Allusions in The Chronicles of Narnia

It was just a few days ago that I discovered that the Chronicles of Narnia are a Christian book series written by C.S. Lewis.

Yup. That’s right. You can imagine my anticipation to get my hands on the book again, either physically or electronically. And so I did.
Even though the screen of my laptop really hurt my eyes as time went on during my reading of the first book of the series (chronologically), I still remained glued to it last night.

The Magician’s Nephew has so many profound symbolism and allusions to characters of the Bible. The major ones being Aslan the Lion compared to the God of the Bible, the Witch compared to Satan, the children compared to children of Adam and Eve, and the wicked hearted people compared to people that naturally want to run away from God.

I can only mention a few interesting things/imageries/allusions I found there, for the sake of a short read and also to not give it all away, so let’s get at it.

I was amazed at how Lewis was able to recreate the creation story. From nothing came a beautiful world brought to life by the words sung by Aslan. The children who were open to imagination heard this song and later the words spoken by the animals. However, the unbelieving spiteful greedy uncle of one of the children, continually convinced himself that Aslan was just a lion and that he couldn’t be singing and the animals couldn’t be talking, so much that it worked. Worse came to worse and all he could hear were roars from the Lion and gibberish from the animals and so he was very fearful of them. The children on the other hand enjoyed the beautiful tunes from the Lion and started in awe and amazement of the work of his hands.

“Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.” – one of my favourite quotes from the book.

This part, was the first part that gripped by heart so hard. I was affected by how one so stupid could they to convince themselves they were smart, only to be come more stupid. Also at how one can harden their hearts against God. Because that was what the uncle did. He could not longer hear God’s voice as it was. He chose to block his ears. He did not want to have child like faith and be open to the evidence of God’s work all around him. Unbelief blinded his eyes. And I really thought, that wow, that really be how things are.

…”Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 18:3‭-‬4 ESV

Also, I loved the part when Aslan kissed one of the children with strength, equipping him for the journey he set him off on. And when things were so discouraging, hard and temptation so enticing to give in to, what would keep him going is the look of compassion he saw in the eyes of Aslan, convincing him that truly, Aslan understood his pain and loved him and his mother, possibly even more than he himself loved her. Yes, I know. Beautiful, right? I can spare you a moment with the tissue.

Overall, I was in awe of how C.S. Lewis was able to bring into such a wide array of imagination, the works of God from the Bible. The descriptions given literally spark up your mind and lead you on a variety of adventurous pathways. I would hate to spoil it for you and would link the pdf for you to read it for yourself here: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew. It’s a pretty short read by the way! I bet you can finish it in two days, if not less.

Have a lovely day Saints! xx

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*Featured Image from Pexels.