The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Chapters 1 - 6

  In recounting his own spiritual odyssey, Lewis tells how he was strongly driven by a sensation of desire which, in his autobiography, he terms joy and sometimes uses the German term Sehnsucht.  It is a yearning for something more, something which occasional experiences arouse, but which no experience in this world fully satisfies.  It is a yearning which can only be satisfied by a union with God.  One of the primary effects of reading LWW is to arouse and nourish  in the reader that longing.  As you read, note in how many ways images have this effect. 

Lewis presents Narnia (which suggests the realm of the imagination, or something more?) to be a very attractive and inviting realm, but also one fraught with great peril. It is a place of moral values shaped by Christian truths which require careful attention.  The amiable faun right away identifies Lucy as a daughter of Eve and, of course, this suggests her fallen condition. He kindly invites her to his home for a delicious tea by a warm fire.  He tells her intriguing tales of dancing nymphs and dryads and he plays for her mesmerizing tunes on his flute. “Lucy thought she had never seen a nicer place.”  Imaginative reverie can be very enjoyable, especially for a child. 

Lucy, however, is startled when the faun breaks out in sobbing and confesses to her that he is in the service of the White Witch and is pledged to turn any human he discovers in Narnia over to her.  But he repents, releases her, and she returns to her home.  The reader is deeply impressed with the fact that what appears attractive and inviting in Narnia has the potential for being seductive and destructive of  true happiness and well-being.  So, indeed, with one’s imagination.

Having returned, Lucy earnestly tries but fails to convince her peers of the reality of Narnia, and Edmund makes fun of her.  From his very first appearance in the tale, Edmund reveals himself to be ill-tempered and possessed with belittling and generally negative attitudes. When, during a game of hide and seek, he sees Lucy duck into the wardrobe, he follows and finds himself in a cold and quiet place with snow falling, a place he does not like, and with no Lucy present.  Apparently, what one encounters in Narnia is strongly affected by one’s nature and disposition. 

Suddenly there comes to him a sleigh and reindeer, driven by a short fat dwarf and carrying a beautiful woman all in white, but with a cold, stern and demeaning attitude, who identifies herself as the Queen of Narnia.   After questioning him, her attitude completely changes, and she entices him onto her sleigh, giving him a delicious warm drink and a deal of Turkish Delight. Edmund “had never tasted anything more delicious,” and the more he eats, the more he wants.  His nature feeds upon the sensual and self-inflating.

After questioning Edmund and learning about his brothers and sisters, the White Witch persuades him to return and bring them all to her castle, promising to make him a prince and the future king of Narnia.  As he is departing, he meets Lucy by the lamp post and she, who has been with the faun,  explains how all the animals of Narnia hate and fear the White Witch.  Edmund keeps his encounter with her a secret and they return to their world.

Back in the every-day world with Peter and Susan, Lucy, who is good natured, kind and positive in her thinking, defers to Edmund to tell of their adventures, and he yields immediately to the temptation to hurt her and disdain her story by denying altogether that they had any adventures there .  Lucy is deeply hurt and flees, but, when they find her, she insists on the reality of their experiences in Narnia.

Suspecting that Lucy may have gone daft or is purposefully lying, the four  find the professor in whose house they are staying and tell him their story.  He asks them which of the two–Lucy or Edmund–has shown themselves in the past more truthful and reliable, and when they agree that Lucy has always been such, he suggests they believe her, and affirms they possibility of their being other worlds. The professor’s affirmations establish in the readers’ minds further credence that Narnia is an alternate reality.

Sometime later the four Pevensie children, taking refuge in the wardrobe, find themselves in Narnia, and follow Lucy’s advice that they visit Mr. Tumnus, the faun. Coming upon his abode and finding it in shambles with a note stating he was arrested for “fraternizing with Humans,” they determine to try to rescue him, in spite of Edmund’s skepticism.

AN INTRIGUING ISSUE: LEWIS TURNS TO WRITING NARNIA TO CALL ATTENTION TO THE ROLE OF THE IMAGINATION IN THOROUGH-GOING CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE..  WHAT MAKES NARNIA SO EFFECTIVE IN THIS REGARD? 

ANY FURTHER THOUGHTS?  PLEASE SHARE THEM.