The Chronicles of Narnia contain many allusions to Christian ideas which are easily accessible to younger readers; however, the books are not weighty, and can be read for their adventure, colour, and mythological ideas alone. Because of this, The Chronicles of Narnia have become favorites with both children and adults, Christians and non-Christians.
Although he did not set out to do so, in the process of writing his fantasy works, Lewis (an adult convert to Christianity) found himself incorporating Christian theological concepts into his stories. As he wrote in Of Other Worlds:
"Some people seem to think that I began by asking myself how I could say something about Christianity to children; then fixed on the fairy tale as an instrument, then collected information about child psychology and decided what age group I'd write for; then drew up a list of basic Christian truths and hammered out 'allegories' to embody them. This is all pure moonshine. I couldn't write in that way. It all began with images; a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion. At first there wasn't anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself in of its own accord." Lewis, an expert on the subject of allegory, himself maintained that the books were not allegory, and preferred to call the Christian aspects of them "suppositional". This is similar to what we would now call fictional parallel universes. The Narnia series is not an allegory, because allegories have an overarching figurative level of meaning tied to the literal level, and the Narnia series has a literal level of meaning without any overarching figurative level, though there are figurative elements. The misconception that the Narnia series is an allegory is the result of the disjunction caused by the narrative taking place across parallel universes. There are similarities between the world of Narnia and our own, but these are literal manifestations of the same phenomena in multiple worlds, not allegorical abstractions. For example, the character Aslan is not an allegorical representation of Christ, but a literal representation of Christ. Aslan is a literal rendering of Jesus Christ, only in another body, in another universe, and by another name. In ‘’The Chronicles of Narnia’’, Aslan and Jesus are the same character in two different worlds. There is no allegory involved. As Lewis wrote in a letter to a Mrs. Hook in December of 1958:
"If Aslan represented the immaterial Deity in the same way in which Giant Despair [a character in The Pilgrim's Progress] represents despair, he would be an allegorical figure. In reality however he is an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question, 'What might Christ become like, if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?' This is not allegory at all." (Martindale & Root 1990) With the release of 2005 Disney movie there has been renewed interest in the Christian parallels found in the books. Some find them distasteful, while noting that they are easy to miss if you are not familiar with Christianity. (Toynbee 2005) Alan Jacobs, author of The Narnian: The Life and Imaginaton of C.S. Lewis, says flatly that Lewis has become "a pawn in America's culture wars" (Jacobs 2005). Some Christians see the chronicles as excellent tools for Christian evangelism.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zvi
no subject
Although he did not set out to do so, in the process of writing his fantasy works, Lewis (an adult convert to Christianity) found himself incorporating Christian theological concepts into his stories. As he wrote in Of Other Worlds:
"Some people seem to think that I began by asking myself how I could say something about Christianity to children; then fixed on the fairy tale as an instrument, then collected information about child psychology and decided what age group I'd write for; then drew up a list of basic Christian truths and hammered out 'allegories' to embody them. This is all pure moonshine. I couldn't write in that way. It all began with images; a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion. At first there wasn't anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself in of its own accord."
Lewis, an expert on the subject of allegory, himself maintained that the books were not allegory, and preferred to call the Christian aspects of them "suppositional". This is similar to what we would now call fictional parallel universes. The Narnia series is not an allegory, because allegories have an overarching figurative level of meaning tied to the literal level, and the Narnia series has a literal level of meaning without any overarching figurative level, though there are figurative elements. The misconception that the Narnia series is an allegory is the result of the disjunction caused by the narrative taking place across parallel universes. There are similarities between the world of Narnia and our own, but these are literal manifestations of the same phenomena in multiple worlds, not allegorical abstractions. For example, the character Aslan is not an allegorical representation of Christ, but a literal representation of Christ. Aslan is a literal rendering of Jesus Christ, only in another body, in another universe, and by another name. In ‘’The Chronicles of Narnia’’, Aslan and Jesus are the same character in two different worlds. There is no allegory involved. As Lewis wrote in a letter to a Mrs. Hook in December of 1958:
"If Aslan represented the immaterial Deity in the same way in which Giant Despair [a character in The Pilgrim's Progress] represents despair, he would be an allegorical figure. In reality however he is an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question, 'What might Christ become like, if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?' This is not allegory at all." (Martindale & Root 1990)
With the release of 2005 Disney movie there has been renewed interest in the Christian parallels found in the books. Some find them distasteful, while noting that they are easy to miss if you are not familiar with Christianity. (Toynbee 2005) Alan Jacobs, author of The Narnian: The Life and Imaginaton of C.S. Lewis, says flatly that Lewis has become "a pawn in America's culture wars" (Jacobs 2005). Some Christians see the chronicles as excellent tools for Christian evangelism.