Narnia:  Merely a Fantasy? (for the parish youth)

      At the last Youth Movie Night, we watched The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  We had little time – the film being so long – to discuss what we had viewed together, and so I thought I should write some of my own ideas about the movie.

      The film is taken from C. S. Lewis’ book by the same name.  And since Lewis was one of the greatest Christian apologists of the 20th century, one approaches this work expecting something Christian, and rightly so.  The Chronicles is a work profoundly Christian, but not in a “preachy” sense, but rather in a more subtle and literary sense.  The reader, or the movie watcher, if he or she knows the Christian story, cannot help but notice the allusions to the faith:  Aslan the Lion is a Christ figure most certainly; and the leader of the children venturing into Narnia is named Peter; there are death and resurrection, hints of the Sacraments, good versus evil, an appearance of St. Nick, the Witch as a figure of Satan, the tempter, etc.  These are all rather obvious, but I would like to delve more deeply into the story; for any story that seeks to express Christian truth itself must have much depth. 

      The opening scene is a night bombing of London by the Germans during WWII.  The English children, the heroes of the story, are fleeing in fear to their bomb shelter.  The next day, having survived a close call, they are shipped off by their loving mother to the countryside to escape danger.  Little do they know that in the quietness of “The Professor’s” estate, in the solid and silent walls of his large house, there awaits them the wardrobe, the magical entrance into a whole other world of even greater danger than Hitler’s air force... far, far greater danger (and adventure). 

      It is interesting that before the discovery of the wardrobe, the children (Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy) are half bored to death on a rainy day, sitting around trying to find something with which to amuse themselves.  (In a more modern setting, they would be sitting there, dull-eyed, watching television.)  Lucy, the youngest and best, suggests a game of hide-and-seek.  How appropriate!  They have “hidden” themselves in the English countryside from danger, and before too long they’ll be needing to seek something even in the midst of and through a terrible danger. 

      What is the world of Narnia, discovered by Lucy by her passing through the back of the wardrobe?  Is it just a fantasy?  An escape from the “real world” of war, games, school and boredom?   One of the pivotal scenes that begins to answer this question is when the Professor asks Peter and Susan about these visits to Narnia claimed by Lucy (and also experienced by Edmund, who denies it because he has other, darker plans in mind).  To Peter and Susan’s utter amazement, the Professor seems quite open to believing Lucy’s claim.  “Is she a liar?” he asks them.  “Has she ever shown signs of being crazy?”  “No,” they have to answer, but then point out that Lucy did claim that Edmund too had gone into Narnia, but that Edmund had denied it.  “Have you known Edmund to lie?” asks the Professor.  “Well yes, plenty of times,” they answer.  “Then, why don’t you believe Lucy?”

      This is, I believe, Lewis’ way of adding the weight of reality to his fantasy story:  that is, the “fantasy” of it all will be used to give us an insight into reality.  Narnia is real, in the sense that it is the domain, the territory of everyone’s life:  to enter into the war of all wars, the ultimate struggle against evil.  Even as the children’s father has gone off to war in defense of England and the Allies against Nazi Germany, the children are introduced into that battle that none can hide from, in a war where the demarcation between good and evil is far more clear and is expressed by none better than the Witch herself, when she demands of Edmund the betrayer, “It’s about time you decided whose side you are really on, mine or theirs” (as she points to the frozen corpse of the Good Fox she has just murdered). 

      The children are tempted, more than once, to escape from Narnia back into the “real” world in order to avoid the frightening prospect of having to fight and of the possibility of dying.  But they come to realize that they – we – have been predestined for this very battle.  No more pretense that this war is not occurring, that there is some place, some state of life, some environment of one’s own construction where one will not have to face the reality of Narnia, the reality of what the Church has always called spiritual warfare, the reality of which to ignore is to lose, and lose everything.  It must be fought by all, and to fight is to win. 

      Edmund is restored, and the children are united in their resolve to enter into this battle.  Aslan sacrifices himself for the sake of Edmund, whose betrayal calls for reparation.  But Aslan rises from the dead, showing that the Good and the True can never be vanquished in spite of all appearances and the power-posturing of evil.  And so they fight, and so they win.  Lucy, who out of her innocence is stalwart and so refuses to abandon Narnia, becomes “The Valiant.”  Edmund, because of his betrayal has had to learn of justice the hard way, is crowned “The Just.”  Susan, who abhors violence and its oft-accompanying hatred and vengeance, receives the title of “The Gentle.”  And Peter, the leader, who takes up the sword and fights so bravely, seemingly against all odds, becomes “The Magnificent.”  They all are, that is, becoming Saints.

      “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith,” writes St. Paul to another young warrior, Timothy.  “Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.” 

      The Chronicles of Narnia is a fantasy, but not merely so; it’s a story of the reality about which St. Paul wrote.  It’s a tale of spiritual warfare, and thus of how saints are made... and crowned with eternal victory.