The World According to Narnia by Jonathan Rogers

Author:Jonathan Rogers [ROGERS, JONATHAN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780446556927
Publisher: FaithWords
Published: 2009-02-28T00:00:00+00:00

Through considerable danger and difficulty, Puddleglum, Jill, and Eustace follow the third sign, and Aslan does make a way. They find themselves in Underland. “Many fall down, and few return to the sunlit lands.” Few return because once they find themselves in the darkness, few can remember that there is a sunlit land to which they may return. Underland is a shadow world. It is a version of Plato’s cave, whose inhabitants mistake flickering shadows for real objects. The curse of the Underlanders is to live at one remove from reality—the reality either of the sunlit lands or of bright Bism nearer the bottom of the world. No wonder the Underlanders are haunted by an overwhelming sadness. Even Puddleglum marvels at their gloom: “If these chaps don’t teach me to take a serious view of life, I don’t know what will.”

In the sunlit lands, Puddleglum’s serious view of life rescues Jill and Eustace from their naïvely sunny view of things. Here in the shadows, that same steadiness will deliver them from despair. The same Puddleglum who seemed such a wet blanket is now their only comfort. They are on the right path again, Puddleglum assures them. However grim things may seem, they are following the purpose Aslan has laid out for them. Puddleglum asks for no better cheer than that. “If you are on a wrong road,” Lewis writes in Mere Christianity, “progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road.”5 Whatever their feelings, the travelers are making progress now.

Even so, there on the dark sea of Underland, it becomes hard to remember that there was such a thing as sunshine. “You began to feel as if you had always lived on that ship, in that darkness, and to wonder whether sun and blue skies and wind and birds had not been only a dream.” Underland is an upside-down world; the inversion of reality that has already been creeping in on the travelers from Overland finds its fullest expression in the person of Prince Rilian.

For Rilian, black is white, up is down. He believes his tormentor and captor to be his friend and patron. “She is a nosegay of all virtues, as truth, mercy, constancy, gentleness, courage, and the rest. I say what I know.” But he knows nothing but lies. He doesn’t know his own name, or his true country. “Rilian? Narnia?” he asks. “Narnia? What is that? I have never heard the name.”

Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum see at once that there is something wrong with the strange prince. Even so, the children are discouraged by his explanation of the third sign, the carving in the stone. It’s the last remains of a giant’s tombstone, he says; it has nothing to do with the children or their mission. “Is it not the merriest jest in the world that you should have thought they were written to you?” Jill and Eustace take his explanation at face value: they must have missed the sign after all. They must have been fooled into assigning significance to a mere accident.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.