Christian allegory
Allegory or shaggy lion story?
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.C.S. Lewis in Of This and Other Worlds, an essay collection edited by W Hooper
Are the Chronicles of Narnia allegorical? Lewis, a professor of English, was well placed to debate the exact meaning of allegory. He said they were not: they were "supposals". As he explained in a 1954 letter to some schoolchildren in Maryland:
You are mistaken when you think that everything in the books 'represents' something in this world. Things do that in The Pilgrim's Progress [a 1678 allegory by John Bunyan] but I'm not writing in that way. I did not say to myself 'Let us represent Jesus as He really is in our world by a Lion in Narnia': I said, 'Let us suppose that there were a land like Narnia and that the Son of God, as he became a Man in our world, became a Lion there, and then imagine what would happen.'C.S. Lewis, quoted in Walter Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Companion and Guide
Lewis was not aiming to teach children Christianity with the Narnia books. He wanted to introduce similar ideas that would make it easier for children to accept Christianity: what he called "a sort of pre-baptism of the child's imagination." (George Sayer, Jack: A Life of C S Lewis)
Is valiant Peter a nod to Saint Peter? ©
Each of the Chronicles focuses on a different part of the Christian story and theology. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe draws on themes of sacrifice and resurrection. In The Magician's Nephew, the first book in chronological order, Narnia is sung into being by Aslan but corrupted by original sin. The Last Battle is an apocalyptic culmination. Other books feature pilgrimages, "the restoration of the true religion after a corruption" and the foiling of many evil schemes.
In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, along with Aslan as Christ figure, one character fulfils a Judas role by being tempted to betray the others, while the White Witch herself plays the role of the tempter. The role of Father Christmas has been compared to the Holy Spirit, as has Aslan's magical breath. The name of the oldest child may even have been a reference to Saint Peter.
Other characters in the books reveal Lewis's attitudes to different peoples and ideas. The Calormenes are a dark-skinned race living south of Narnia. They carry scimitars, keep slaves and worship barbaric false gods: they are, all told, rather reminiscent of the worst Western portrayals of the Middle East. Lewis satirises the modern schools and parenting practices of his time in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Among other themes, The Last Battle features a scorching attack on syncretism, the practice of combining religions.