The Chronicles of Narnia

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis, 1950.

During WWII, the four Pevensie children are sent away from London to the countryside as child evacuees. They end up staying in a strange old house with an unmarried professor. The children are fascinated by the professor’s big, old house, and on their first rainy day there, they decide to go exploring. In a spare room, the children see a big, old wardrobe. While her older siblings move on to look in other rooms, Lucy can’t resist looking inside the wardrobe. The wardrobe is full of old coats, but Lucy enters the wardrobe and pushes past the coats to see how far back the wardrobe goes.

As Lucy continues trying to find her way to the back of the wardrobe, she feels like the old coats are starting to feel like tree branches. When she emerges from the wardrobe, she is in a snowy forest. She sees a faun hurrying by with some parcels, and she talks to him. The faun, Mr. Tumnus, is surprised to see her and asks her if she’s a “daughter of Eve”, meaning a human girl. Lucy finds that question confusing at first, but she confirms that she is a human girl. Mr. Tumnus convinces Lucy to join him at his house for tea. While she’s there, Mr. Tumnus plays music for her. Lucy is enchanted, and she almost falls asleep, but then, she suddenly realizes that she should return to her siblings. To her surprise, Mr. Tumnus is upset and guilty. He explains that he has been forced into the service of the White Witch, who has commanded him to charm any human children he finds until she can come and collect them from him. Lucy is shocked and disbelieving because Mr. Tumnus has been so nice to her. Mr. Tumnus hates having to work for the evil White Witch, but she does horrible things to anyone who defies her, often turning her enemies into stone statues. The White Witch controls the land of Narnia, where they currently are, and she’s the one who has made it eternally winter but never Christmas. However, Mr. Tumnus just can’t bring himself to turn Lucy over to her, so he agrees to help her get back to the wardrobe without telling the witch about her.

Lucy returns to her own world through the wardrobe and eagerly rushes to her siblings to tell them where she’s been. When she sees her siblings, she learns that almost no time has passed since she first went into the wardrobe, and nobody has missed her. Her siblings can’t believe that she’s been to a magical land and that no time has passed while she was having this adventure. They go to the wardrobe themselves and look at it, but when they look, it’s just an ordinary wardrobe with a back. They think that Lucy was just playing a prank, but Lucy is very upset because she knows that it wasn’t a joke or a dream. Her oldest siblings, Peter and Susan, would be ready to forget the entire matter, but Edmund can’t resist teasing Lucy about it.

During a game of hide-and-seek later, Lucy goes through the wardrobe again, and this time, Edmund follows her. Edmund is shocked to find himself in the same snowy woods and to realize that Lucy was telling the truth. At first, he looks for Lucy, having lost track of her, but then, he encounters a strange white lady in a sleigh. This is the White Witch. Not knowing who she is, Edmund accepts the witch’s offer of a hot drink and his favorite treat, Turkish Delights. The treats that the witch gives him are enchanted to give him a terrible craving for more. The witch is careful about how many she gives him, but that craving and her promise of more keeps Edmund wanting to please her and to tell her everything she wants to know. He tells the witch about Lucy and her earlier trip to Narnia. The witch asks him if he has any other siblings, and she is strangely interested when he says that he is one of four. The witch tells Edmund that she is the queen of Narnia, but she has no children. She says that if Edmund will bring all of his siblings to meet her, she will make him the prince of Narnia, and he can live in her palace and eat Turkish Delights all day. Edmund is reluctant to bring her his siblings because he craves her treats so much he would rather just go to her palace at once, but the witch insists that he must bring her his siblings.

Lucy and Edmund meet back at the wardrobe entrance to Narnia, and Lucy is pleased at first that Edmund has now seen that Narnia is real. However, when they return to their own world and see Peter and Susan, Edmund spitefully tells them that Narnia isn’t real and that they were just playing pretend. After all of his earlier teasing, he can’t bring himself to admit that he was in the wrong for saying that Lucy was just making it all up before. Lucy is deeply hurt that Edmund is denying something they both know is true and becomes very upset.

Peter and Susan know that Edmund is being mean to Lucy, but they are also concerned about why Lucy seems to suddenly be making up these strange fantasies, when she’s never done anything like that before. Thinking that maybe the stress of being sent away from home is making Lucy crazy, they talk to the professor about what’s been happening. The professor listens to their story and their concerns very seriously, and they are surprised when the professor asks them how they can be sure that Lucy isn’t telling the truth. He admits that this old house is very strange, and he hasn’t even lived there very long himself, so he can’t say for certain what might be happening there. There have been some strange stories about this house before, and sometimes, they even get tourists stopping to see the house. Peter and Susan say that they doubt Lucy’s story because Edmund says it wasn’t true and because they saw nothing in the wardrobe when they looked themselves. They think if the wardrobe was really a portal to a magical world, surely it would be there all the time, for anyone who looked. The professor says that might not be true, that there might be thinks that are real that aren’t necessarily there or visible all the time. Part of his reasoning is that, if Lucy was playing a prank of some kind, she would have hidden for longer before coming to tell them of her adventures so that her story would seem more plausible. Lucy’s story is so implausible that the professor is inclined to believe it. The professor says that time might work differently in Narnia and that’s why it seemed like no time has passed. As for Edmund’s word, the professor asks Peter and Susan whether they would have thought Lucy or Edmund more reliable before. They say that Lucy is usually more reliable than Edmund, so the professor dismisses Edmund’s story in favor of Lucy’s. Peter and Susan still aren’t sure what to do about the situation, even if Lucy really has visited a magical land. The professor’s suggestion is that they mind their own business for now. Not knowing what else to do, Peter and Susan decide to wait and see what happens.

The truth is revealed when the children find themselves in the room with the wardrobe again while trying to avoid a group of tourists the housekeeper is leading on a tour of the house. Hearing the housekeeper approaching they all decide to hide in the wardrobe, and this time, they all find their way to Narnia. Peter and Susan are amazed and apologize to Lucy for not believing her before. It’s cold in the snow, so Susan sensibly suggests that they borrow some of the coats in the wardrobe to wear. Edmund gives away his earlier lie about not having been to Narnia by mentioning the position of a street lamp that is oddly in the forest. Peter is angry with Edmund for lying to them and trying to make Lucy look like either a liar of crazy person. Like a lot of people caught doing something bad, Edmund becomes sullen and resentful that the others are rightfully angry with him for what he’s done.

Lucy wants to introduce her siblings to Mr. Tumnus, but when they reach his house, they learn that he has been arrested. Lucy knows that he was arrested for defying the White Witch, and she explains about the witch to her siblings. Edmund doesn’t tell the others that he has met the White Witch himself, although he tries to introduce the idea that none of them really know what’s going on in this land, asking how they know if the witch is really evil or not. The others don’t listen to him and agree with Lucy that they should try to help Mr. Tumnus, if they can.

At first, they don’t know where to go or what to do, but a friendly robin guides them to meet a beaver. Animals talk in Narnia, and the beaver takes the children to his house, where he explains to them what happened to Mr. Tumnus and the truth about the White Witch. Although the White Witch calls herself the queen of Narnia, the actual ruler of Narnia is Aslan, the emperor. The beaver is vague about exactly what Aslan is, but he says that Aslan is not human, and neither is the White Witch, although she looks sort of human and would like people to think she is human. The truth is that, while humans are “sons of Adam” or “daughters of Eve” (referring to the Biblical Adam and Eve), the White Witch is actually a descendant of Lilith, Adam’s first wife. (According to folklore/mythology, as this video explains, Lilith was created by God at the same time as Adam, but she was not faithful to him. She left him and mothered a race of demons with other creatures. Therefore, in Lewis is following folklore, the White Witch is actually a demonic enchantress. The book doesn’t go into all this backstory. The beaver describes the White Witch as being the product of a djinn and a giant, but based on folklore, that’s the implication that she’s demonic. The White Witch is not just a human who practices evil magic; she’s a non-human demon. Being half-djinn and half-giant sounds less scary for kids, but it’s really more sinister, if you know the folklore and think more deeply about it. That’s what the beaver means when he refers to being careful about things that look human but actually aren’t. In folklore, demons and other evil creatures can sometimes make themselves look human to get people to trust them.) The reason why the White Witch is so concerned about human children is that there is a prophecy that four human children will take the thrones in the castle of Cair Paravel, and that will bring her evil reign to an end. Any time human children come to Narnia, the White Witch tries to get her hands on them to prevent the prophecy from coming true. (She has no intention of adopting Edmund as a prince. If she gets her hands on all four Pevensie children at once, she’ll turn them all into stone statues, as she does with all of her enemies, to prevent them from taking the thrones.) However, the word is that Aslan is returning, and the presence of the four children is a sign that the prophecy will soon be fulfilled.

During the course of this explanation, Edmund slips away from the others, wanting to seek out the White Witch because of her promises to him and his irresistible craving for what she has offered him. When the others realize that he is gone, Peter thinks that they should search for him, but the beaver has accurately realized that Edmund is under the influence of the witch. There is no point in going after him because he is not in a state where he will listen to them and is in the process of betraying them all. Their only hope is to leave before the White Witch comes and to seek out Aslan!

This book is the first book in the Chronicles of Narnia, although the books in the series jump around in time. The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies). It has been made into movies multiple times.

My Reaction

When I was in high school, my history teacher brought up this book, saying that it was more than just a fantasy book, asking the class if we knew what it was supposed to be an allegory for. I said that it was religious allegory, and she told me that I was wrong and that it was an allegory for World War II. The story takes place during World War II, but it is definitely religious allegory. All the talk about “sons of Adam” and “daughters of Eve” and the references to Lilith are not coincidence. C. S. Lewis was a lay theologian and also wrote nonfiction books on the subject of religion. This book was written for his goddaughter, Lucy Barfield. Aslan is a lion in the story, but he also represents God, and toward the end of the story, he performs a Christ-like sacrifice of himself for the sake of Edmund’s sins (Edmund’s betrayal of his siblings has made him the property of the White Witch and a sacrifice for her until Aslan voluntarily takes his place to free him from the witch) before rising to life again and restoring life to all the people who had been turned to stone.

The Chronicles of Narnia is a popular Christian series, and some Sunday schools even use the series to teach Christian lessons. However, because of the fantasy themes and the style of the stories, not all Christians approve of them. Reception among atheists and people of other religions has been mixed, although the series is generally famous and has become a classic among children’s literature. One of the chief problems people have with the stories occurs toward the end of the series, where children who grow up and become interested in dating are at least temporarily lost to godliness or Heaven or the magic of Narnia, and the children who die young are the ones who live in Narnia eternally. It does creep me out a little that dying young instead of growing up is depicted as a virtue. It probably would have creeped me out even more if I had read the last book in the series as a child instead of an adult. As an adult, I see it more as a result of the author’s possible disillusionment with the habits adults develop when they lose their youthful sense of innocence and, even more likely, that problem that fantasy authors often seem to struggle with, explaining how these magical lands and adventures can exist without grown adults knowing about them. Many fantasy authors include an element in their stories that only children can experience certain magical things and that those children will forget about them as they age, allowing young readers to indulge in a belief in magic they can experience that adults living in the real world don’t experience. But, as I’ll discuss more later, the end of this series does bother me because the author kills off most of the characters that we have come to know and love, which I don’t think should be necessary. The girls in the story are also not allowed to take an active part in the battle at the end of the story, fulfilling more support roles, and the story itself admits that it’s because they’re girls. The roles that the girls in the story play are important, and they have their share of excitement, but few modern stories would make this type of distinction between boys’ and girls’ roles like this.

Time functions differently in Narnia, and there are odd jumps in time, both within this book and the rest of the series. Whenever characters are in Narnia, no time passes in our world. The four Pevensie children become kings and queens in Narnia and live full lives there for decades (which helps me feel a little less sad that they don’t live as long in the real world, but still not great). They are adults in Narnia when they find the way back to our world, and suddenly, they find themselves children again in the professor’s house during WWII. Returning to their old lives is a shock, but the professor tells them that they will return to Narnia again someday. The professor knows about Narnia because he was there as a child himself. His backstory is covered in a later book, which also includes an explanation about why there is a street lamp in the forest in Narnia. During later books, when the children and their friends return to Narnia, centuries have passed there, and their adventures from this book have become legends for the people of Narnia.

As a side note, I also liked how the book repeatedly warns readers that smart people realize that, if you ever explore a wardrobe, you should always leave the door open behind you because you don’t want to get shut in. It’s a practical point and one worth making to kids who might want to try exploring a wardrobe or two to see if they can find magic doors.