LITERARY ANALYSIS
King, Caspian’s duty is to protect and lead Narnia in its loyalty to
Aslan. He goes on a quest to solve a mystery and settle accounts
as King of Narnia. But he may not chase after Aslan in a way that
leaves the rest of Narnia behind. To be with Aslan by abdicating
his lion-given position would not be to be with Aslan at all.
Caspian’s attempted abdication is placed in stark relief with the
loyalty of another Narnian. As Reepicheep brings out, adventuring
on would be to break faith with Trumpkin. Abdication would
not only be a betrayal of his loyalty to his regent, but also a be-
trayal of one of Caspian’s most loyal subjects from before he was
crowned King. In Prince Caspian, Trumpkin had thought of us-
ing Queen Susan’s horn to call for help as “eggs in moonshine”. 16
But he volunteers himself to be one of the messengers to look for
the help Caspian expects to come. “You are my King. I know the
difference between giving advice and taking orders. You’ve had
my advice, and now it’s the time for orders.” 17 Trumpkin’s will-
ing obedience under the circumstances is a sign of true loyalty,
which Caspian says he will never forget. So, when Reepicheep
brings Trumpkin into his admonition about Caspian’s desire, he
is showing Caspian that his decision is a matter of loyalty. Is his
loyalty to Aslan and Aslan’s people and Aslan’s calling, or is his
loyalty simply to the desires of his own “private person”?
Lewis makes it clear th at doing things Aslan’s way is the only
good way. To do or pursue good things outside of the way that
Aslan wants turns the good things bad. This is shown even more
explicitly in The Magician’s Nephew.
The Witch tempts Digory to steal an apple and eat it so that he
could rule with her. She claims that she already feels the effect of
this fruit of youth and life. But Aslan reveals the truth to Digory:
She has won her heart’s desire; she has unwearying strength and endless
days like a goddess. But length of days with an evil heart is only length of
not have turned out for the good. “Understand, then, that it would
have healed her; but not to your joy or hers. The day would have
come when both you and she would have looked back and said it
would have been better to die in that illness.” 20
To pursue anything, even the best things, at the cost of stepping
out of Aslan’s way turns the object of the pursuit—or its affects—
sour. Eve eats the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good
and Evil, but instead of becoming more like God, as the serpent
had suggested, a giant rift came between God and mankind. 21 At
the end of The Voyage of the ‘Dawn Treader’, Caspian is confront-
ed with a similar choice as Eve and Adam or Digory. He wants,
ostensibly, to be with Aslan. He wants to pursue the highest good
by going on with Reepicheep. But to do so in his case would mean
casting aside his calling—his crown and his kingdom—to which
Aslan himself had called him. To follow after Aslan in this way
would not be to follow Aslan. And this is the danger, the unrest
and stirring, which threatens Narnia in every book. Whether by
conquest or by subtle deceit, evil, in all its various forms, wants to
turn Aslan’s people from following Aslan.
TYLER HATCHER is an NSA alumnus (2013), husband to his beautiful
wife, Kristina (2014), and father of two squirrly boys and a little girl on the way.
He is wrapping up his studies at Greyfriars Hall for pastoral ministry and has
been mistaken on multiple occasions for Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Lewis, C.S. Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia. London: HarperCollins Chil-
dren’s Books, 2009.
misery and already she begins to know it. All get what they want: they do
not always like it….[The] fruit always works—it must work—but it does
—. The Horse and His Boy. New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1982.
not work happily for any who pluck it at their own will.
18
—. The Last Battle. New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1984.
The Witch had also tempted Digory on the grounds of his ailing
mother. One bite from the apple, she claims, and his mother would
be well. No more pain. No more sorrow. 19 Aslan, though, makes it
clear that to have stolen an apple in order to heal his mother would
—. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. London: HarperCollins Children’s
Books, 2009.
—. The Magician’s Nephew. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1966.
16
17
18
Prince Caspian, 87.
Ibid., 89.
—. The Silver Chair. New York: HarperTrophy, 1981.
C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew (New York: The Macmillan Company,
1966), 157.
19 Ibid., 145-146.
20 Ibid., 158.
21 Fiona Tolhurst, “Beyond the Wardrobe: C.S. Lewis as Closet Arthurian,”
—. The Voyage of the ‘Dawn Treader’. New York: HarperTrophy, 1980.
Tolhurst, Fiona. “Beyond the Wardrobe: C.S. Lewis as Closet Arthurian.” Arthu-
riana 22, no. 4 (2012): 140-66. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43485993.
Arthuriana 22, no. 4 (2012): 158-60. The analogy between Eve and the
events of The Voyage of the ‘Dawn Treader’ came to me particularly from a
comment at the end of the cited article where Tolhurst points out that the
Ward, Michael. Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
voyagers are “becoming one with God”.
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