Ecocriticism in The Chronicles of Narnia
English Capstone
11 March 2019
Ecocriticism in The Chronicles of Narnia
Humanity has the power to impact the environment in many great and sometimes terrible ways. Writers who take a stand for the earth in their works are called environmental writers, and scholars who examine environmental works are called ecocritics. C. S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia, is not normally considered an environmental writer, however, his works contain much nature imagery and symbolism. Several environmentally related events in Lewis’ life also turn ecocritical eyes toward his writings. While Lewis is not officially considered an environmental writer, it is clear where his sympathies lie, for “[c]lose examination of [his] diaries and his scholarly writing demonstrate his appreciation of the beauty of nature and his concern for the transience of nature—and often for humanity’s part in nature’s demise” (Duplessis). Lewis fought during World War One (WWI) and lived during World War Two (WWII). During his time as an officer in WWI, Lewis “witnessed man’s hands manipulating his world into a wasteland. This impacted the content of his fantasies which ‘articulated a rejection of materialism and empiricism deeply rooted in segments of British middle-class culture’” (Veldman 38).
Preceding the Great War was the Industrial Revolution. Lewis was “horrified by the mechanical destruction of nature, by technological approaches to human experience, and by utilitarian assumptions about ethical conduct” (Veldman 51). These atrocities toward nature caused Lewis to sympathize with the Romantic tradition which “argues that much of value and significance had been lost in the transition to modern society. The [Romantic] protestors sought to regain what they perceived as the spiritual, communal, and aesthetic strengths of traditional society” (Veldman 11).
Not only did technological advances in warfare disgust Lewis, but scientific advances revolted him as well. Vivisection especially concerned him. He believed experimentation on animals was “an affront to science” and believed “in the soulfulness of animals, specifically regarding the ‘kindliness of one species toward another: the very antithesis of self-centeredness, and surely having something to do with morality’” (Duplessis). These beliefs showed up in many of Lewis’ works such as his Space Trilogy, The Problem of Pain, and The Magician’s Nephew.
Because Lewis was wounded in the trenches during WWI, he was able to return home to complete his education studying “both Greats (classics) and English Language and literature” (Veldman 45). When he was sent home, he continued his schooling and eventually became a professor, and “[i]n 1954—when the writing of the Narnia books was complete—Lewis accepted the newly created Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University…In his colorful inaugural lecture, Lewis expounded…[upon] the rise of modernism, socially and culturally express in the creation of the ‘Age of the Machine,’ was an unprecedented fracture in Western civilization” (Duriez 299). Lewis believed the Medieval Period was the earth’s golden age, and his “world of Narnia re-creates the medieval civilization he explored in lectures” (Veldman 45).
The focus of this paper will be on The Chronicles of Narnia as environmental children’s literature. However, this discussion of the author’s historical insights gives readers meaning and context as to Lewis’ mission to “[articulate] a rejection of materialism and empiricism rooted in segments of British middle-class culture” (Veldman 38). His “works call on Britain to reevaluate, question, and retreat from contemporary values and to reclaim a rapidly disappearing cultural tradition” (Veldman 54). A deeper study of ecocriticism and environmental children’s literature will provide a lens with which to analyze the Chronicles.
Ecocriticism: A history and explanation
Brouwer says, “Soil, water, plants. These three elements determine most of the features of the earth’s surface” (13). Not only these, but also “[w]ildlife and other mobile organisms are essential parts of any ecosystem (Brouwer 17). Rachel Carson, in her work Silent Spring, discusses in detail the values of each aspect of the ecosystem: when one is poisoned, the rest being dependent on it, will also die. Environmental writers like Carson, illustrate the depth and interconnectedness of the earth. It is from such writings that ecocriticism was born.
According to Glotfelty, “ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment…[it] takes an earth-centered approach to literary studies” (xviii). This critical theory is one of the youngest; its seed was planted in 1978 when William Rueckert use it in his essay, “Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism” (Issitt). Before the 1990s, the field of ecocriticism primarily applied “ecological principles to the study of literature” (Issitt). This was the beginning of the second wave of ecocriticism in which Lawrence Buell played a major role (Issitt). Buell studied environmental writings, such as the ecological works of Henry David Thoreau whose ecological works —along with those of Mark Twain—comprised the first wave of ecocriticism. Buell’s writings about Thoreau’s works pushed the field of ecocriticism “toward the broad study of nature writing and ecological literature, inspired and encouraged by a growing global realization of the effect of human activity on the environment (Issitt).
Rachel Carson was another groundbreaking second-wave ecocritical writer. Her book Silent Spring opened the eyes of the world—specifically the U.S. —to the dangers of pesticides which are man-made poisons that destroy the ecosystem. These chemicals poisoned insects causing a chain reaction as it poisoned birds, soil, plants, water, and fish.
According to Al Gore, “we must make the rescue of the environment the central organizing principle for civilization” (Earth in the Balance 269). Civilization will not think about such issues unless ecocritics responsibly “[direct] our attention to matters about which we need to be thinking. Consciousness raising is [ecocriticism’s] most important task. For how can we solve environmental problems unless we start thinking about them?” (Glotfelty xxiv).
When an ecocritic is writing or evaluating a work, he or she asks questions such as the following:
How is nature represented in this sonnet? What role does the physical setting play in the plot of this novel? Are the values expressed in this play consistent with ecological wisdom?? How do our metaphors of the land influence the way we treat it?...In what ways has literacy itself affected humankind’s relationship to the natural world?...What cross-fertilization is possible between literary studies and environmental discourse in related disciplines such as history, philosophy, psychology, art history, and ethics?” (Glotfelty xviii-xix)
Additionally, the following list, according to Buell, is a “a rough checklist of some of the ingredients that might be said to comprise an environmentally oriented work”:
1. The nonhuman environment is present not merely as a framing device but as a presence that begins to suggest that human history is implicated in natural history…2. The human interest is not understood to be the only legitimate interest…3. Human accountability to the environment is part of the text’s ethical orientation…4. Some sense of the environment as a process rather than as a constant or a given is at least implicit in the text…” (Buell, The Environmental Imagination, 7-8)
These questions and “ingredients” are foundational when analyzing works with an ecocritical lens. Ecocritics typically analyze literature with “the troubling awareness that we have reached the age of environmental limits, a time when the consequences of human actions are damaging the planet’s basic life support systems” (Glotfelty xx).
There are varying views as to what is the first and what is the second wave of ecocriticism. Issitt contends the first wave as simply being the nature writings of Thoreau and Twain, and the second wave as being more critical and scientific, such as Buell, Carson, and Gore. However, Buell’s determinations for the first wave are that “[f]irst wave ecocriticism calls for greater scientistic literacy [which tends] to presuppose a bedrock ‘human’ condition, to commend the scientific method’s ability to describe natural laws, and to look to science as a corrective to critical subjectivism and cultural relativism” (Buell, The Future of Environmental Criticism, 18-19). Buell believes the second wave of ecocriticism “envisage[s] science’s relationship to human culture as a feedback loop in which science is viewed both as objectified discipline and humanly directed enterprise, and the terms of scientistic discourse have significant implications for environmental criticism of literature but do not serve as an authoritative model” (Buell, The Future of Environmental Criticism, 18-19). First wave ecocritics, according to Buell, simply concern themselves with the natural environment however, second wave ecocritics concern themselves with both natural and synthetic environments and their relationship to each other (The Future of Environmental Criticism 22).
Ecocriticism has expanded from simply studying environmental or ecocentral literature to studying “literature of all periods and places…viewed in terms of place, setting, and/or environment, all of which have taken on richer meaning” (Johnson 7). It has various subgroups such as post-colonial ecocriticism and ecofeminism. Post-colonial ecocriticism deals with man’s dominance and dominion over nature—how mankind treats nature as inferior, something to exploit and take advantage of. Post-colonial ecocritics ask, “[H]ow does the narrative define the ecojustice problem?’” (Curry 13). This criticism “identifies the similarities between man’s conquest of man and man’s conquest of nature” (Massey and Bradford 113).
Ecofeminist critics concern themselves with the “connection between women and nature” (Curry 1). Many women believe that the environmental cause is a feminist cause as well: “Ecofeminist discourses draw from feminism and critical ecology to identify comparable mechanisms of exploitation that affect women and the environment” (Curry 1). This study also “clarifies a parallel between how man’s treatment of women is parallel to man’s treatment of nature” (Massey and Bradford 112). Massey and Bradford also note the connection to both ecofeminism and post-colonial ecocriticism: “All environmental discourses are constituted by humans who speak on behalf of the environment, which means humans always have the potential to adopt a patronizing, custodial approach” (114).
Recently, children’s texts have been introduced into the realm of environmental literature. One of the “primary functions of children’s environmental literature “is to socialize young people into becoming the responsible and empathetic adults of tomorrow by positioning readers as ecocitizens” (Massey & Bradford 109). This introduction of “environmental sustainability” in the field of children’s literature has been a slow process, for children’s texts focus more “on individual human subjects and their relationships with the natural world, issues surrounding the sustainable development of industries and urbanization, and the desirability of community action to sustain local ecologies and the well-being of individuals and groups” (Massey & Bradford 113). Children’s books such as The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, The Singing Hat by Thoby Riddle, and Uno’s Garden by Gaeme Base are all works which direct children to becoming ecocitizens (Massey & Bradford 113-124).
There is a schism within children’s ecocriticism in which the “dominant environmental discourse is that of sustainability” displaying society’s relationship with the environments as primary (Massey & Bradford 113). The basis of this schism is a society’s versus an individual’s relationship with the environment and which is a better viewpoint to present within children’s literature (Massey & Bradford 113-114). Children’s texts primarily focus on the individual rather than the society:
Such conceptual and representational inconsistencies are evidence of the peculiar difficulties faced by the producers of environmental texts for children. On one hand, it is a truism that today’s children will be charged, as adults, with the task of addressing the negative effects of decisions and practices made by preceding generations. On the other hand, most children’s books draw back from the pessimistic messages of environmentalists such as James Lovelock, who predicts that most human life is set for destruction in the near future. There exist powerful tensions, too, between the complexities of environmental science and the limitations of life experience and conceptual development in young children. The passions and fears which inform discussions of environmental futures have shaped the development of ecocriticism as a scholarly field, and are inextricably woven into environmental texts for children.” (Massey and Bradford 125)
Curry states, “Positioned on the brink of adulthood-the young adults’ own ontological tipping point—an awareness of the earth and its manifest fragility can be socially and politically transformative” (197). There is certainly a difference between children and young adult literature, for children’s books (typically picture books) impose “essentialist or constructionist values…onto children” while “the imminent entry of young adults into systems of adult responsibility places them in a unique position to critique the discourses of childhood essentialism” (Curry 7).
Children’s literature has been studied “for its ecopedagogical potential: how it can promote, and engender, responsible pedagogy in and out of the classroom” (Curry 13); “whereas adult literature might question dominant cultural norms” (Echerling 95). Many Young Adult novels include elements of the environment in a negative light. Many of these are dystopian novels which “allude to [the environment] as absence or loss” (Bradford qtd. by Curry 14). The youth of a civilization are the constitution of the civilization’s future, “and the literature adults write for them is more obvious and insistent about appropriate dreams and desires than the texts they write for themselves” (Kutzer qtd. by Echerling 95).
It seems the ideal for children’s literature, whether the ideal is the present condition of the literature or is simply desired by ecocritical scholars, is for children’s picture books to be focused upon the individual and to pertain to the “pastoral and/or concerned with the nonhuman natural world and humanity’s relationship to it” (Echerling 96). These texts should influence children to become ecocitizens, caring for the environment. As children mature into young adults, the literature written for them should shift from an individual relationship with nature to a depiction of society’s relationship with nature, gradually shift further into the “deep ecology” of adult literature which is ideally not “anthropocentric in emphasis” (Bradford et al. qtd. by Curry 195).
Literary Review: An Ecocritical Analysis of The Chronicles of Narnia
The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven young adult books: The Magician’s Nephew; The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe; The Horse and His Boy; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Silver Chair; and The Last Battle. The books document adventures of various children from England who are magically transported to the realm of Narnia. During their time in this realm, the children sometimes stumble into an adventure or are given a task by the creator of the land, Aslan. The land itself is populated by talking beasts, living trees, and mythical creatures such as fauns, centaurs, and dwarves. As a work of children’s environmental fiction, The Chronicles of Narnia deals with topics such as the environment, use of the environment by powerful characters to control others, humanity’s treatment of the environment, humanity’s treatment of animals, and a parallel of the Narnian world to the real world.
The Environment as It Is Presented in The Chronicles of Narnia:
Environmental literature presents its readers with either positive or negative archetypes presenting ideals or imperfect landscapes. Lewis’ environmental literature “deliberately used such stock symbolism in his construction of the stories and world to which Narnia belongs. Particularly the lush valley world of Narnia is an indicator of its spiritual health. In contrast, the northern and southern lands are largely barren” (Duriez 304). Duriez made a substantive list of positive and negative attributes of landscapes and their meanings. Duriez states, “Goodness is conveyed in landscape by a garden,” (304) and Lewis uses this in The Magician’s Nephew:
He went in very solemnly, looking about him. Everything was very quiet inside. Even the fountain which rose near the middle of the garden made only the faintest sound. The lovely smell was all round him. It was a happy place but very solemn. (Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew, 158)
Duriez also notes mountaintops and hills convey goodness, and this garden was located on top of a hill: “On top of that hill there is a garden” (Lewis 143).
Duriez also describes negative implications relating to the environment: “[t]he sinister is rendered in landscape as the dark forest; the wilderness or wasteland (which is either too hot or too cold); the dark and dangerous valley; the tomb; the labyrinth; the dangerous or evil pathway; and the cave (associated with barbarism) or pit (as a place of confinement or imprisonment)” (302-304).
Lewis conveys a frigid, Northern wasteland full of bloodthirsty giants in The Silver Chair (79-96), a desert wasteland: “It was like coming to the end of the world for all the grass stopped quite suddenly a few feet before him and the sand began” (The Horse and His Boy 80), and sinister tombs looking “very black and grim” (Lewis, The Horse and His Boy, 80). The Silver Chair combines the labyrinth, cave, and pit in the Underland, realm of the Earthmen ruled by the Green Witch, having “walls and roof [that] were knobbed, twisted and gashed into a thousand fantastic shapes” (147-148).
Environment as a Form of Control:
Lewis allows some of his most powerful characters to control the environment. Jadis, the White Witch and bringer of winter, negatively controls the environment. She “practices a particularly environmental form of evil, controlling the inhabitants by making it ‘always winter and never Christmas’ in Narnia; her evil power resides in her ability to interrupt the cycle of the seasons” (Duplessis). Jadis was based off two folklore myths: The Snow Queen and Lilith (Colbert 19-29). Jadis’ connection to the Snow Queen is obvious. However, her connection to Lilith, the mythical first woman before Eve, is less clear. The tradition of Lilith demonstrates her refusal
to be subordinate to Adam and to accept her roles as wife and mother. Jadis in that tradition, opposes life and growth. She thrives in a world where cruelty and death, the kind of world she turned Charn into, but in the Wood between the Worlds, a womb-like area so full of latent life that ‘you could almost feel the trees growing’…she loses her beauty and finds it hard to breathe, ‘as if the air of that place stifled her’…Hers is the nature of the seductress, proud, cruel, destructive, oblivious to the need for fair play and harmony between herself and other individuals. (Schakel qtd. by Colbert 28-29)
Jadis was accidentally brought into Narnia by a boy named Digory. They, and a group of others, stumbled into the realm at the very moment Aslan, the great lion, was creating it. Aslan sang, as the world began. This ever good, creator-lion, even in the midst of the White Witch’s evil winter, brings spring and life:
In the wide glades there were primroses. A light breeze sprang up which scattered drops of moisture from the swaying branches and carried cool, delicious scents against the faces of the travelers. The trees began to come fully alive. The larches and birches were covered with green, the laburnums with gold. Soon the beech trees had put forth their delicate, transparent leaves… “This is no thaw,” said the Dwarf, suddenly stopping. “This is spring. What are we to do? Your winter has been destroyed, I tell you! This is Aslan’s doing.” (Lewis, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe 118)
And in Prince Caspian, Aslan is the only one capable of awakening the trees:
Silenced nature in Narnia must be awakened by divine agency and not the actions of humans. This is made clear in the case of the Dryads. Although she calls to them and is able to feel a faint stirring, Lucy is unable to awaken the spirit of the trees…Aslan’s intervention is necessary to liberate them and restore their speech.” (Duplessis)
Not only does Lewis convey the treatment of the environment by higher powers, but he also displays mankind’s treatment of nature. There are negative and positive depictions of this. Mankind, at the beginning of the world was put in charge of Narnia:
“My children,” said Aslan, fixing his eyes on both [the cabby and his wife], “You are to be the first King and Queen of Narnia…You shall rule and name all these creatures, and do justice among them, and protect them from their enemies when enemies arise. And enemies will arise, for there is an evil Witch in this world.” (Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew, 138)
While the first king and queen of Narnia ruled “in great peace and joy and neither the witch nor any other enemy came to trouble that pleasant land for many hundred years,” the witch did eventually come to terrorize the land (The Magician’s Nephew 184). Not only that, but men, claiming to be kings, terrorized that land as well. Miraz, a Telemarine usurper of the Narnian throne is one such example.
Humanity’s Relationship to the Environment:
Prince Caspian is set hundreds of years after the Golden Age of Narnia in which High King Peter, Queen Susan, King Edmund, and Queen Lucy reigned. At the creation of Narnia, Aslan created “walking trees…talking beasts…[and] divine waters” (The Magician’s Nephew 116). However, by the time of Prince Caspian, the usurping king Miraz has silenced or dominated each of these three holy aspects of Aslan’s creation. Miraz and the Telmarines “silenced the beasts and the trees and the fountains and…killed and drove away the Dwarves and Fauns, and are now trying to cover up even the memory of them…[Miraz] does not allow them to be spoken of” (Lewis, Prince Caspian, 52). The beasts, including talking animals, centaurs, minotaurs, fauns, dwarves, and “all sorts of creatures from the Old Days of Narnia still lived on in hiding” (Lewis, Prince Caspian, 73). Not only were these creatures silenced, but Miraz also succeeded in silencing the trees and waters:
“Now,” said the Badger, “if only we could wake the spirits of these trees and this well, we should have done a good day’s work…[But] we have no power over them. Since the Humans came into the land, felling forests and defiling streams, the Dryads and Naiads have sunk into a deep sleep. Who knows if they will ever stir again?” (Lewis, Prince Caspian, 84).
Miraz kept pushing care of the environment out of importance and rather pushed towards progress and modernity. These actions parallel “with the materialism of Lewis’ day” (Duriez 301). Lewis believed a “medieval view of nature had a wildness to it lost in today’s ‘Age of the Machine’” (Duriez 301). Lewis seemed to believe that when mankind was cruel to the earth, the earth would return the sentiment, for, because of the Telmarine’s cruelty to the environment, their experiences with the woods were negative: “Because they have quarreled with the trees, they are afraid of the woods” (Lewis, Prince Caspian, 56).
Miraz and his predecessors “civilized” Narnia, especially its waters. The Telmarine kings were “in deadly fear of the sea because they can never quite forget that in all stories, Aslan comes from over the sea. They don’t want to go near it and they don’t want anyone else to go near it. So they have let great woods grow up to cut their people off from the coast” (Prince Caspian 56). The Telmarines dominate the Narnian wild with signifiers of “man’s domination” such as “bridges, roads, and towns” (Duplessis). The Ford of Beruna has been replaced by the Bridge of Beruna and “is treated as central to the nefarious activities of the usurper Miraz, and almost at the moment that his rule is overthrown, the Bridge is destroyed, which is an occasion for great rejoicing” (Wicher 4). The river god asks Aslan, “Hail Lord…Loose my chains” (Prince Caspian 211) and Aslan gives Bacchus the power to “[d]eliver him from his chains” (211). This Narnia, which had “been seized and ‘civilized’” and full of “signifiers of dominations: as maps’…’bridges’…and ‘roads’” has now been restored by Aslan and his friends, Bacchus and the Dryads, back to “its own equilibrium once more” (Duplessis).
Prince Caspian is not the only book in the series dealing with issues such as these. In The Last Battle, Narnia is being deforested by Calormen invaders:
“Woe, woe, woe!” called the voice. “Woe for my brothers and sisters! Woe for the holy trees! The woods are laid waste. The axe is loosed against us. We are being felled. Great trees are falling, falling, falling…Justice, Lord King!...Come to our aid. Protect your people. They are felling us in Lantern Waste. Forty great trunks already on the ground…A-a-a-h,” gasped the Dryad shuddering as if under repeated blows. Then all at once she fell sideways as if both her feet had been cut from under her. For a second they saw her lying dead on the grass and then she vanished. They knew what had happened. Her tree, miles away, had been cut down. (Lewis, The Last Battle, 20-21).
This vivid picture of Narnian genocide presents “a vividly human perspective on the horror of deforestation” (Duplessis). This small scene encompasses the whole of Lewis’ sentiments. The entire Chronicles presents a dichotomy between humanity’s relationship with the natural world. The Dryad’s call upon Tirian for help “emphasizes humanity’s role as protector of the natural environment, while the felling of the trees represents humanity’s role in the destruction of nature” (Duplessis).
The creatures of Narnia, including this Dryad and Trufflehunter the Badger from Prince Caspian, acknowledge “that Narnia was never right except when a son of Adam was king” (Prince Caspian 71). Through examples such as Caspian, Peter, Frank, and Tirian, “Lewis constructs the ‘correct’ relationship between humans and nature…[these rulers] fulfill their responsibilities to the environment” (Duplessis). Humanity, in Narnia and the real world, present a dilemma in which humanity is presented not only the protectors of the land but, in characters such as Jadis, Miraz, and Uncle Andrew, is also shown exploiting the land. The Dryad from The Last Battle is “a living being, is cut down before the reader’s eyes—and unlike the silencing of the trees by the Telmarines, this evil cannot be reversed” (Duplessis).
Humanity’s Treatment of Animals:
Lewis also proved himself an environmentalist in his treatment and depiction of animals in The Chronicles of Narnia. Many of his primary characters are Talking Beasts of Narnia, which Aslan set apart to be “awake. Love. Think. Speak…Be talking beasts…” (The Magician’s Nephew 116). Lewis “also strives to elevate animals…A thinker ahead of his time, Lewis sought to blur the species barrier (such as when he created his faun, a creature with goat horns and hooves but with a human face and torso)” (Newkirk 166). Lewis inserts his distaste for the mistreatment of animals into his works by depicting characters as antagonists who harm animals. The White Witch turns animals to stone when they disobey her. Uncle Andrew uses guinea pigs “as the subject of nasty experiments” (Newkirk 166). Lewis’ feelings on animal experimentation is made even more clear, for
In The Problem of Pain, Lewis writes, “Vivisection can only be defended by showing it to be right that one species should suffer in order that another species be happier…If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us, and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons.” (Lewis qtd. by Newkirk 166)
While Lewis did not make Uncle Andrew as supreme a villain as Jadis, the White Witch, he still displayed a certain lack of goodness and faith which his foils, Digory and Polly, both have. When Uncle Andrew first heard Aslan sing, he convinced himself it was only roaring (The Magician’s Nephew 126), and when the animals were created, he “stood trembling and swaying this way and that. He had never liked animals at the best of time, being usually rather afraid of them; and of course years of doing cruel experiments on animals had made him hate and fear them fare more” (128). Uncle Andrew, along with the Telmarines, caused the birth of their own fear towards water, trees, and beasts because they did not care for them as they ought.
This discussion of Uncle Andrew’s treatment of animals leads to the discussion of humanity in the realm of Narnia. It was a Son of Adam and a Daughter of Eve that Aslan coronated to be the first rulers of Narnia: “‘My children,’ said Aslan, fixing his eyes on [Frank and Helen]… ‘you are to be the first King and Queen of Narnia…You shall rule and name all these creatures, and do justice among them, and protect them from their enemies when enemies arise” (The Magicians Nephew 138). Although Frank and Helen were “neither more intelligent nor more powerful than the talking beasts and other creatures” humanity was given the responsibility of earth care and protection (Veldman 70-71). While humanity is given the responsibility of being protectors and rulers of this land, they are also the ones who brought the first evil into it: “‘Son of Adam,’ said Aslan [to Digory]. ‘Are you ready to undo the wrong that you have done to my sweet country of Narnia on the very day of its birth?’” (The Magician’s Nephew 141). It is for this reason that the children from our world are sent to Narnia six times to right the wrongs of the evil Digory and Uncle Andrew brought into it at its creation. The order established at the beginning of Narnian time remained consistent, allowing humanity chance after chance to restore Narnian beasts, trees, and waters back to their original glory, and “[t]hrough the negative examples of illegitimate rulers [such as Jadis and Miraz], Lewis constructs the ‘correct’ relationship between humans and nature, providing examples of rulers like Caspian [as well as Frank, Helen, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy] who fulfill their responsibilities to the environment” (Duplessis).
Human characters such as Uncle Andrew and Eustace are examples of colonizers who feel that exploitation of “inferior” foreign lands is justified because they are capitalists:
Lewis…translates Andrew’s greed for magical power and hatred for animals into a capitalistic desire to exploit Narnian resources for personal gain at the expense of its inhabitants. Ford notes Uncle Andrew’s “inability to understand anything that doesn’t directly relate to his own needs…hence his inability to understand the talking beasts.” (Duplessis)
Eustace is a younger version of Uncle Andrew. He is “[a]n obnoxious—though not fully evil—character” who “participates in the ‘experimentation on animals simply out of curiosity’” (Laurent qtd. by Duplessis). His story begins, “There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it” (Lewis The Voyage of the Dawn Treader 1). Eustace was “raised by ‘modern’ parents” and “was the worst kind of child Lewis could imagine” (Starr 8). He “liked animals, especially beetles, if they were dead and pinned on a card” (Lewis The Voyage of the Dawn Treader 2). When Eustace arrives in Narnia, he is ever cruel to the talking animals, and has quite an unpleasant experience throughout much of the story, just like Uncle Andrew’s experience in Narnia. Neither character had enough appreciation for the natural world to even begin to appreciate the Narnian world. Eustace is the only one of “the eight children called to Narnia in the series who find the otherworld a horrible place. He longs for machinery until he is remade by Aslan’s magic” (Veldman 72). This description of Eustace “establishes that he is ‘a young protovivisectionst’”—something Lewis was adamantly against (Filmer qtd. by Duplessis). Eustace’s “negative portrayal…illustrates Lewis’ pro-animal leanings” (Duplessis).
Human’s treatment of animals in the Chronicles is rather like karma especially for Uncle Andrew and Eustace. Uncle Andrew ends up being planted like a tree by the animals after he has expressed his desire to capitalize on Narnian soil which was “bursting with life” (Lewis The Magician’s Nephew 171). Eustace is turned into a dragon when he steals treasure from the dragon’s lair: “He had turned into a dragon while he was asleep. Sleeping on a dragon’s hoard with greedy, dragonish thought in his heart, he had become a dragon himself” (Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, 97). Eustace’s upbringing by modern parents separate him from a childhood in which respect for the earth would have taught him to respect a creature of the earth, even if it was a dragon. He was raised reading books strong in topics such as “exports and imports and governments and drains” and weak on mythology and dragons and nature, and his free time was hardly spent out of doors using his imagination (Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, 92).
Eustace, as he was raiding the dragon’s hoard, says, “With some of this stuff, I could have quite a decent time here—perhaps in Calormen. It sounds like the least phony of these countries” (Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, 93). Narnia, compared to its neighboring country, Calormen, is paradise. Calormen is a “land of cruelty and corruption [which] has cut its ties to the natural world” (Veldman 74). Narnia brings harmony to the dual existence of humanity and beasts, and “the speech of the beasts serves as a crucial link” (Veldman 74). In Calormen, alternatively, “talking beasts and mythical creatures like fauns and dwarves” are nonexistent (Veldman 74). The land of Narnia is a place of balance and compatibility where “the trees, rivers, and stars communicate” (Veldman 74). But in The Last Battle, when the Calormen infiltrate Narnia, horses and unicorns are reduced “to beasts of burden,” dwarves are enslaved, and trees are murdered (Veldman 74). As Narnia decays, so does “the bonds between nature and humanity” (Veldman 74).
Comparison of Narnia to the Real World:
Lewis contrasts Narnia with the real world as well. Every time a child is plucked from England to Narnia, there is a stark difference between the environments. In The Magician’s Nephew, Digory and Polly are in the middle of a London street fray when they are suddenly rushed into the Wood between the Worlds and from there into Narnia. In The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy are living in a stranger’s house because of the WWII air raids terrorizing London, and this house is where they find the wardrobe that transports them to Narnia. In The Silver Chair, Eustace and Jill are brought to Narnia in mid-flight from the boarding-school bullies. Lastly, The Last Battle finds all seven children—some of whom are now grown—in a train which crashes. From their deaths in the crash, these seven saviors of Narnia are given the privilege of spending their eternity in the newly created, heavenly Narnia.
The Magician’s Nephew illustrates a growing issue, prominent in Lewis’ day as well as the present: “nature deficit disorder” (Gaard 332). This issue “is growing among urban children who have not played in wild places and don’t have an attachment to nature because they have no experience with nature” (Gaard 332). Digory and Polly grew up in townhouses in London and longed for “a great big house in the country” which had a river, and woods, “and the mountains behind it” (Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew, 183). Beyond simply hearing about this dream house in the country, the children had no opportunities to make an “emotional connection with nature” (Gaard 332). They had played only in the attics of their London townhouses and occasionally in the decorative shrubs surrounding them. Lewis was writing the dreams of children who longed for a more fulfilling life out of doors rather than a life amidst “the noise, heat, and hot smell of London” (Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew, 179).
Narnia “clearly exhibits traits of an earthly society that are strongly reminiscent of western European society of the High Middle Ages” (Wicher 4). Lewis obviously had a distaste for anything modern. This is especially clear in The Last Battle when the “corrupt Ape,” Shift, develops “plans for modernization” (Veldman 71). Shift clearly has not read his Narnian history books, for everything he is planning—“roads and big cities and schools and offices and whips and muzzles and saddles and cages and kennels and prisons”—recalls the days of Miraz who muzzled the land with roads and imprisoned the rivers with bridges (Lewis, The Last Battle, 38). This “country worth living in,” as Shift says, is a country of enslaved talking beasts, murdered trees, and wounded earth:
Right through the middle of that ancient forest—that forest where the trees of gold and of silver had once grown and where a child from our world had once planted the Tree of Protection—a broad lane had already been opened. It was a hideous lane like a raw gash in the land, full of muddy ruts where felled trees had been dragged down to the river. (Lewis, The Last Battle, 26).
Lewis’ view of the present, modern technology was very negative. He always “looked to the past, particularly to medieval civilization, for the building blocks of his fantasy” (Veldman 75). The Middle Ages, Lewis believed, was a more real civilization which was more in-touch “with nonmaterial realities” (Veldman 75).
The Chronicles of Narnia expresses “themes of the romantic, social, and cultural critique: a mistrust of mechanization, rationalization, and expertise, and an avowal of the need to reconstruct human community, preserve the natural world, and recognize the primacy of the spiritual realms” (Veldman 75). Whether or not Lewis was right about the Middle Ages being more in-touch with nature, his books still express a respect for nature that deserves to be noticed. Lewis presented a reality in which humanity and nature were both at their best when each got along with each other. And through characters such as Shift, Miraz, Uncle Andrew, Jadis, and Eustace, Lewis showed how when someone does not have a good or existent connection with the natural world, that person is more prone to harming it.
Concluding Thoughts
In conclusion, children and adult readers both can take away valuable lessons from The Chronicles of Narnia. Environmental children’s literature is a step toward healing the “nature deficit disorder” by promoting an “emotional connection with nature” by appealing “to both the emotions and the intellect” (Gaard 332). This genre of literature will appeal to “children’s innate love of animals” thereby making “deep, lasting impacts” on its young readers (Gaard 332). Lewis’ works provide children with an ideal society in which humanity and nature are in harmony with each other:
Lews’s love of nature infuses his books for children, illustrating that humans are responsible for nature’s continuity and providing examples of human and nonhuman nature existing harmoniously in a community of living things, perhaps stimulation similar appreciation and concern for the wonder of nature in his young readers. (Duplessis)
The Narnian capital, Cair Paravel, sits on the edge of the forest on a beach by the sea. Talking beasts inhabit it. The Golden Age of Narnia occurs when Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve sit on the thrones of Cair Paravel, joining the divine waters, holy trees, and talking beasts in sweet community. The land was never right unless mankind was caring for the earth as they were originally intended to. Many scholars criticize Lewis’ leanings towards monarchy, as they say this grants a post-colonial ecocritical reading of the Chronicles. However, Lewis was not trying to make a political statement. He was merely trying to draw a picture the best way he knew how to show a community of living things in harmony with each other. Mankind was the obvious audience for his works, and he wanted to open readers’ eyes to responsible actions to take towards better earth care.
While The Chronicles of Narnia is regarded as children’s fiction, Lewis believed, “‘No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally (and often far more) worth reading at the age of fifty.’ He wrote his Narnia books in the form of a children’s story because he regarded this form as the most suited for what he had to say, not because he believed Narnia’s to be below adult attention” (Veldman 49). Narnia was created by Lewis to be a “solidly real” symbol, despite its genre of fantasy (Duriez 305). The Chronicles “[take] us back to the ordinary world which is an inevitable part of our human living and experience, deepening both the wonders and the terrors of our world” (Duriez 305). This relation to the “real world” hits home for readers. A fantasy world with talking animals is a nice allegory, but characters from our world who show the sharp contrasts between the hot, modern city of London, and the fresh landscapes of Narnia will give readers a more relatable perspective to their own reality. Lewis’ “fiction is undeniably rife with detailed descriptions of fantastic landscapes and environments, and his characters often express a deep respect and admiration for the world around them” (Echerling 99). The Chronicles of Narnia is a wonderful environmental work to share with children for “Lewis asserted nature’s right to exist, its holiness as a living entity, apart from its utility to humanity. Man’s appropriation of nature as a thing, rather than respect for it as fellow creation, violates the divine plan” (Veldman qtd. by Echerling 99).
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