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This article is about the book series. For the film series, see The Chronicles of Narnia (film series).
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Chronicles of Narnia HarperCollins boxed set; books presented in order of the fictional chronology |
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| Author | Clive Staples Lewis |
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| Language | English |
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| Genre | Fantasy
Children's literature |
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| Publisher | HarperCollins |
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| Published | 1950–1956 |
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The Chronicles of Narnia is a
series of seven high fantasy novels by
C. S. Lewis. It is considered a classic of children's literature and is the author's best-known work, having sold over 100 million copies in 47 languages. Written by Lewis between 1949 and 1954, illustrated by
Pauline Baynes and originally published in London between October 1950 and March 1956,
The Chronicles of Narnia has been
adapted several times, complete or in part, for radio, television, the stage, and film.
Set in the
fictional realm of
Narnia, a fantasy world of magic, mythical beasts, and talking animals, the series narrates the adventures of various children who play central roles in the unfolding history of that world. Except in
The Horse and His Boy, the
protagonists are all children from the real world magically transported to Narnia, where they are called upon by the lion
Aslan to protect Narnia from evil and restore the throne to its rightful line. The books span the entire history of Narnia, from its creation in
The Magician's Nephew, to its eventual destruction in
The Last Battle.
Inspiration for the series is taken from multiple sources; in addition to numerous traditional Christian themes, characters and ideas are freely borrowed from
Greek,
Turkish and
Roman mythology, as well as from traditional British and Irish fairy tales. The books have profoundly influenced adult and children's fantasy literature written since World War II. Lewis' exploration of themes not usually present in children's literature, such as religion as well as the book's perceived treatment of issues including race and gender, has caused some controversy.
[edit]
Background and conception
Although
Lewis originally conceived what would become
The Chronicles of Narnia in 1939,
[1] he did not finish writing the first book
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe until 1949.
The Magician's Nephew, the penultimate book to be published, but the last to be written, was completed in 1954. Lewis did not write the books in the order in which they were originally published, nor were they published in their current chronological order of presentation.
[2] The original illustrator, Pauline Baynes, created for the Narnia books pen and ink drawings which are still used in the books as published today. Lewis was awarded the 1956
Carnegie Medal for
The Last Battle, the final book in the saga. Fellow children's author
Roger Lancelyn Green first referred to the series as
The Chronicles of Narnia, in March 1951, after he had read and discussed with Lewis his recently completed fourth book
The Silver Chair, originally entitled
Night under Narnia.
[3]
Lewis described the origin of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in an essay entitled It All Began with a Picture:
The
Lion all began with a picture of a Faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself: 'Let's try to make a story about it.'
[4]
Shortly before the start of World War II,
many children were evacuated to the English countryside in anticipation of attacks on London and other major urban areas by Nazi Germany. As a result, on 2 September 1939, three school girls, Margaret, Mary and Katherine,
[5]came to live at
The Kilns in
Risinghurst, Lewis' home three miles east of
Oxford city centre. Lewis later suggested that the experience gave him a new appreciation of children and in late September
[6] he began a children's story on an odd sheet of paper which has survived as part of another manuscript:
This book is about four children whose names were Ann, Martin, Rose and Peter. But it is most about Peter who was the youngest. They all had to go away from London suddenly because of Air Raids, and because Father, who was in the Army, had gone off to the War and Mother was doing some kind of war work. They were sent to stay with a kind of relation of Mother's who was a very old professor who lived all by himself in the country.
[7]
In It All Began With a Picture C.S. Lewis continues:
At first I had very little idea how the story would go. But then suddenly Aslan came bounding into it. I think I had been having a good many dreams of lions about that time. Apart from that, I don't know where the Lion came from or why he came. But once he was there, he pulled the whole story together, and soon he pulled the six other Narnian stories in after him.
[8]
The manuscript for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was complete by the end of March 1949.
The name
Narnia is based on
Narni, Italy, written in
Latin as
Narnia. Lancelyn Green wrote:
"When Walter Hooper asked [C.S. Lewis] where he found the word 'Narnia', Lewis showed him Murray's Small Classical Atlas, ed.G.B. Grundy (1904), which he acquired when he was reading the classics with Mr Kirkpatrick at Great Bookham [1914–1917]. On plate 8 of the Atlas is a map of ancient Italy. Lewis had underscored the name of a little town called Narnia, simply because he liked the sound of it. Narnia — or 'Narni' in Italian — is in Umbria, halfway between Rome and Assisi".
[9]
[edit]
Publication history
The Chronicles of Narnia's seven books have been in continuous publication since 1956, selling over 100 million copies in 47 languages and with editions in
Braille.
[10][11][12] The books were first published in the United Kingdom by Geoffrey Bles, with the first edition of
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe released in London on 16 October 1950. Although three more books,
Prince Caspian,
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and
The Horse and His Boy, were already complete, they were not released at the time.
In the United States, the publication rights were first owned by
Macmillan Publishers, and later by
HarperCollins. The two issued both hardcover and paperback editions of the series during their tenure as publishers, while at the same time
Scholastic, Inc. produced paperback versions for sale primarily through direct mail order, book clubs, and book fairs. Harper Collins also published several one-volume collected editions containing the full text of the series. As noted below (see
Reading Order), the first American publisher, Macmillan, numbered the books in publication sequence, but when Harper Collins won the rights in 1994, at the suggestion of Lewis' stepson they used the series' internal chronological order. Scholastic switched the numbering of its paperback editions in 1994 to mirror Harper Collins'.
[2]
The seven books that make up The Chronicles of Narnia are presented here in order of original publication date:
[edit]
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, completed by the end of March 1949
[13] and published by Geoffrey Bles in London on 16 October 1950, tells the story of four ordinary children:
Peter,
Susan,
Edmund, and
Lucy Pevensie. They discover a wardrobe in Professor
Digory Kirke's house that leads to the magical land of Narnia. The Pevensie children help Aslan, a talking lion, save Narnia from the evil
White Witch, who has reigned over the land of Narnia for a century of perpetual winter. The children become kings and queens of this new-found land and establish the Golden Age of Narnia, leaving a legacy to be rediscovered in later books.
[edit]
Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia (1951)
Main article:
Prince Caspian
Completed after Christmas 1949
[14] and published on 15 October 1951,
Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia tells the story of the Pevensie children's second trip to Narnia. They are drawn back by the power of Susan's horn, blown by
Prince Caspian to summon help in his hour of need. Narnia, as they knew it, is no more. Their castle is in ruins and all the
dryads have retreated so far within themselves that only Aslan's magic can wake them. Caspian has fled into the woods to escape his uncle,
Miraz, who has usurped the throne. The children set out once again to save Narnia.
[edit]
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
Written between January and February 1950
[15] and published on 15 September 1952,
The Voyage of the ‘Dawn Treader’ sees Edmund and Lucy Pevensie, along with their
priggish cousin,
Eustace Scrubb, return to Narnia. Once there, they join Caspian's voyage on the ship
Dawn Treader to find the seven lords who were banished when Miraz took over the throne. This perilous journey brings them face to face with many wonders and dangers as they sail toward Aslan's country at the edge of the world.
[edit]
The Silver Chair (1953)
Completed at the beginning of March 1951
[15] and published 7 September 1953,
The Silver Chair is the first Narnia book without the Pevensie children. Instead, Aslan calls Eustace back to Narnia together with his classmate
Jill Pole. There they are given four signs to aid in the search for Prince
Rilian, Caspian's son, who disappeared after setting out ten years earlier to avenge his mother's death. Eustace and Jill, with the help of
Puddleglum the
Marsh-wiggle, face danger and betrayal on their quest to find Rilian.
[edit]
The Horse and His Boy (1954)
Begun in March and completed at the end of July 1950,
[15] The Horse and His Boy was published on 6 September 1954. The story takes place during the reign of the Pevensies in Narnia, an era which begins and ends in the last chapter of
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. A talking horse called
Bree and a young boy named
Shasta, both of whom are in bondage in the country of
Calormen, are the protagonists. By chance, they meet and plan their return to Narnia and freedom. Along the way they meet
Aravis and her talking horse
Hwin who are also fleeing to Narnia.
[edit]
The Magician's Nephew (1955)
Completed in February 1954
[16] and published by Bodley Head in London on 2 May 1955, the prequel
The Magician's Nephew brings the reader back to the origins of Narnia where we learn how Aslan created the world and how evil first entered it.
Digory Kirke and his friend
Polly Plummer stumble into different worlds by experimenting with magic rings made by Digory's uncle. They encounter
Jadis (The White Witch) in the dying world of Charn, and witness the creation of Narnia. Many long-standing questions about the world are answered as a result.
[edit]
The Last Battle (1956)
Completed in March 1953
[17] and published 4 September 1956,
The Last Battle chronicles the end of the world of Narnia. Jill and Eustace return to save Narnia from
Shift, an ape, who tricks
Puzzle, a donkey, into impersonating the lion Aslan, precipitating a showdown between the Calormenes and
King Tirian.
[edit]
Reading order
Fans of the series often have strong opinions over the order in which the books should be read. The issue revolves around the placement of The Magician's Nephew and The Horse and His Boy in the series. Both are set significantly earlier in the story of Narnia than their publication order and fall somewhat outside the main story arc connecting the others. The reading order of the other five books is not disputed.
An earlier Macmillan paperback boxed set, where the books are presented in order of original publication
The books were not numbered until the first American publisher, Macmillan, enumerated them according to their original publication order. When Harper Collins took over the series rights in 1994, this numbering was revised to use internal chronological order at the suggestion of Lewis' stepson,
Douglas Gresham. To make the case for his suggested order, Gresham quoted Lewis' 1957 reply to a letter from an American fan who was having an argument with his mother about the order:
I think I agree with your [chronological] order for reading the books more than with your mother's. The series was not planned beforehand as she thinks. When I wrote
The Lion I did not know I was going to write any more. Then I wrote
P. Caspian as a sequel and still didn't think there would be any more, and when I had done
The Voyage I felt quite sure it would be the last, but I found I was wrong. So perhaps it does not matter very much in which order anyone read them. I’m not even sure that all the others were written in the same order in which they were published.
[18]
In the 2005 Harper Collins adult editions of the books, the publisher cites this letter to assert Lewis' preference for the numbering they adopted by including this notice on the copyright page:
Although The Magician's Nephew was written several years after C. S. Lewis first began The Chronicles of Narnia, he wanted it to be read as the first book in the series. Harper Collins is happy to present these books in the order which Professor Lewis preferred.
Paul Ford cites several scholars who have weighed in against this view,
[19] and continues, "most scholars disagree with this decision and find it the least faithful to Lewis's deepest intentions".
[2] Scholars and readers who appreciate the original order believe that Lewis was simply being gracious to his youthful correspondent and that he could have changed the books' order in his lifetime had he so desired.
[20] They maintain that much of the magic of Narnia comes from the way the world is gradually presented in
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. These academics believe that the mysterious wardrobe, as a narrative device, is a much better introduction to Narnia than
The Magician's Nephew — where the word "Narnia" appears in the first paragraph as something already familiar to the reader. Moreover, they say, it is clear from the texts themselves that
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was intended to be read first. When Aslan is first mentioned in
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, for example, the narrator says that "None of the children knew who Aslan was, any more than you do" — which is nonsensical if one has already read
The Magician's Nephew.
[21] Other similar textual examples are also cited.
[22]
Doris Meyer, author of
C.S. Lewis in Context and
Bareface: A guide to C.S. Lewis, writes that rearranging the stories chronologically "lessens the impact of the individual stories" and "obscures the literary structures as a whole".
[2] Peter Schakel devotes an entire chapter to this topic in his book
Imagination and the Arts in C.S. Lewis: Journeying to Narnia and Other Worlds, and in
Reading with the Heart: The Way into Narnia he writes:
The only reason to read
The Magician's Nephew first [...] is for the chronological order of events, and that, as every story teller knows, is quite unimportant as a reason. Often the early events in a sequence have a greater impact or effect as a flashback, told after later events which provide background and establish perspective. So it is [ ...] with the
Chronicles. The artistry, the archetypes, and the pattern of Christian thought all make it preferable to read the books in the order of their publication.
[21]
[edit]
Main characters
Aslan, the Great Lion, is the central character of
The Chronicles of Narnia. He is the
eponymous lion of
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and his role in Narnia is developed throughout the remaining books. He is also the only character to appear in all seven books. Aslan is a talking lion, the King of Beasts, son of the
Emperor-Over-the-Sea; a wise, compassionate, magical authority (both temporal and spiritual); mysterious and benevolent guide to the human children who visit as well as guardian and saviour of Narnia. C. S. Lewis described Aslan as an alternative version of Jesus as the form in which Christ might have appeared in an alternative reality.
[23]
[edit]
Pevensie Family
The four Pevensie siblings are the main human protagonists of
The Chronicles of Narnia. Varying combinations of some or all of them appear in five of the seven novels. They are introduced in
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and eventually become Kings and Queens of Narnia:
High King Peter the Magnificent, Queen Susan the Gentle, King Edmund the Just, and Queen Lucy the Valiant. Although introduced in the series as children, the siblings (Peter in a passing mention) appear as adults in
The Horse and His Boy. Echoing the Christian theme of redemption, Edmund betrays his siblings to Jadis, the White Witch, but eventually realises the error of his ways whereupon he is redeemed with the intervention of Aslan and joins the fight against the White Witch. Lucy is the central character of the four Pevensie siblings. Of all the Pevensie children, Lucy is the closest to Aslan, and of all the human characters who visit Narnia, Lucy is perhaps the one who believes in Narnia the most. All four appear in
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and
Prince Caspian. Susan, Lucy, and Edmund (Peter is mentioned) appear in
The Horse and His Boy. Lucy and Edmund appear in
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Peter, Edmund, and Lucy appear in
The Last Battle. Susan doesn't appear in
The Last Battle because she has stopped believing in Narnia.
[edit]
Eustace Scrubb
Main article:
Eustace Scrubb
Eustace Clarence Scrubb is a cousin of the Pevensies, and a classmate of Jill Pole at their school
Experiment House. He is portrayed at first as a brat and a bully, but comes to confront and improve his behaviour. In the later books, Eustace is shown as an altogether better person, becoming a hero along with Jill Pole. He appears in
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,
The Silver Chair, and
The Last Battle.
[edit]
Jill Pole
Jill Pole appears in The Silver Chair and The Last Battle. She is a classmate of Eustace Scrubb.
[edit]
Digory Kirke
Main article:
Digory Kirke
Digory Kirke is the character referred to in the title of The Magician's Nephew. He first appears as a minor character in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but his true significance in the narrative is only revealed in The Magician's Nephew.
[edit]
Polly Plummer
Main article:
Polly Plummer
Polly Plummer appears in The Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle. She is a friend of Digory Kirke. Her accidental journey to the world of Charn prompts Digory to follow her, and sets up the pair's adventures in The Magician's Nephew.
[edit]
Prince Caspian / Caspian X
Prince Caspian, later to become King Caspian X of Narnia, Lord of Cair Paravel and Emperor of The Lone Islands – also called "Caspian the Seafarer" and "Caspian the Navigator" — is the title character of the second book in the series, first introduced as the young nephew of, and heir to, King Miraz of Narnia.
Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia is set 1300 years after the rule of High King Peter and his siblings when Old Narnians have been driven into hiding by Caspian's ancestors the
Telmarines. They no longer live openly in Narnia and the talking beasts are believed to be mythological. Talk of them is forbidden in Miraz's castle.
[edit]
White Witch / Jadis
Main article:
White Witch
Jadis, commonly known during her rule of Narnia as the White Witch, is the main
antagonist of
The Magician's Nephew and
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. She is the witch responsible for the freezing of Narnia resulting in the Hundred Years Winter. The White Witch was born before the creation of Narnia and died in battle in Narnian year
1000.
[edit]
Shasta / Cor
Shasta, later known as Cor of
Archenland, is the principal character in
The Horse and His Boy. He also appears briefly at the end of
The Last Battle. Born as the eldest son and heir of
King Lune of Archenland, and elder twin of
Prince Corin, Cor was kidnapped as an infant and raised as a fisherman's son in the country of
Calormen. In
The Horse and his Boy (the events of which all occur during the reign of the four Pevensie children in Narnia) Shasta escapes to freedom, saves Archenland and Narnia from invasion, learns his true identity, and is restored to his heritage. Shasta grows up to become King of Archenland, marries the Calormene Tarkheena
Aravis, and fathers the next king of Archenland,
Ram the Great.
[edit]
Appearances of main characters
| Character | Book |
|---|
| The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950) | Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia (1951) | The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952) | The Silver Chair (1953) | The Horse and His Boy (1954) | The Magician's Nephew (1955) | The Last Battle (1956) |
|---|
| Aslan | Major |
|---|
| Peter Pevensie | Major | | Minor |
|---|
| Susan Pevensie | Major | | Minor | |
|---|
| Edmund Pevensie | Major | | Minor | | Minor |
|---|
| Lucy Pevensie | Major | | Minor | | Minor |
|---|
| Eustace Scrubb | | Major | | Major |
|---|
| Jill Pole | | Major | | Major |
|---|
| Digory Kirke | Minor | | Major | Minor |
|---|
| Polly Plummer | | Major | Minor |
|---|
| Prince Caspian | | Major | Minor | | Minor |
|---|
| White Witch | Major | | Major | |
|---|
| Shasta (Prince Cor) | | Major | | Minor |
|---|
[edit]
Narnian universe
Main article:
Narnia (world)
The main setting of
The Chronicles of Narnia is the world of Narnia constructed by Lewis and, in
The Magician's Nephew, the world containing the city of
Charn. The Narnian and Charnian worlds are themselves posited as just two in a
multiverse of countless worlds that includes our own universe, the main protagonists' world of origin. Passage between these worlds is possible, though rare, and may be accomplished by various means. Narnia itself is described as populated by a wide variety of creatures, most of which would be recognisable to those familiar with European mythologies and British fairy tales.
[edit]
Inhabitants
- See also: Narnia creatures and List of The Chronicles of Narnia characters
Lewis' stories are populated with two distinct types of character: Humans originating from the reader's world of Earth, and Narnian creatures and their descendants created by Aslan. This is typical of works that involve parallel universes. The majority of characters from the reader's world serve as the protagonists of the various books, although some are only mentioned in passing depending on chronology. Lewis does not limit himself to a single source of inspiration, instead he borrows from many sources including ancient Greek and German mythology as well as
Celtic literature.
[edit]
Geography
The Chronicles of Narnia describes the world in which Narnia exists as one major landmass faced by "the Great Eastern Ocean". This ocean contains the islands explored in
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. On the main landmass Lewis places the countries of Narnia, Archenland, Calormen, and
Telmar, along with a variety of other areas that are not described as countries. The author also provides glimpses of more fantastic locations that exist in and around the main world of Narnia, including an edge and an underworld.
There are several maps of the Narnian universe available, including what many consider the "official" one, a full-colour version published in 1972 by the books' illustrator, Pauline Baynes. This is currently out of print, although smaller copies can be found in the most recent HarperCollins 2006 hardcover edition of
The Chronicles of Narnia. Two other maps were produced as a result of the popularity of the 2005 film
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. One, the "Rose Map of Narnia", is based loosely on Baynes' map and has Narnian trivia printed on the reverse. The other, made in a monochromatic, archaic style reminiscent of maps of Tolkien's
Middle-earth, is available in print and in an interactive version on the DVD of the movie. The latter map depicts only the country Narnia and not the rest of Lewis' world.
[edit]
Cosmology
A recurring plot device in
The Chronicles is the interaction between the various worlds that make up the Narnian multiverse. A variety of methods are used to initiate these cross-overs which generally serve to introduce characters to the land of Narnia. The Cosmology of Narnia is not as internally consistent as that of Lewis' contemporary Tolkien's Middle-earth, but suffices given the more fairy tale atmosphere of the work. During the course of the series we learn in passing, that the world of Narnia is flat,
geocentric, has different stars from those of Earth, and that the passage of time does not correspond directly to the passage of time in our world.
[edit]
History
- See also: Narnian timeline and History of Narnia
The Chronicles cover the entire history of the world of Narnia, describing the process by which it was created, offering snapshots of life in Narnia as its history unfolds, and how it is ultimately destroyed. As is often the case in a children's series, children themselves, usually from our world, play a prominent role in all of these events. The history of Narnia is generally divided into the following periods: creation and the period shortly afterwards, the rule of the White Witch, the Golden Age, the invasion and rule of the Telmarines, their subsequent defeat by Caspian X, the rule of King Caspian and his descendants, and the destruction of Narnia. Like many stories, the narrative is not necessarily always presented in chronological order.
[edit]
Influences
[edit]
Lewis' life
Lewis' early life has parallels with
The Chronicles of Narnia. At the age of seven, he moved with his family to a large house on the edge of
Belfast. Its long hallways and empty rooms inspired Lewis and his brother to invent make-believe worlds whilst exploring their home, an activity reflected in Lucy's discovery of Narnia in
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
[24] Like Caspian and Rilian, Lewis lost his mother at an early age, spending much of his youth in English boarding schools similar to those attended by the Pevensie children, Eustace Scrubb, and Jill Pole. During World War II many children were evacuated from London and other urban areas because of German air raids. Some of these children, including one named Lucy (Lewis' goddaughter) stayed with him at his home The Kilns near Oxford, just as the Pevensies stayed with
The Professor in
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
[25]
[edit]
Influences from mythology and cosmology
Lewis was widely read in
medieval Celtic literature, an influence reflected throughout the books, and most strongly in
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The entire book imitates one of the
immrama, a type of traditional
Old Irish tale that combines elements of Christianity and
Irish mythology to tell the story of a hero's sea journey to the
Otherworld.
[27][28] Medieval Ireland also had a tradition of High Kings ruling over lesser kings and queens or princes, as in Narnia. Lewis' term "Cair," as in
Cair Paravel, also mirrors "Caer", or "fortress" in the Welsh language.
Reepicheep's small boat,
The Coracle, is a type of vessel traditionally used in the
Celtic regions of the British Isles. Some creatures in the book such as the one-footed
Dufflepuds reflect elements of Greek, Roman and Medieval mythology while other Narnian creatures borrow from Greek and Germanic mythology by, for example, taking
centaurs from the former and
dwarfs from the latter.
In 2008 Michael Ward published
Planet Narnia,
[29] which proposed that each of the seven books related to one of the
seven moving heavenly bodies or "planets" known in the Middle Ages according to the
Ptolemaic geocentric model of
cosmology. At that time, each of these heavenly bodies was believed to have certain attributes, and Ward contends that these attributes were deliberately but subtly used by Lewis to furnish elements of the stories of each book:
In The Lion [the Pevensie children] become monarchs under sovereign
Jove; in The Dawn Treader they drink light under searching
Sol; in Prince Caspian they harden under strong
Mars; in The Silver Chair they learn obedience under subordinate
Luna; in The Horse and His Boy they come to love poetry under eloquent
Mercury; in The Magician's Nephew they gain life-giving fruit under fertile
Venus; and in The Last Battle they suffer and die under chilling
Saturn."
[30]
Similarly, Lewis' interest in the literary symbolism of medieval and Renaissance astrology is more overtly referenced in other works such as his study of medieval cosmology
The Discarded Image, in his early poetry as well as in
Space Trilogy. Narnia scholar
Paul F. Ford finds Ward's assertion that Lewis intended
The Chronicles to be an embodiment of medieval astrology implausible,
[2] though Ford addresses an earlier (2003) version of Ward's thesis (also called
Planet Narnia, published in the
Times Literary Supplement). Ward argues that C. S. Lewis's did not start with a coherent plan for the books, but Ward's book answers this by arguing that the astrological associations grew in the writing.
[citation needed]
[edit]
Influences on other works
[edit]
Influences on literature
The Chronicles of Narnia has been a significant influence on both adult and children's fantasy literature in the post-World War II era. Examples include:
Philip Pullman's acclaimed fantasy series
His Dark Materials is seen as a response to
The Chronicles. Pullman is a self-described
atheist who wholly rejects the spiritual themes that permeate
The Chronicles, yet his series nonetheless addresses many of the same issues and introduces some similar character types, including talking animals. In another parallel both Pullman's
Northern Lights and
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the first books in each series, open with a young girl hiding in a wardrobe.
[31][32][33][34]
Neil Gaiman's young-adult horror novella
Coraline has been compared to
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, as both books involve young girls travelling to magical worlds through doors in their new houses and fighting evil with the help of talking animals. His
Sandmancomic book series also features a Narnia-like "dream island" in its story arc entitled
A Game of You.
The novel
Bridge to Terabithia by
Katherine Paterson has Leslie, one of the main characters, reveal to her co-protagonist Jess her love of Lewis' books, subsequently lending him
The Chronicles of Narnia so that he can learn how to behave like a king. Her book also features the island name "Terabithia", which sounds similar to
Terebinthia, a Narnian island that appears in
Prince Caspian and
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Katherine Paterson herself acknowledges that Terabithia is likely to be derived from Terebinthia:
I thought I had made it up. Then, rereading
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis, I realized that I had probably gotten it from the island of Terebinthia in that book. However, Lewis probably got that name from the
Terebinth tree in the Bible, so both of us pinched from somewhere else, probably unconsciously."
[35]
Science-fiction author
Greg Egan's short story "Oracle" depicts a parallel universe in which an author nicknamed Jack (Lewis' nickname) has written novels about the fictional "Kingdom of Nesica", and whose wife is dying of cancer, paralleling the death of Lewis' wife
Joy Davidman. Several Narnian allegories are also used to explore issues of religion and faith versus science and knowledge.
[36]
Lev Grossman's
New York Times best-seller
The Magicians is a contemporary dark fantasy about an unusually gifted young man obsessed with Fillory, the magical land of his favourite childhood books. Fillory is a thinly veiled substitute for Narnia, and clearly the author expects it to be experienced as such. Not only is the land home to many similar talking animals and mythical creatures, it is also accessed through a grandfather clock in the home of an uncle to whom five English children are sent during World War II. Moreover, the land is ruled by two Aslan-like rams named Ember and Umber, and terrorised by The Watcherwoman. She, like the White Witch, freezes the land in time. The book's plot revolves heavily around a place very like the "wood between the worlds" from
The Magician's Nephew, an interworld waystation in which pools of water lead to other lands. This reference to
The Magician's Nephew is echoed in the title of the book.
[37]
J. K. Rowling, author of the
Harry Potter series, has said that she was a fan of the works of Lewis as a child, and cites the influence of
The Chronicles on her work: "I found myself thinking about the wardrobe route to Narnia when Harry is told he has to hurl himself at a barrier in
Kings Cross Station — it dissolves and he's on platform Nine and Three-Quarters, and there's the train for
Hogwarts."
[38]Nevertheless she is at pains to stress the differences between Narnia and her world: "Narnia is literally a different world", she says, "whereas in the Harry books you go into a world within a world that you can see if you happen to belong. A lot of the humour comes from collisions between the magic and the everyday worlds. Generally there isn't much humour in the Narnia books, although I adored them when I was a child. I got so caught up I didn't think CS Lewis was especially preachy. Reading them now I find that his subliminal message isn't very subliminal."
[38] New York Times writer Charles McGrath notes the similarity between
Dudley Dursley, the obnoxious son of Harry's neglectful guardians, and Eustace Scrubb, the spoiled brat who torments the main characters until he is redeemed by Aslan.
[39]
[edit]
Influences on popular culture
As with any popular long-lived work, contemporary culture abounds with references to the lion Aslan, travelling via wardrobe and direct mentions of The Chronicles. Examples include:
Charlotte Staples Lewis, a character first seen early in the fourth season of the TV series
Lost, is named in reference to C. S. Lewis.
Lost producer
Damon Lindelof said that this was a clue to the direction the show would take during the season.
[40] The book
Ultimate Lost and Philosophy, edited by William Irwin and Sharon Kaye, contains a comprehensive essay on
Lost plot motifs based on
The Chronicles.
[41]
The second
SNL Digital Short by Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell features a humorous
nerdcore hip hop song entitled
Chronicles of Narnia (Lazy Sunday), which focuses on the performers' plan to see
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at a cinema. It was described by
Slate magazine as one of the most culturally significant
Saturday Night Live skits in many years, and an important commentary on the state of rap.
[42] Swedish Christian power metal band
Narnia, whose songs are mainly about the
Chronicles of Narnia or the Bible, feature Aslan on all their album covers.
[43][44] In anticipation of the 9 December 2005 premiere of the film
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, various Christian artists released a
collection of songs based on
The Chronicles of Narnia.
During interviews, the primary creator of the Japanese anime and gaming series
Digimon has noted the heavy influence of
The Chronicles of Narnia on his series.
[45]
[edit]
Religious overtones
An adult convert to Christianity, Lewis had previously authored a number of works on Christian
apologetics and other fiction with Christian themes. The character
Aslan is seen by many as a fictionalised version of Christ.
[46] Lewis did not initially plan to incorporate
Christian theological concepts into his
Narnia stories. Lewis maintained that the
Narnia books were not allegorical, preferring to term their Christian aspects a "supposition".
[47][48]
The Chronicles have a large Christian following, and are widely used to promote Christian ideas. However, some Christians and Christian organisations have criticised Lewis, feeling that
The Chronicles promote "soft-sell paganism and occultism" due to the recurring pagan imagery and themes. Fantasy author J.K. Rowling, herself a member of the
Church of Scotland, has been critical of Narnia on ethical grounds.
[49] Reactions from non-Christian authors have been mixed as well.
The Chronicles have been severely criticised by
Philip Pullman, author of
His Dark Materials (a series generally antagonistic toward religion), but praised by Laura Miller.
[50]
[edit]
Criticism
[edit]
Gender stereotyping
In later years, both Lewis and
The Chronicles have been criticised (often by other authors of fantasy fiction) for
Gender role stereotyping, though other authors have defended Lewis in this area. For example, Lucy gets a healing potion and a dagger, while Peter gets a sword. Most allegations of
sexism centre on the description of Susan Pevensie in
The Last Battle when Lewis writes that Susan is "no longer a friend of Narnia" and interested "in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and invitations".
There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She's become irreligious basically because she found sex. I have a big problem with that.
[51]
Philip Pullman (critical of Lewis on many fronts) calls the
Narnia stories "monumentally disparaging of women".
[52] His interpretation of the Susan passages reflects this view:
Susan, like
Cinderella, is undergoing a transition from one phase of her life to another. Lewis didn't approve of that. He didn't like women in general, or
sexuality at all, at least at the stage in his life when he wrote the Narnia books. He was frightened and appalled at the notion of wanting to grow up.
[53]
In fantasy author
Neil Gaiman's short story "The Problem of Susan" (2004),
[54] an elderly woman, Professor Hastings, deals with the grief and trauma of her entire family's death in a train crash. Although the woman's maiden name is not revealed, details throughout the story strongly imply that this character is the elderly Susan Pevensie. The story is written for an adult audience and deals with issues of sexuality and violence and through it Gaiman presents a critique of Lewis' treatment of Susan.
[55]
Other writers, including fan-magazine editor Andrew Rilstone, oppose this view, arguing that the "lipsticks, nylons and invitations" quote is taken out of context. They maintain that in The Last Battle, Susan is excluded from Narnia explicitly because she no longer believes in it. At the end of The Last Battle Susan is still alive with her ultimate fate unspecified. Moreover, in The Horse and His Boy, Susan's adulthood and sexual maturity are portrayed in a positive light, and therefore argued to be unlikely reasons for her exclusion from Narnia.
Lewis supporters also cite the positive roles of women in the series, including Jill Pole in
The Silver Chair, Aravis Tarkheena in
The Horse and His Boy, Polly Plummer in
The Magician's Nephew, and particularly Lucy Pevensie in
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Alan Jacobs, an English professor at Wheaton College, asserts that Lucy is the most admirable of the human characters and that generally the girls come off better than the boys throughout the series (Jacobs, 2008: 259).
[56][57] In her contribution to
The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy, Karin Fry, an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, notes that "the most sympathetic female characters in
The Chronicles are consistently the ones who question the traditional roles of women and prove their worth to Aslan through actively engaging in the adventures just like the boys."
[58] Fry goes on to say:
The characters have positive and negative things to say about both male and female characters, suggesting an equality between sexes. However, the problem is that many of the positive qualities of the female characters seem to be those by which they can rise above their femininity ... The superficial nature of stereotypical female interests is condemned.
[58]
In addition to sexism, Pullman and others have also accused the Narnia series of fostering racism.
[52][59] Over the alleged racism in
The Horse and His Boy, newspaper editor
Kyrie O'Connor wrote:
It's just too dreadful. While the book's storytelling virtues are enormous, you don't have to be a bluestocking of
political correctness to find some of this fantasy anti-
Arab, or anti-Eastern, or anti-
Ottoman. With all its stereotypes, mostly played for belly laughs, there are moments you'd like to stuff this story back into its closet.
[60]
The Calormenes in particular are seen by multiple critics as a negative representation of
Semitic culture whilst novelist
Philip Hensherraises specific concerns that a reader might gain the impression Islam is a "Satanic cult".
[61] Gregg Easterbrook, writing in
The Atlantic, calls the Calormen "standins for Muslims".
[62] In rebuttal to this charge, at an address to a C.S. Lewis conference,
[63] Dr. Devin Brown observed that there are too many dissimilarities between the Calormen religion and Islam, particularly in the areas of polytheism and human sacrifice, for Lewis' writing to be regarded as critical.
[edit]
Adaptations of The Chronicles of Narnia
[edit]
Television
Various books from The Chronicles of Narnia have been adapted for television over the years, including:
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was first
adapted in 1967. Comprising ten episodes of thirty minutes each, the screenplay was written by Trevor Preston, and directed by Helen Standage. Unlike subsequent adaptations, it is currently unavailable to purchase for home viewing. The book was
adapted again in 1979, this time as an animated cartoon co-produced by
Bill Meléndez and the
Children's Television Workshop, with a screenplay by David D. Connell. Winner of the 1979
Emmy award for Outstanding Animated Program, it was the first ever made for television feature-length animated film. Many of the characters' voices in the British TV release were re-recorded by British actors and actresses with the exception of the characters Aslan, Peter, Susan, and Lucy.
Between 1988–1990, the first four books (as published) were adapted by the BBC as
four television serials. They were also aired in America on the PBS/Disney show
WonderWorks.
[64] They were nominated for a total of 14 Emmy awards, including "Outstanding Children's Program", and a number of
BAFTA awards including Best Children's Programme (Entertainment / Drama) in 1988, 1989 and 1990.
[65][66][67] The serials were later edited into three feature-length films (the second of which combined
Prince Caspian and
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader into one) and released on VHS and DVD.
A critically acclaimed
BBC Radio 4 dramatisation was produced in the 1980s, starring
Maurice Denham as Professor Kirke. Collectively titled
Tales of Narnia, the programs covered the entire series with a running time of approximately 15 hours. In Great Britain, BBC Audiobooks release both audio cassette and compact disc versions of the series.
Between 1999 and 2002 Focus on the Family produced radio dramatisations of the entire series through its
Radio Theatre program.
[68]Over one hundred performers took part including
Paul Scofield as "The Storyteller" and
David Suchet as Aslan. Accompanied by an original orchestral score and cinema-quality
digital sound design, the series was hosted by Lewis' stepson Douglas Gresham and ran for just over 22 hours. Recordings of the entire adaptation were released on compact disc between 1999–2003.
Many stage adaptations of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe have been produced over the years.
In 1984, Vanessa Ford Productions presented The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at London's Westminster Theatre. Adapted by Glyn Robbins, the play was directed by Richard Williams and designed by Marty Flood. The production was later revived at Westminster and The Royalty Theatre and went on tour until 1997. Productions of other tales from The Chronicles were also staged, including The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1986), The Magician's Nephew (1988) and The Horse and His Boy (1990).
The
Royal Shakespeare Company premiered
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in
Stratford-upon-Avon in 1998. The novel was adapted as a musical production by Adrian Mitchell, with music by Shaun Davey.
[69] The show was originally directed by Adrian Noble and designed by Anthony Ward, with the revival directed by Lucy Pitman-Wallace. Well received by audiences, the production was periodically re-staged by the RSC for several years afterwards.
[70] Limited engagements were subsequently undertaken at the Barbican Theatre in London and at Sadler's Wells. This adaptation also toured the United States in the early 2000s.
Skeptical that any cinematic adaptation could render the more fantastical elements and characters of the story realistically, Lewis never sold the film rights to the
Narnia series.
[71]Only after seeing a demo reel of
CGI animals did Douglas Gresham, Lewis's stepson and
literary executor, and the films' co-producer, give approval for a film adaptation.
