Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Contemporary myth: Chronicles of Narnia

C.S Lewis is one of the excellent authors, but even he couldn't escape the contemporary myth. The Chronicles of Narnia is one of the best loved collection I have ever read. Although each book is it's own story, the whole collection just begs for more reading. The main myth found is the coming of the Messiah. In every one of the books there is always some conflict going on in the beginning. Then one of the characters who usually is one of the children comes and rescues them only to find that Aslan is the one who ultimately rescues. In the first book, The Magician Nephew, the evil queen Jadis comes back to this world and everything turns into a ruckus. Ofcourse Uncle Andrew saves the day and takes the witch back to where she belongs which turns out to be trouble for the Narnians as we see in The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe. This time Digory has grown old and the Pevensie children are taken back to the Wood between Worlds. This time the witch has taken over Narnia and has braught snow to reign over the lands. Knowing the prophecies, the Witch knows that her reign is coming to an end so she seeks to destroy the children and anyone who seeks to stop her. The possibility of success kicks in here when the childrens seek to destroy the witch and the children with the help of the talking animals go on a quest to rescue their brother Edmund and to destroy the queen. Off course in the end, Aslan comes to the rescue and helps them out.
The next book takes a different twist. In the Horse and His Boy, there are no many mention of the children from the outside world but Aslan is there to be the one to come to the rescue for Shasta. On the other hand there is a little bit of the possibility of success with shasta. He is determined to get away from his evil master no matter what the cost. Even after stealing the horse, he is thinking that he will have the opportunity to return the horse. In the process he find that the horse, Bree is a Narnian Warhorse stolen. Anyway, Shasta ends up rescuing Narnia from a terrible tragedy.

There is a lot of gaps found in the books of Narnia year wise. It is very rare that you will find a prince mentioned more than once, in the exception of Prince Caspian. The fourth book of the Narnia series, Prince Caspian, takes the Pevensie Children back to Narnia, but this time, in order for Narnia to be what it used to be, the rightful king needs to be on the throne. Caspian in trouble sermons the children from the past to come to his rescue. The same thing happens in the Last battle, which is the last book of the series. The last of the Kings of Narnian, King Tarian is caught in a scandal and clever plan of an ape, Shift. To be able to save the whole Narnia, King Tirian seeks the help from the past kings who came from the other world. Things get worse before they get better, but Jill and Eustance in order to rescue the remnant, they go back to see what the really Aslan is and what he has been like in the past.
Maybe the reason I love these books is because they are just a work of genious. Everybody can read them without feeling like they are being preached to. The beauty of the books is found when you see all the symbolism found in the whole series. It's funny but I never thought I would be criticizing the books according to what kind of myth the books contained. Everytime I read the books I would look for what each character represents from a christian perspective. For example, Aslan presenting the character of Jesus. Then there is a whole lot of allegory, but when I thought of them as a myth, I saw them as just stories with a feeling of a whole lot of stretch

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