79 LWW). Aslan is interpreted in the series by many as a Jesus Christ-like figure. The actions that he does and the words that he says would confirm that interpretation for most people. In the very beginning of Narnia there was nothing, just darkness. Then Aslan appeared and created the whole world of Narnia; the plants, the water, and the animals. Also, Aslan picks two animals of the same species (one male and one female) and gives them the power to be talking animals (Lewis 104-125). In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when Lucy and Edmund Pevensie have to go back to earth Aslan tells them that he will be there also. “It isn’t Narnia, you know,” sobbed Lucy. “It’s you. We shan’t meet you the...
Clive Staples Lewis, or better known as C.S. Lewis, was an Irish author who wore many hats. Best known for the “Chronicles of Narnia” series, Lewis was also a poet, soldier, and christian apologist. Born in Belfast, Ireland, Lewis was the younger of the two boys of Albert J. Lewis and Florence Augusta Hamilton Lewis. From a young age Lewis exhibited a strong imagination, along with his brother, Warren, Lewis created an imaginary land called Boxen. In fact, Lewis even wrote his very own stories and made illustrations to explain the history of this imaginary land (C.S. Lewis). It was this kind of imagination that would aid Lewis in writing poetry, his first love. In 1908, when Lewis was only ten years old, his mother died of cancer.
In many fairy tales, there is always a damsel in distress that is beautiful and the male character always falls in love with her. In Rapunzel the short story, Rapunzel is put into a tower and lives there most of her young life by her ‘mother’ before her prince comes to recuse her. The difference between Tangled and Rapunzel the short story is that, Rapunzel is the princess and her prince is actually a thief, which ends up falling in love with her. Tangled illustrates how a naïve and beautiful heroine, evil mother figure, and a shallow egotistical hero can make a fairy tale story end with love and marriage.
It seems like every year Hollywood does a motion picture interpretation of a novel and although the movie may become a box office hit, the novel will always be much more detailed and in depth. Movie producers and directors try to fit an entire book filled with the tiniest of details into approximately an hour and thirty minutes of entertainment, therefore are forced to cut out many important details. For instance, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” a children’s literature novel written by J.K. Rowling was transferred to the big screen in 2001. Though the movie stayed “…surprisingly faithful to the novel,” according to Roger Ebert, it still lacked some major details that contributed to building the magical world of “Harry Potter.”
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...
Downing, David C. Into the Wardrobe: C. S. Lewis and the Narnia Chronicles. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 2005.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a book that I read in last summer. I like this book because I like this type of books. I can call this book as an adventurous book. In this book, every scene makes me very excited. The words and the sentences in the book can make me really feel like I am one of the characters and experience what they are experiencing.
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.