"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Saturday, November 15, 2014

A few thoughts on The Chronicles of Narnia

 
Mainly The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but some of my points could carry over to other books in the series as well.  Reading the books as a child, I of course enjoyed the fantasy narrative and picked up on the religious allegory, but it wasn’t until I revisited the stories as an adult that I noticed some intriguing parallels with British imperialism.  A bit of history – The Chronicles of Narnia was published in the early to mid ‘50s, very shortly after India’s independence, and C.S. Lewis himself came of age as the empire was declining after World War I.  As such he would have had been very aware of the British colonies around the globe, and this undoubtedly would have influenced his attitudes.
 
And so, we come to Narnia.  When the Pevensies arrive, it’s mostly populated by non-humans:  fauns, dwarves, centaurs, assorted talking animals, and so on.  As “Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve,” the Pevensies are extremely out of place.  In fact, biologically speaking, they have the most in common with the White Witch who rules Narnia with a magic-wielding fist.  At any rate, to the Pevensies, the Narnians are races of “others.”  They react to this otherness in different ways – Lucy takes to Narnia like a fish to water, for instance, and Edmund is suspicious and unsettled – but the people of Narnia are exotic, unlike them.
 
Now, Narnia has suffered under the Witch for years, but until the Pevensies come along, not much is done about it.  There’s talk of Aslan being “on the move” and a number of Narnians who align themselves against the Witch, but there doesn’t seem to be an organized resistance movement before the four children appear.  (It’s a bit vague, since by the time they trek across Narnia, Aslan is back on the scene with an amassed army, but it seems many are spurred to action by the hope that the Pevensies are the humans prophesied to defeat the Witch.)  So, it’s this weird situation where this entire kingdom, which apparently includes plenty of trained soldiers, is powerless to better their lives until these outsiders show up to organize and lead them.
 
Yep – years of fear and oppression, and the Pevensies (alongside Aslan, of course) oust the Witch and free Narnia in a shockingly timely fashion.  And once Narnia is out from under the thumb of the malevolent Witch (a foreign outsider in Narnia herself,) who do they appoint as their new monarchs?  Centaurs?  Talking animals?  Nymphs or dryads or fauns?  Nope, it’s the four humans.  School children who’ve only just arrived, never ruled, and only once fought in battle, are deemed the most fit to run the country.  (I know Aslan is the “rightful King of Narnia,” but he’s not really their monarch; he’s their god.  For day-to-day governance, Narnia is in the hands of the school kids.)
 
Why can’t the Narnians rule themselves?  Why are untested children from an unknown world considered preferable to homegrown citizens?  There’s never even a question of putting a Narnian on the throne, and when humans become more common (though still nonnative) in Narnia in later books, the exclusively human rulers persist.  It doesn’t make sense, until you think of those “poor” Indian, Chinese, and Irish people who “needed” England to come in and save them from themselves.  Following this British narrative, the natives are grateful and loving to their benevolent colonizers, and the Pevensies are indeed adored rulers.  It’s a startling parallel when you notice it, made even clearer by the fact that the Pevensies are so obviously unqualified for the job, but I’d bet money that Lewis never so much as realized he was doing it.

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