The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is a fantasy novel for children by C. S. Lewis. It was the first of the Chronicles of Narnia to be written, in 1950, and is the best known. The Magician's Nephew is thus a "prequel".
The allegorical Christian message of the book is not deeply hidden: Aslan is a Christ figure; his death and resurrection redeem Edmund, and the whole of Narnia.
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Synopsis
Four English children, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy have been sent to stay in a large house owned by an old professor, Digory Kirke, as part of the evacuation of children from English cities during World War II. Whilst playing a game of hide and seek, Lucy enters a wardrobe, and finds herself in a snow-covered forest (which curiously features a lighted lamp post). She meets Mr Tumnus, a faun, who befriends her. Over tea and buttered toast, Mr Tumnus intimates that Narnia is in thrall to a tyrant, the White Witch, who turns her enemies into stone, and has made it "always Winter, but never Christmas".
When Lucy returns, she is surprised to discover that the other children have not noticed her long absence. She takes them into the wardrobe, but it is just a normal wardrobe, with a solid wooden back.
Some time later, both Lucy and Edmund enter Narnia. Lucy meets Mr Tumnus again, but Edmund encounters the White Witch herself, and her Dwarf. She gives him Turkish delight, and extracts details of what he knows.
On their return, to Lucy's disgust, Edmund pretends that he has not really been in Narnia. Peter and Susan speak to Professor Digory Kirke about their concern that Lucy persists in treating her "made up story" as real, but the professor refuses to dismiss it. Rather, he defends Lucy, asking the others to compare her record of truthfulness against Edmund's.
Finally, all four children go into Narnia. They discover that Mr. Tumnus is missing, and his house has been ransacked. They meet Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, who speak of Aslan who is rumoured to be arriving to save Narnia. They prepare to set off on a journey to the Stone Table to meet Aslan. They notice that Edmund has disappeared, and realise that he had, in fact, been in Narnia before, and has betrayed them. Along the way, they are overtaken by Father Christmas, who gives them all useful presents, and hints that the power of the Witch is waning.
Meanwhile, Edmund has met up with the White Witch, and with her and her dwarf is also travelling via sledge. Along the way, they come across an entire party of animals which is celebrating Christmas with a feast provided by Aslan. The enraged Witch turns them all to stone and Edmund, who unsuccessfully tried to persuade her otherwise, realizes to his horror the evil he has allied with. Eventually, they have to abandon the sledge, as snow is gradually thawing.
The other three children meet Aslan. There is a parley with the Witch, which results in the ashamed Edmund being released. It later transpires that the price for this is that Aslan has agreed to forfeit his own life. The requirement that a life be paid is described as "Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time". Aslan is slaughtered by the Witch and her minions on the Stone Table.
But as dawn breaks, a "Deeper Magic from before the Dawn of Time" raises Aslan from the dead, and the Stone Table is broken in two.
The Witch is vanquished, and the four children become the Kings and Queens of Narnia. Peter, the oldest, is appointed High King.
After many years' reign - which incidentially encompasses the whole of the time-period of The Horse and His Boy - the kings and queens, now adults, go on a hunt for a rare white stag. While in pursuit, they find the lamp post in the forest, pass through the wardrobe, and find themselves back in our world, where they are still children and where no time has passed since they left. Consulting with the professor about their experience, he tells them that while the wardrobe portal cannot be used again, this is hardly the end of their adventures in Narnia.
The symbolism and parallels with the Gospel themes of betrayal, death, resurrection and redemption are very plain. "Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time," and "Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time" correspond to the Old and New Covenants of Christianity, respectively. There is a nod in the direction of the Trinity doctrine, with Aslan in the Christ-role and a passing reference to the "Emperor over Sea" as God the Father. The children form a disciple-group around Aslan, with Edmund as Judas and Peter the High King as St Peter. The two girls also follow Biblical precedent through being first to see the resurrected Aslan. The parallels are simplified for the sake of young readers; Aslan rises in the morning after his slaying, rather than on the third day, for example. The book is not a straight re-telling of Biblical stories in another form, it simply borrows heavily from them so as to illustrate basic Christian ideas (and some other ideas as well - Platonic philosophy among them). It doesn't pay to follow the parallels too far; if Aslan is Christ in Narnia, then how does Narnia come to have Christmas?
The book, and the rest of the Narnia series, have been criticised for sexism, racism, and other offences against modern sensibilities. However the series, and this book in particular, remain popular with children and although they are products of their time (the early fifties) and display certain Anglocentric attitudes (that the English, foreigners to Narnia, are its rightful kings, for example), these can be forgiven if the superficial storyline still works. For most readers it does, although there are points at which it jars slightly. At the end, almost as an afterthought, Lewis tells us that the four children grew to adulthood in Narnia, turning into a kind of Arthurian Camelot (complete with a cod-Shakespearean vocabulary), with their lives in England almost completely forgotten until they stumble back into the wardrobe, instantly shedding the years and turning back into immature schoolchildren. In Narnia, they had been on the verge of maturity, being courted by Narnian humanoids, and the subtext suggests that this was the reason they were rudely ejected back into an earlier, more innocent stage of life. Some critics have suggested (from this and later material) that Lewis may have regarded sexual maturity as a fallen state - certainly this is implied in "The Last Battle", when Susan is described with some disgust as having lost interest in Narnia and become more concerned with "lipstick, nylons and invitations". In later adventures in the series, the children do not visit for such a long subjective time, returning home as soon as their immediate involvement is completed.
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