The Chronicles of Narnia are a set of seven books. My Mom bought me this set when I was in third grade, from the Scholastic book order form that was given to the class each month. From the book set, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was the only book I picked up to read. As soon as I reached chapter two I put the book down and never bothered with it again until last week. This book is written for a child. It has a simple plot, there is no advanced language, the sentence structure is simplistic, and there are many fictional, mystical characters.
This book struck me as very religious in its underlying tone. It actually reminded me of a parody on South Park, which I had thought was a joke. The parody suggested that Aslan was a Jesus allegory. It was when he rose from the dead in the book that I began to take the parody seriously. Shortly after that scene Aslan continued to portray and uphold specific mystical characteristics. What I found interesting was that he was able to bring the statues back to life.
There was a feeling throughout this book that although there was a murder and war, that nothing bad would actually happen. No children would be severely harmed, no good characters would die permanently, and there would be a happy ending. This can especially be assumed because this book is only the second of seven. The ending of this book was a little strange for me. Mainly in the way the children had forgotten how they arrived in Narnia. It was as if they had forgotten who they were because they couldn't remember their origins. What raised questions for me was the way the professor handled their story. Had he been there himself? Is that how he knew they would not be able to get back through the same door? Or was he just humoring them?
At the time Lewis wrote "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," there was no back story for the Professor, however he later wrote the prequel, "The Magician's Nephew," which explains that the professor has in fact been to Narnia and even built the wardrobe out of a tree that grew from a Narnian seed.
ReplyDeleteI think one interesting thing about the wardrobe that we never discussed in class was the repeated lines about making sure not to close the door of the wardrobe behind you. The narrator mentions the divide between the worlds and making sure not to close it at least three times. I wonder what we might take from this emphasis on the border between reality and fantasy.