Critical essays on the chronicles of narnia

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, was released in December Analysis As with the film version, many of the other books in the series culminate into a battle scene between invaders or evil rulers and the loyal citizens of Narnia, with the children acting as military and even spiritual leaders. Like Christ, there is a parallelism here in how Jesus Christ offers up his life to redeem the sins of mankind. Susan and Lucy, like Mary Magdalene and Mary, cut Aslan loose and weep over him, while Aslan himself, like Jesus, tells them not to worry.

The Lion, the Witch and the Allegory: In the Narnia Chronicles, Lewis typifies Critical essays on the chronicles of narnia Biblical character of Jesus Christ as the character of Aslan the lion, retelling certain events in the life of Jesus to children in a this new context in a way that is easy for them to understand; most importantly, however, children can both relate to and enjoy the fantasy of Narnia.

It describes the creation of the land of Narnia, and how humans came to be associated with this other world. As they enter a lightless Narnia at the beginning of its creation, Lewis uses the children to describe their surroundings: Lewis draws on the Biblical creation story, but does not attempt to directly parallel the story of Genesis.

In Genesis, after creating the heavens and earth, the first thing he does is to create light: It is not, in fact, until the second day that God creates dry land Gen 1: Lewis continues to draw from Biblical creation images as he describes the introduction of light into Narnia.

The singing stars are the first things to the children see in Narnia, and Lewis again uses the character of Digory to establish a connection between the text and a youthful reader: Genesis, on the other hand, automatically appeals to adult sensibilities when describing the stars, relating them to such "grown-up" concerns as the calendar: The singing stars image that Lewis draws from here is located in Job Comparing these two passages, it is evident that Lewis chose to convey his creation story using the Biblical images that are not only easier for children to understand, but also easier for children to appreciate and enjoy.

Another device Lewis uses in the Narnia Chronicles is the personification of animals. Narnia is a land of talking animals, and as children usually find the concept of animals and magical creatures more interesting than that of a historical reality of long ago i.

In Genesis, God creates animals that inhabit land on the fifth day: The interesting choice of words in this verse may well have been the inspiration for Lewis to write his creative description of the creation of animals in Narnia, where the animals are literally produced by the land, out of the ground: They were of very different sizes some no bigger than mole-hills, some as big as wheel-barrows, two the size of cottages.

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And the humps move and swelled until they burst, and the crumbled earth poured out of them, and from each hump there came out an animal. This image of life-giving breath directly correlates to a passage in Genesis: Since animals have taken, at least to some extent, the role of man in the creation story, the human characters of Polly and Digory and their team must obviously assume a slightly different role in the creation.

At this point, Lewis introduces the concept of evil entering Narnia, and the concept of the introduction of sin into a new world. Lewis has cleverly associated Digory with the Biblical Adam in two ways. The obvious connection is that Digory is a male human being, and therefore a "son of Adam".

But the the deeper connection that Lewis implies is that just as Adam first brought sin into the world in Genesis, Digory is charged with bringing the first evil into the new world of Narnia.

Lewis also draws a correlation between Adam and Uncle Andrew: The apostle Paul describes Adam as one who brought death into the world: Uncle Andrew, while he does not bring death into Narnia, does bring the concept of death with him.

Upon seeing Aslan, his first reaction is to kill: If only I were a younger man and had a gun --" Lewis,p. This image of a gun-wielding Uncle Andrew is seen again and again in the narrative: Lewis is able to affiliate humans not only with evil, but with the race of Adam: The way in which he achieves this is also very important: Children are likely to be more upset at the death of an animal than that of a man who lived long ago; a man they never knew.

In this way, children might sympathize more easily with the proposed death of a Christ-like lion than that of a historical Jesus a theme explored later in this essay. The analysis of evil entering Narnia would not be near complete, of course, without examining the character of Queen Jadis known in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe as the White Witch.

Like Uncle Andrew, the Witch is antagonistic towards Aslan. She too wishes to destroy the lion, and attempts to kill him with an iron bar: Later Aslan makes it clear that she is the evil that has entered Narnia: The allegory of the Witch is still unclear, though.

In the creation story in Genesis, two elements of evil can be found. The second element, however, is not of human origin, but is rather the character of the serpent Gen 3.

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This marks a move away from the theme of creation, and a step towards the theme of temptation in the Narnia Chronicles.[1] To this effect, Michael Ward proposes in his book, Planet Narnia, that The Chronicles of Narnia are Lewis’s depiction of an ‘preposterous’ world, in which this world’s deepest reality is illustrated.

Introduction The Chronicles of Narnia is a series written by C.S - Analysis: the Chronicles of Narnia Essay introduction. Lewis between and The series revolves around the fantasy adventure of a group of children (primarily the Pevensie siblings Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy), transported from this earth, to a magical world called Narnia.

Essays and criticism on C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia - Critical Evaluation. C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia () include seven titles, about four children who discover a magic land called Narnia. There are talking animals, fauns, a witch, and the heroic lion, Aslan. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was written first and published in , but in chronological order of events as they happen in the fictional world, The Magician’s Nephew, telling of the creation of Narnia, should come first, though not published until Analysis of the Film Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion Witch and Wardrobe Directed by Andrew Adamson Words 3 Pages Director Andrew Adamson’s intriguing film “Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion Witch and Wardrobe”, is based on C.S.

Lewis’s novel.