Truth In C. S. Lewis The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe

Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe Essay
In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis, Lucy wants to tell Edmund what Aslan has done for him while Susan does not. Susan, using her power as the older sister, forbids Lucy to reveal the truth to Edmund. Susan does not make a wise decision when denying Lucy the choice to tell Edmund about Aslan’s sacrifice. Although the truth might cause Ed-mund feelings of regret or guilt, he has the right to know the truth. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Edmund finds out about the sacrifice, so Susan’s decision to hide the truth from him ultimately fails. Edmund feels sadness and anger toward his sisters once he realizes what they did. If Susan had allowed Lucy tell him earlier, there may have been far less conflict between family members.

In situations like this, many people may choose to hide the truth just as Susan does.

Ev-idence throughout the book demonstrates that hiding the truth and lying is not the right thing to do. While in Narnia, Edmund has his first encounter with the White Witch and has fallen to the temptation of Turkish Delight. After coming back, Edmund claims that Narnia was just a game he was playing with Lucy. Lying to Susan and Peter in front of Lucy while she knows the truth is devastating to her, and it creates a distrust between all four of the children. Later, Edmund tries to deceive Peter by suggesting that the Witch may not be evil when he states “How do we know that the fawns are in the right and the Queen is in the wrong?” (Chapter 6). The whole web of distrust and lies creates difficulty for Edmund to believe who everyone says Aslan is because of his own lies to himself and his siblings and because of the Witch’s lies to

him.
After being rescued by the White Witch, Edmund has a conversation in a tent with Aslan. Not knowing what was said in the tent, it is not hard to assume that it was the beginning of Edmund’s transformation in what he believes. The truth changes Edmund for the better, while all the lies created problems for the worse. Because the truth has transformed him, by the end of the book, he has fought bravely for Aslan and has been named “Edmund the Just,” and “great in council and judgement” (Chapter 17). If he had learned the truth earlier, it certainly would have been hard on him, but the conflict may have been resolved more easily and later conflicts may have been avoided.
Hiding information is essentially lying. Lying to anyone is a sin. The Bible says “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Colos-sians 3:9-10). God is Truth, therefore He detests lying. On the other hand, Satan is known as “the father of lies.” When Susan hides the truth from her brother, she probably does not think of it as lying. She may justify her actions as merely not speaking about something she knows. Many times adults do this to kids. They do not tell them what is going on in a bad situation, but later when the child finds out, he is usually bitter that he was kept in the dark. Edmund feels like this when he finds his sisters had been hiding potentially life-changing information from him. Susan was trying to act like the adult or parent to her younger siblings. Her sisters and brothers usually resent this attitude. Susan wants to shelter Edmund, but it is time for him to mature and to face reality. Although at this point in the novel, Edmund is not deep in his relationship with Aslan as Susan and Lucy are, he still deserves to know the facts and to under-stand what Aslan has done and why. If Susan instead would have thought through her actions more carefully, she would have made a better decision which could have changed many bad outcomes. The feelings of guilt between the sisters and the grudge held by Edmund against them might have been avoided.
It was wrong for Susan to withhold the truth, or lie, to Edmund about Aslan’s sacrifice. Because of this sin, there is unnecessary emotional hardship for Edmund, distrust of Edmund toward his sisters, and a delay in Edmunds understanding of Aslan’s true nature. Susan may have thought she was protecting Edmund, but in fact, more harm than good comes from this. In the real world, people often lie or withhold information to protect someone else's feelings. In the end, although it may seem harder, it is always better to tell the truth.