The allegory (or is it allegory?) is straight-forward and powerful: Aslan, the allegorical Christ, the great lion who dies for another's sin and is raised from the dead by "a deeper magic from before the dawn of time." And there is the "conversion" of Eustace, a mean little boy with the personality like a dragon. When he actually is turned into a dragon he discovers that can't heal himself; he can only by restored by the terrible grace of Aslan's ripping claws.
And, symbolism aside, there is that beautiful, oft-quoted final sentence of the series which never fails to move me:
All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has ever read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.But what if there was a unifying theme to the entire series that Lewis managed to keep hidden for over fifty years? Michael Ward's Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis makes this bold claim. Ward argues (convincingly in my opinion) that each book in the series corresponds to one of the seven heavens or planets in the Medieval cosmology. Think of Dante's seven heavens in Paradiso. Here is the breakdown:
- The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe = Jupiter
- Prince Caspian = Mars
- The Voyage of the Dawn Treader = Sun
- The Silver Chair = Moon
- The Horse and His Boy = Mercury
- The Magician's Nephew = Venus
- The Last Battle = Saturn
Ward makes his case methodically. He begins by looking at Lewis' own research and views on Medieval cosmology. Lewis was a professor of Medieval literature, and his scholarly research into the field was quite extensive, as Ward thoroughly quotes and references. He then moves to Lewis' poetry and fiction prior to Chronicles in which the seven heavens come to prominence. Anyone who has read his space trilogy should recall that the seven planets (who are angelic personalities rather than balls of rocks and gas) are quite explicit at the end of That Hideous Strength.
Once he has established that Lewis was quite interested in the seven heavens and had already explored them in his own poetry and fiction, Ward then moves to make his case for their hidden presence in The Chronicles of Narnia. Sometimes this presence is extraordinarily subtle. In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, for instance, the characters frequently say "By Jove." Over and over again in The Silver Chair we see water and wetness, since water is associated with the Lunar idea. The Horse and His Boy, the book corresponding to Mercury, is filled with scenes of speed and speech-making, (Mercury was the messenger god after all).
Other times it's more overt (but not so overt that anyone noticed before now). Prince Caspian, the "martial" book, is all about war. When Aslan arrives to redeem Narnia from the White Witch in the first book the unending winter finally ends and spring returns. It is no coincidence that Jupiter is associated with spring and rebirth. And so it goes with each book.
After showing the hidden presence of these themes in each of the books Ward then makes some judgments as to what the themes are saying theologically. This is where Planet Narnia was most difficult for me. Side note: it was published by Oxford University Press; this is a serious work of literary criticism. I can't remember all the theological nuances of each book, but Ward argues nonetheless that they are there, and I think he's pretty much right.
So why did Lewis have this secret unifying theme? Once again, Ward has done his homework. He shows that Lewis believed that good writing shouldn't expose all it has to offer at first glance. In this case he hid it so well that no one noticed for a half century after Lewis' death. Lewis fans should take Ward's case seriously, and go back with renewed joy to Lewis' seven wonderful books.
