When The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe opened in theatres it received great support from the Christian community. The events that occurred in the story to Aslan, the great lion lord of Narnia, were hailed as parables of the life of Jesus, most notably the scene where Aslan allows his own life to be sacrificed so that the traitor boy Edmund can have his life spared. Also, the idea that a wicked witch has held Narnia in dark magic slavery for a hundred years and Narnia will now finally be freed with the return of Aslan (and the arrival of four human children – sons of Adam and daughters of Eve) mirrors the belief of Jesus returning to free humanity from the rule of Satan.
In other books in the series, the Christian imagery and the idea of Aslan being an alternate version of Jesus is expounded upon. In the fifth book, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Aslan appears as a lamb standing next to some fish being cooked for the main characters. He morphs into his usual lion form and when the children ask him if he is in their world too he says, “I am… But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name.” (page 247 – Scholastic paperback version) At this point one can imagine Sunday school teachers asking students what that name might be.
In another book, when Aslan is asked who he is, he answers simply, “I am myself,” thus bringing to mind God’s reply to Moses’s question of His identity, “I am who I am.” (Exodus 3:12 – other translations from the Hebrew text give slightly different phrasing, so says Wikipedia)
With all these Christian allusions (and there are many more) one would imagine that author C.S. Lewis was trying to bring the message of Jesus Christ to a new audience. Some younger readers today might then be somewhat shocked and disappointed to find the shameless sexual referencing in the sixth book, The Silver Chair. In this story, two English children are brought to Narnia to find a missing prince. With the help of an amphibious hominid called a Marsh Wiggle, and whose name is Puddleglum, the children head out on their adventures in Narnia. Then suddenly things get kinky.
“Gay,” said Puddleglum with a deep sigh. “That’s what we’ve got to be. Gay…You must watch me and do as I do. I’ll be gay. Like this”―and he assumed a ghastly grin.
“You’ll soon get into it, if you keep your eyes on me. They think I’m a funny fellow already, you see.”
“All right. Gay’s the word,” said Scrubb. “Now we’ve got to get someone to open this door. While we’re fooling about and being gay, we’ve got to find out all we can about this castle.” (pages 122, 123 Scholastic paperback edition)
Thank the Marsh Wiggler for that. Later the girl goes about that castle behaving in a most disrespectable manner.
She made love to everyone―the grooms, the porters, the housemaids, the ladies-in-waiting, and the elderly giant lords… (page 126)
Perhaps there was a devilish spell in that castle because later things return to normal. However, Lewis leans toward perversion once more with a reference to breasts.
…the children soon took no more notice of it than you would of hooters outside the window… (page 128)
I don’t know about some of you but if I saw a pair of hooters outside my window I would definitely notice!
But before we all start burning The Chronicles of Narnia series and condemning Lewis as a pervert and sicko, I should like to remind our young and sensitive readers that the English language has changed in even the few decades since the series was published and that certain vocabulary have taken on different meanings since then. Lewis can be excused and forgiven as I am sure he in no way intended for his heroes and heroines to come across as licentious and morally corrupt.
