The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe Research Paper

C.S Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe is a prime example of a Christian epic. The novel, which I will be focussing on, contains many key characteristics of an epic according to Peter Toohey. I will be using Toohey’s description of an epic and comparing his thoughts and feelings on what an epic should consist of to this particular novel in order to show what exactly makes C.S Lewis’s great tale an epic in my eyes. The tale features four children; Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy who have been sent away from London during the war to live with an old professor in the countryside and this is where they discover the wardrobe. Lucy is the first to discover the land of Narnia through the wardrobe and meets a fawn

However, looking further into epic we realise it is much more. Toohey also describes more characteristics of an epic to be aspects such as battles, speeches, council from the gods and the description of shields and other artefacts/ weapons . As well as these important features, the heroes superior fighting skills and his heroic impulse to defeat a great evil are heavily featured in epics as well as the feature of myths and legends. Lastly, epics can have a vast setting and can contain a religion aspect and background. The Chronicles of Narnia features many heroes, the main two being Aslan and Peter as the strongest but also gaining help from Susan and Lucy. There is also one common enemy in this tale, that being the White Witch. This alone is enough to portray this tale as an epic. Setting and religion are also two prominent features in this book as we will later see. C.S Lewis himself was Christian and was very religious and we can see this mirrored in his work as it is packed full of religious symbolism and tales. Mythological creatures are the backbone of this tale as the whole world of Narnia is full of magic with characters such as dwarves, elves and others such as Aslan, who is one of the main characters and is no ordinary