The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
"Oh, Aslan," said Lucy. "Will you tell us how to get into your country from our world?"
"I shall be telling you all the time," said Aslan. "But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river. But do not fear that, for I am the great Bridge Builder."
In his fantasy novel The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis introduces his reader to a majestic land of magic, where children sail the seas and discover the wonders of the world around them. These children: Lucy, Edmund and Eustace, are presented with a great amount of responsibility (like sailing to the end of their world just to drop someone off) and adventure, which you think would usually appear too heavy for the psyche of a child. The emotional tolls are intense (when Eustace shape shifts into a dragon for example), yet every step of their adventure provides them with a lesson greater than the last. However, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader exposes its characters to such turmoil with good intentions. Lewis strongly believes in the power of imagination, and highlights its crucial role in developing the future of children, as well as their sense of faith. Lewis is aware that before we hand the world off unto the children of future generations, we must allow them to explore the world of their mind, as well as their surroundings.
C.S. Lewis skirted the fine line between faith and imagination, yet did so gracefully in order to illustrate the relationship between the two. Written on the wake of World War II, The Dawn Treader kept spirits high by proving to children that if they believed in Narnia, they could believe in anything (meaning God). When children needed a break from the all-too adult inhabited world around them, all they needed to do was escape into the pages of Narnia. An external journey of their world through an internal exploration of their imagination has proven time and time again that we all have our own Narnia. There is not one single path and the journey will be difficult, yet it is a journey you must complete on your own. Like the journey towards finding God, the children’s future attempts at reuniting with Aslan will require a bit of off-centered thinking. Yet since their imaginations were stretched to their limits aboard the Dawn Treader, they now know that anything is possible and that it is necessary to keep an open mind to the wonders of our world.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Imagination and Adulthood
C.S. Lewis’s novel, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, takes the reader on a journey through imaginary worlds. The novel brings Edmund and Lucy Pevensie along with their cousin Eustace Scrubb onto the Dawn Treader to journey with Prince Caspian to find the seven lost Lords of Narnia. The group encounters many mystical creatures and adventures throughout their journeys of the east lands. The narrator of the novel has a close relationship to the reader acting as a trustworthy friend who aids in telling the story. Through the use of the narrator, a journey is created for the reader as a safe space for the reader to grow as well as providing a place for the imagination to journey.
Throughout the novel, the narrator acts as an omniscient voice who interjects throughout the story creating a personal bond with the reader. The narrator seems to be that of an older and wiser figure then that of the reader and possibly could be the voice of Lewis himself. In the narrator’s telling to the story, he includes personal conversations with Lucy stating that,”Lucy could only say ‘It would break your heart.’ ‘Why,’ said I, ‘was it so sad?’ ‘Sad!! No, said Lucy.” (Lewis 265). By including that the narrator himself had be told of the tales, the reader feels more of a connection with the narrator and greatly values what the narrator has to say. The close relationship between the reader and the narrator also allows for the reader to take an imaginary journey with the aid of the narrator’s tales of the Dawn Treader’s. The narrator aids in the reader’s journey through the novel and through the seas and lands of the east.
By having the narrator as a wise insight to the main characters’ journey, it allows the children who read the book to feel a connection to a more so adult figure who can be trusted and who understands adventure and imagination. This is furthered through the character of Aslan who is quite wise but also an imaginary creature. Aslan says to the children in the end of the novel, “‘you are too old, children,’ said Aslan, ‘and you must begin to come close to your own world now.” (Lewis 269). By having these trusted wise, older figures in the novel, a bridge is formed between the imaginary world of childhood and the world of adulthood. This novel provides a space for children to connect and travel through their own imagination as well as to feel a connection to others as they travel into adulthood. The use of imagination thereby allows for a deeper connection to that of the adult world and understanding of others.
Throughout the novel, the narrator acts as an omniscient voice who interjects throughout the story creating a personal bond with the reader. The narrator seems to be that of an older and wiser figure then that of the reader and possibly could be the voice of Lewis himself. In the narrator’s telling to the story, he includes personal conversations with Lucy stating that,”Lucy could only say ‘It would break your heart.’ ‘Why,’ said I, ‘was it so sad?’ ‘Sad!! No, said Lucy.” (Lewis 265). By including that the narrator himself had be told of the tales, the reader feels more of a connection with the narrator and greatly values what the narrator has to say. The close relationship between the reader and the narrator also allows for the reader to take an imaginary journey with the aid of the narrator’s tales of the Dawn Treader’s. The narrator aids in the reader’s journey through the novel and through the seas and lands of the east.
By having the narrator as a wise insight to the main characters’ journey, it allows the children who read the book to feel a connection to a more so adult figure who can be trusted and who understands adventure and imagination. This is furthered through the character of Aslan who is quite wise but also an imaginary creature. Aslan says to the children in the end of the novel, “‘you are too old, children,’ said Aslan, ‘and you must begin to come close to your own world now.” (Lewis 269). By having these trusted wise, older figures in the novel, a bridge is formed between the imaginary world of childhood and the world of adulthood. This novel provides a space for children to connect and travel through their own imagination as well as to feel a connection to others as they travel into adulthood. The use of imagination thereby allows for a deeper connection to that of the adult world and understanding of others.
Reepicheep
Reepicheep’s seemingly paradoxical quality as a valiant mouse along with his final choice to reach the utter East at the end of the novel suggests the idea that even the characters from the humblest circumstances can reach the Ultimate.
It is clear right when the reader meets Reepicheep that this mouse, a seemingly skittish and cowardly animal, is just the opposite. He is the most courageous and chivalrous of all the men on the journey. While Caspian tells the kids that his purpose is to find the seven friends of his father's, Reepicheep states that he has a more ambitious purpose for his journey: "Why should we not come to the very eastern end of the world? And what might we find there? I expect to find Aslan's own country," (21). Though others question the feasibility of this quest, Reepicheep remains faithful to his purpose throughout, challenging the other members of the crew to continue in the face of danger and fear.
Reepicheep’s ambition to seek the greater was instilled in him from a young age when he was sung from a lullaby, “Where sky and water meet/ Where the waves grow sweet/ Doubt not, Reepicheep,/ To find all that you seek/ There is the utter East” (22). This higher, greater end, the “utter East”, presumably Aslan’s country, is what Reepicheep longs for his entire life. When he finally gets the chance to go to the utter East, closer to Aslan the Ultimate, he is “quivering with happiness” (266) and lacks even the slightest amount of fear. He embarks on this journey to the utter East alone, but successfully nonetheless, as the narrator says that it is his belief “that he came safe to Aslan’s country and is alive there to this day,” (266).
Though Reepicheep the Mouse’s ambitious character adds humor to the novel, he is representative of something a lot deeper. Reepicheep is determined to take the nobler route always, to promote justice and the good at all times. Never overcome by fear, Reepicheep strives for what he thinks is right. Reepicheep, though smaller and humbler than the rest of the characters, is the only one in the entire book who truly succeeds in doing what St. Ignatius calls “Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam” or, for the Greater Glory of God. This little mouse's efforts and constancy are eventually rewarded, for he reaches Aslan’s country in the end, the place of eternal peace and happiness.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Don't Turn Back
"There's some here [...] who were talking very loud about adventures on the day we sailed from Cair Paravel, and swearing they wouldn't come home till we'd found the end of the world. And there were some standing on the quay who would have given all they had to come with us. It was thought a finer thing then to have a cabin-boy's berth on the Dawn Treader than to wear a knight's belt. I don't know if you get hte hang of what I'm saying. But what I mean is that I think chaps who set out like us will look silly as--as those Dufflepuds--if we come home and say we got to the beginning of the world's end and hadn't the heart go further" (230).
C.S. Lewis' The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a book about adventure, travel, and most importantly, about not turning back.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader can be read on a number of levels, but a recurring theme is the idea that we cannot go back. Lucy learns this quite literally as she is flipping throught the Magician's Boo. After reading a truly wonderful story, and wishing to go back and reread it, she discovers "the right-hand pages, the ones ahead, could be turned; the left-hand ones could not" (168). Certain delights may only be experienced once, and we must therefore take them in while they last.
In a more travel-oriented sense, we can relate this theme to Eustace's inner (and outer) transformation. He does not to go to Narnia; he is unwillingly swept away into the painting and onto the Dawn Treader. For a good portion of the book, he is absollutely beastly to the other characters, and it is only when he turns into a beast himself, a dragon, that he begins to understand how his personality is affecting his life. Upon noticing he has become a dragon, Eustace is at first thrilled, thinking he can seek revenge on the characters who had supposedly so mistreated him. However, "the moment he thought this he realized he didn't want to. He wanted to be friends. He wanted to get back among humans and talk and laugh and share things [...] he began to see that the others had not really been fiends at all. He began to wonder if he himself had been such a ncie person as he had always supposed..." (98). Once Eustace has seen the flaws in his character, he is able to make amends and start fresh. From that time on, "he began to be a different boy. He had relapses [...] but most of those I shall not notice" (119-20). The important thing is that Eustace keeps going in the right direction. Despite the fact that he begins the story as an unpleasant little boy has read none of the right books, he is able to change his life, enough so that by the end of the book, everyone can tell he is an almost different person.
In the quote I opened with, the crew of the Dawn Treader has reached the beginning of the world's end and is preparing to make the voyage all the way to the end; unfortunately, some of the men do not wish to partake in the extra step of adventure. Rynelf and Caspian try to convince them, playing into their pathos by reminding them of their original spirit and how much they would undoubtedly regret not taking the few extra steps to accomplish something amazing. They are already so close; how could they think of turning back now?
Lewis is very skilled at taking a children's adventure story and sneaking in themes and points that will subliminally latch on to younger readers but will also ring significant when those readers come back to this book years later. Of course the sailors should not turn back when they have gotten so close to the end of the world. Once we start going on a path, we must continue; where the path goes is not set in stone, but we must keep going ahead, no matter how much we may want to turn around.
C.S. Lewis' The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a book about adventure, travel, and most importantly, about not turning back.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader can be read on a number of levels, but a recurring theme is the idea that we cannot go back. Lucy learns this quite literally as she is flipping throught the Magician's Boo. After reading a truly wonderful story, and wishing to go back and reread it, she discovers "the right-hand pages, the ones ahead, could be turned; the left-hand ones could not" (168). Certain delights may only be experienced once, and we must therefore take them in while they last.
In a more travel-oriented sense, we can relate this theme to Eustace's inner (and outer) transformation. He does not to go to Narnia; he is unwillingly swept away into the painting and onto the Dawn Treader. For a good portion of the book, he is absollutely beastly to the other characters, and it is only when he turns into a beast himself, a dragon, that he begins to understand how his personality is affecting his life. Upon noticing he has become a dragon, Eustace is at first thrilled, thinking he can seek revenge on the characters who had supposedly so mistreated him. However, "the moment he thought this he realized he didn't want to. He wanted to be friends. He wanted to get back among humans and talk and laugh and share things [...] he began to see that the others had not really been fiends at all. He began to wonder if he himself had been such a ncie person as he had always supposed..." (98). Once Eustace has seen the flaws in his character, he is able to make amends and start fresh. From that time on, "he began to be a different boy. He had relapses [...] but most of those I shall not notice" (119-20). The important thing is that Eustace keeps going in the right direction. Despite the fact that he begins the story as an unpleasant little boy has read none of the right books, he is able to change his life, enough so that by the end of the book, everyone can tell he is an almost different person.
In the quote I opened with, the crew of the Dawn Treader has reached the beginning of the world's end and is preparing to make the voyage all the way to the end; unfortunately, some of the men do not wish to partake in the extra step of adventure. Rynelf and Caspian try to convince them, playing into their pathos by reminding them of their original spirit and how much they would undoubtedly regret not taking the few extra steps to accomplish something amazing. They are already so close; how could they think of turning back now?
Lewis is very skilled at taking a children's adventure story and sneaking in themes and points that will subliminally latch on to younger readers but will also ring significant when those readers come back to this book years later. Of course the sailors should not turn back when they have gotten so close to the end of the world. Once we start going on a path, we must continue; where the path goes is not set in stone, but we must keep going ahead, no matter how much we may want to turn around.
Aslan's Promise
In the last chapter of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Edmund, Lucy, and Eustace discover that they must journey back into the real world, that they must cross over from the “world’s end” of the Narnian world back into Aunt Alberta’s Cambridge home. Aslan claims that in them making this journey, they can never return to Narnia, that they are too old for Narnia and must experience their own world. However, Aslan puts forth the promise that they will seek him in their own world (the world outside of Narnia) and find him in a different form: “‘But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there’” (Lewis 270). Although Aslan’s form in the “real” world is left unclear, once can deduce that his form represents something that the children must learn to or already believe in. Whether Aslan is a representation of God or another religion or any kind of belief, he represents something important that ultimately requires in the believer the imaginative power.
The children can no longer access Narnia but they are not too old to learn how to believe in reality, or how to access in the real world sources of spirituality and individual power. It may seem as if the end of Narnia is the end of the use of their imagination but really it is another door to be opened, a further step into life’s journey and into the broadening of their imagination to include the ability to possess hope and belief. Aslan promises this sense of hope in promising always himself to them, as if he embodies their imaginative powers and their beliefs and will never cease to support them.
In terms of travel, the children make great progress in that they physically move from childhood to adulthood and mentally and emotionally move from disbelief to the possession of the power to create and hope. For Edmund and Lucy (and even Eustace), childhood may have seemed like the most fascinating adventure of their lives but Aslan’s promise proves that they will seek and find future journeys, journeys even more exciting in that they will exist within the walls of reality.
The children can no longer access Narnia but they are not too old to learn how to believe in reality, or how to access in the real world sources of spirituality and individual power. It may seem as if the end of Narnia is the end of the use of their imagination but really it is another door to be opened, a further step into life’s journey and into the broadening of their imagination to include the ability to possess hope and belief. Aslan promises this sense of hope in promising always himself to them, as if he embodies their imaginative powers and their beliefs and will never cease to support them.
In terms of travel, the children make great progress in that they physically move from childhood to adulthood and mentally and emotionally move from disbelief to the possession of the power to create and hope. For Edmund and Lucy (and even Eustace), childhood may have seemed like the most fascinating adventure of their lives but Aslan’s promise proves that they will seek and find future journeys, journeys even more exciting in that they will exist within the walls of reality.
The Importance of Imagination
In C.S. Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, he emphasizes the importance of imagination and the ability to believe in things that cannot be rationally proven to being human. He seems to suggest that without imagination, travel and adventure are not possible, and travel is essential to growing as person. Similar to the other readings, particularly Kolvenbach and Wendt, Lewis’s work points to external travel as a catalyst for an internal journey and this internal journey as an important part of being fully human, however, he adds on this new element of imagination as an important aspect of travel.
A great example of the necessity of imagination can be seen in the contrast between the characters of Eustace and Reepicheep. Although he is actually a mouse, Reepicheep’s character seems very human in his constant thirst for adventure and ability to dream of the possibilities of the world’s end. At one point all of the others want to go back to the safety of the ship but Reepicheep wants instead to stay behind. When Eustace asks him why he says, “‘Because this is a very great adventure, and no danger seems to me so great as that of knowing when I get back to Narnia that I left a mystery behind me through fear.’” Reepicheep is not afraid of where his imagination and adventures will lead him because he is concerned instead with discovering everything he possibly can in life. To me these characteristics make Reepicheep human in the sense that to be human is to be able to travel and constantly search for more both externally and internally.
Eustace, on the other hand, particularly in the beginning of the book, is closed off to the imaginary and adventuring, and for this reason seems almost inhuman despite literally being a human. When he first arrives aboard the Dawn Treader, all Eustace wants is to be dropped of at the nearest land. He keeps asking everyone he meets if there is a British Consul nearby because the only thing on his mind is going home. Eustace is so caught up in his one idea of reality, his contemporary life in England, the he refuses to acknowledge or seek anything more than this. By closing off his imagination and willingness to believe in anything else, Eustace cannot travel or grow as a person and in this respect he is not human. Ironically, it takes Eustace becoming an actual non-human, a dragon, to open his imagination to the possibility of other realities. Towards the end of the book, Eustace finally realizes why the Pevensies, Caspian, and Reepicheep believe in the possibility of other worlds besides their own and want so badly to explore these other realities. He recognizes that it is part of being human to want to constantly go further and explore new things, to travel, and this is the lesson Lewis is teaching us as well.
C.S.Lewis Blog
Emily B
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Blog: A Child's Prerogative
In C.S. Lewis' fantasy land of Narnia, without the overbearing reach of adults, the "children" are able to overcome the stereotyped behavior of their age and have experiences that many adults in the "real world" probably wouldn't be able to achieve. C.S. Lewis is using the art of imagination to explain the affects of faith. If one, such as Eustace, can't believe in a place like Narnia how are they to believe in God? Fantasy is necessary to life. I think the most concrete example of this is Lucy. Lucy is the youngest of the Pevensies siblings and yet she carries a tremendous amount of grace and maturity. Specifically, Lucy takes it upon herself to save the crew of the Dawn Treader on the island of invisible people. Edmond and Caspian object to her risking her own safety in order to save them but Lucy explains to them that they would do the same for her (the golden rule) and that she also must do it to save herself.
In Narnia, without the conventions of society to hold them back, the Pevensies children can travel both beyond what the map shows literally and beyond their own boundaries. They quest not only for adventures and knowledge of the land but also inner knowledge of themselves. They are able to express themselves, have freedom, and make decisions without consulting anyone else but each other.
No one is perfect; not even in Narnia, with perhaps the exception of Aslan. If a character should wobble on the precipice of caprice, Aslan reveals himself to guide them back onto the right path. When Eustace transforms into the Dragon that he has been behaving like, and recognizes that he needs to change his ways, it is Aslan who sheds his skin in a painful but fulfilling way. When Caspian and Edmond begin to quarrel over the golden river and their pride threatens to break their bond of friendship Aslan appears in the sky and the boys remember themselves and leave the place immediately. Lucy is tempted by the Book of Magic for eternal beauty even at the cost of war and the relationships she cherishes. Before she can begin reciting the incantation Aslan's growling, fierce face appears on the page and she forgets her vanity and is saved from the treachery of the Book. She is free to make her own decisions about what she reads/does with the spells after she sees Aslan's warning. Aslan is a symbol for God. He protects all from losing their innocence while allowing them to learn from their mistakes. I regard Aslan as the hand that guides both the external and internal travel of the Narnians. He shows those who believe in Him the path he would take and lets them chose whether or not they will follow it. Sometimes the path is a literal journey to the edges of the earth. Sometimes the path is within, to the edge of our own identities, where we discover who we really are.
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