I must say
that I was rather leery about reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
What little I did know about Chronicles of Narnia before reading The Lion, the
Witch, and the Wardrobe led me to believe that this was not the type of novel
that I would have been interested in as a child. As a kid most of the books I
read were not set in fantasy worlds. I think that James’ peach in James and the
Giant Peach was about the strangest place a novel took me when I was a kid. I
generally stuck with books based in reality, as I knew it. I guess I like to
stick with the familiar as far as settings go. Also, knowing that C.S. Lewis
was a Christian writer was a turn off. I just don’t like the idea of using
thinly veiled Christian themes in children’s novels. It seems like trickery to
me and that’s not very honest.
Once I
started reading TLTWATW found that I wasn’t as uncomfortable as I thought I was
going to be. I must say that I was thoroughly entertained. Although I knew that
there is a christen theme that runs through the novel I found it very
interesting that Lewis also used some mythological creatures such as centaurs,
giants and Pan as Mr. Tumnus. Along with
the characters from mythologies Lewis anthropomorphized many animals such as
the obvious Lion. The wolves were the bad guys like in most children’s stories
that have wolves. I thought the fish got the short end of the stick as far as
not getting any human characteristics. It made me wonder how Lewis decided what
animals were special and which were not special enough to get human
characteristics.
I find it
interesting that Lewis brought together these different elements to create an
appropriate book for Christian boys and girls(although I could see some of
their parents not agreeing with that.) There are lessons to be learned in this
story for children of all beliefs. I think that sometimes we can reject a work
or an idea because it comes from a certain source or belief system when in fact
the lesson to be learned from that work is universal.
It's cool to see how your opinion changed after reading the novel. It's interesting that you first thought of the "thinly veiled Christian themes" as a sort of trickery. I never thought of it that way, but you do raise an important question of the amount of influence an author can have over the reader. Essentially as readers we are allowing the author to have a certain control over the moral they are trying to portray to us. Many books have underlying, or even subliminal themes that could potentially influence a reader, especially a child reader, a certain way. Now this obviously isn't always the case. Not everyone believes everything they hear/read, but it is more tricky when it comes to young children who have not developed their own beliefs or opinions. Sometimes I think we underestimate the amount of influence books, movies, TV shows, the internet, or media in general have on our conscious and subconscious minds.
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